Isla came to attention, hands on the stone balustrade at the edge of the terrace. She looked in the direction of the voices.
“Do be charitable. One ought to be kind to savages. I believe they have a breed of cattle up there with just that shade of hair.”
Laughter. Isla saw the speakers. They stood before a statue which guarded the steps leading down to the lawn. It shielded Isla from their sight unless she stepped back towards the house. Which she now did.
“Which Highland girl?” she asked lightly. “There are so many of us.”
They stilled. “Lady Isla,” one said, composed in an instant. “How you startled us.”
“Forgive me. Were you speaking of me perchance?”
More laughter, a little brittle now. The other lady drew herself up. “We merely spoke of Lady Charlotte Pembroke’s very natural claim upon His Grace. They are old friends.”
“Old friends,” Isla repeated, “how very strong those can be. One wonders that they have not already become new relations.”
“Circumstance,” said the first lady. “Timing. Fate.”
“And a set of shoulders, perhaps,” Isla said, too pleasantly. “One cannot argue with a man who chooses to carry what lies inconveniently at his feet.”
They tittered and exchanged a glance that conceded no point to her beyond quickness. Then, seeing that she was not obliging them with tears or temper, they drifted away in pursuit of kinder prey. Isla took their place before the statue as it screened her from the house, giving a respite from further conversation. A soft throat cleared to her left.
“I did not enjoy that either.”
Isla turned. The speaker had thoughtful eyes, a mouth with a wry slant and hair pinned too practically to be fashionable. Her gown was respectable and two seasons behind. She seemed to wear it with indifference.
“Forgive me,” the woman said, and bobbed. “Lady Victoria Melrose.”
A pause. “My mother insists on the Lady. I would not, but she is a formidable woman, and the battle cost more than the title.”
Isla smiled despite herself. “Isla Drummond.”
“I know. We are cousins of a kind. I believe my father’s family, the Melrose’s, are distantly related to the Drummonds. Though I have never set foot in Scotland yet.”
“Well, I would be happy to show you,” Isla said, taking to Victoria’s plain directness.
The young woman held a book casually in one hand, her place kept by a finger.
“You read?” Isla asked.
“I do. I can be trusted to dance also, but not to like it as much as people prefer.”
“I too can be trusted to dance but prefer to ride,” Isla said.
Victoria tipped her head toward the house. “They do not mean half what they say.”
“They mean all of it,” Isla said lightly. “They simply like themselves better when they say it prettily. I would much prefer ugly words expressed directly than pretty ones delivering an ugly meaning like a knife between the ribs.”
“A knife …? What a brutal metaphor.”
It was said with such laughing candor that Isla grinned and received a reciprocal smile from Victoria. Her dress chose that moment to remind her how uncomfortable it was. Isla winced.
“Does it pinch?”
“The gown? It bites.”
“To use an equine metaphor, you wear it like a thoroughbred runs. With apparent effortless grace that conceals a great deal of effort,”
If only. Other women make their ridiculous gowns seem to float. I have no such illusions. Tae the devil with fashion!
