Chapter 22
What made the assembly shine?
Robin Adair.
What made the ball so fine?
Robin was there . . .
Although a girl of no more than twelve years sang “Robin Adair” before the assembly, Percy felt the song’s sentiment down to his soul, which replaced Robin withIsabel.
Wearing her Sunday finest, the girl soldiered on through the popular, melancholic tune with a sweet soprano voice that filled the assembly room up to its high coffered ceiling and couldn’t help but pull emotion from the most hardened of hearts, even as a telling shake trembled through it, a tremor that understood she sang for a duke. In fact, the entire village was keenly aware of the Duke of Arundel and his family sitting prominently in the front row.
Intermission couldn’t arrive soon enough for Percy. It wasn’t the performances, both vocal and instrumental and of varying quality, that had him tapping his fingers impatiently on his knee. He’d rather enjoyed them, truth be told. Rather, it was the seating order.
Somehow, he’d come to sit at one end of the row and Isabel at the other, the entire family between them. Further, every time he tried to catch Isabel’s eye, the Duchess was making asotto voceobservation into her ear.
At last, the girl ended the song on a note that only slightly cracked, and the gathered broke into bright applause. The girl beamed with a shy smile that held no small amount of relief as she bobbed a quick curtsy and scurried off the small raised platform. The mayor, one Squire Noble, hastened into her place. “Shall we adjourn for refreshment and reconvene at the half of the hour?”
Permission granted, the room split into fifty various conversations as bodies stood to stretch stiff legs. The Duke ambled toward the dais and congratulated Squire Noble on his granddaughter’s exceptional performance. Lucy and Miss Radclyffe took the mayor’s words to heart as they strolled arm-in-arm down the center aisle to inspect the multitude of savory and sweet tidbits arrayed for the gathering’s consumption, Hugh at their heels.
The path mostly clear to Isabel—the Duchess proved a tenacious conversational partner—Percy approached, drawn to her light like a moth to the flame. Isabel’s eye met his and skittered away. It was like the sun peeking out from behind a black cloud long enough to fill the air with a warm glow, only to slip behind it, plunging the world back into the cold dark.
It was possible the analogy contained no small dollop of mawkish melodrama. Still, he couldn’t help feeling exactly so. She’d needled her way into his blood and down deep into the marrow of his bones.
All his earlier vows and self-castigations had fallen away the moment he’d caught his first glimpse of her tonight, wearing flowers in her hair and a newly remade dove gray dress trimmed with a short verdigris fringe that brought out the emeralds in her eyes.
There was no denying it: he was a man besotted. The race of his heart as he’d handed her up into the carriage. The intake of his breath as he’d sat beside her, filling his lungs with her sunshine and honeysuckle. He knew all the signs.
After how any days? Four? Or was it five? The number hardly signified. It was long enough to know her and want her. Really, this fall into mad, deep infatuation had been inevitable.
Yet it didn’t change what his mind knew and what his heart forgot with every moment spent with her: he could have these feelings, but never act on them.
Isabel deserved a better man.
Still, as her “husband,” wouldn’t it appear odd if he didn’t go to his “wife” and twine her arm through his and lean in to inhale deeply of her?
So, he did, producing a gratifying dusting of goose bumps along the elegant length of her neck.
The stream of the Duchess’s latest observation halted mid-flow, and one busy hand stopped spinning the oxidized silver ring set with a large cabochon emerald on her other. Wide, unsurprised eyes flashed back and forth between him and Isabel. “Well, I see it now.”
Whatitshe spoke of was clear. He and Isabel positively vibrated withit.
Isabel tensed at his side. He wondered about that stiffness. A subtle shift in her attitude toward him had occurred since they broke their fast together this morning.
Then, her eyes had been unablenotto cast shy glances his way. Her mouth had been unable not to tip up at the corners when his hand had brushed hers. He hadn’t bothered pretending the contact accidental. Instead, he’d thrown her a rakish smile, the one he’d tossed about so indiscriminately in his misspent youth, the one that never failed to draw a breathy exhalation from the opposite sex. That smile hadn’t failed him this morning when Isabel sighed and her eyes glazed over with desire.
Now, the Duchess with her busy, keen eye noticed Isabel’s sudden rigidity. “My dear, is one of your megrims attempting an encore? Shall we send for my special tonic? It could be here within the half hour.”
At the Duchess’s offer, Isabel blanched as if she’d already swallowed a tumbler full of the noxious substance. “Your offer is most generous, ma’am, but my head is quite well.”
“Sweeting,” Percy cut in, “I believe all you need is a turn about the room. Perhaps a peek at the stars?”
Grateful eyes met his. The sun had returned.
Before Percy could act on the words, a familiar form caught the edge of his vision.
Hortense.
