Hmm.
Zachary glanced back at his newly acquired betrothed, thinking the diminutive suited her. She was dressed in another garish gown, this one a hideous shade of burnt umber, covered in fringes and lace. He was beginning to suspect her sense of fashion was woefully lacking. But despite the eyesore she had chosen to disguise her lush figure, her face was contrastingly lovely. He had yet to discover whether her mind was sharp enough to hold his interest. Since he was going to spend the rest of his life shackled to her, he dearly hoped it was. Her sister the duchess possessed a lively intellect. He could only trust Lady Isolde—Izzy—shared in her intelligence.
“I am not grumpy,” Izzy denied, frowning at her sister. “You merely have no appreciation for privacy.”
“And you do, after being caught kissing in a salon by half the ballroom last night?” the duchess returned.
Lady Isolde’s cheeks turned pink, and he could not deny that he found the added color rather endearing. He wondered just how innocent she was. Her kisses had certainly suggested a lack of experience. Innocents had never intrigued him before, but whether it was the novelty or the knowledge she would be his wife spurring his interest now, he could not say.
“That was a mistake,” his future wife said. “I drank far too much champagne, and I embarrassed myself.”
“It is my fault too,” the duchess said softly, looking distraught. “I never should have left your side to speak with Lord Smithton.”
“And it is Anglesey’s fault for making the situation far worse by taking you home with him,” Wycombe added wryly. “I may be a newly minted duke, but even I know it isn’t done to take an unwed lady home from a ball.”
“The damage was already done,” Zachary pointed out. “Letitia made certain of that.”
“Letitia?” Lady Isolde frowned at him from across the tea spread. “Is that the countess’s name?”
“No,” he said simply rather than answer the question he saw in her eyes.
He would not answer to her for what he had done before he had suddenly had a betrothed thrust upon him. Unentangled bachelors were entitled to carry on as they wished and with whomever suited them. Sometimes, in his case, with more than onewhomeversat a time.
But that was neither here nor there.
“I fear you will find Barlowe—er, Anglesey—has an innumerable list of ladies he refers to by their given names,” Wycombe said grimly, slipping for a moment when he called Zachary by his surname as had been his custom previously. “And that is hardly the worst of it, Izzy.”
While Wycombe was not incorrect in his assessment, such an observation was hardly going to persuade Lady Isolde to marry him, was it? Indeed, after her clash with Beatrice this morning, he would not blame the chit if she ran all the way to the ends of the earth just to escape him. But now that there was no other option for either of them save marriage, he needed to ensure this interview progressed smoothly.
He frowned at his friend. “I do believe my line here iset tu, Brute?”
“My duty is to both of you,” Wycombe told him. “You are my friend.”
“A friend you entrusted your wife to,” he reminded pointedly, for he had been the only one Wycombe had trusted enough to shepherd his duchess from Buckinghamshire to London when he had found himself in the midst of a murder investigation. “Let it not be said I am the only one with a shadowed past, old chap.”
Perhapsshadowedwas putting it mildly on Zachary’s behalf.
Not on the duke’s, however. Wycombe had been a Chief Inspector at Scotland Yard prior to unexpectedly inheriting his own title, and he had always been a man of honor and loyalty, above reproach. Zachary’s loyalty was to those he deemed worthy, and his honor, well…that train had departed the station a long time ago, never to return. Eight years ago, to be precise.
Wycombe inclined his head in unspoken acknowledgment of the years of their friendship, which had begun in unlikely fashion and had formed a solid foundation despite all. “You are one of my closest and most trusted friends, it is true. However, I have never previously had to entrust you with my wife’s sister. Forever.”
Zachary suppressed a shudder at the last word and the reminder he was going to have to marry Lady Isolde. For a man who had always supposed he would remain a bachelor, a third son who had built his fortune on his own terms and was never meant to be an earl or take a wife and carry on the line, the abrupt shift in circumstance was brutal.
Hell, he was likely still in shock. The only thing that had made all this tolerably palatable was the notion that he could enrage Beatrice and—mayhap, if he were fortunate enough—see her wallowing in futile jealousy. Small of him, he knew. But being thrown over for one’s balding, arrogant, self-righteous older brother tended to have that effect on a man.
“Yes, forever is a long bloody time, is it not?” he drawled, attempting to lighten the mood and tamp down thoughts of the past, never far since he had found himself back at Barlowe House.
Beneath the same roof as Beatrice.
But now, he would have Lady Isolde as well.
If this invitation to tea went as he expected, of course.
“It is indeed,” Lady Isolde said weakly.
He glanced back to her, noting she had scarcely consumed a drop of her tea. Nor had Zachary, but for presumably different reasons. He preferred coffee or whisky to the insipid brew. Tea was the drink of virgins and dowagers, as far as he was concerned.
Zachary was growing impatient. “We are tilting at windmills. Let us get to the heart of this conversation, awkward though it may be.”
