“Do you like London?” Victoria asked.
“I like walking,” Isla said, “and the sound of my own mind. London interferes with both.”
“We shall be friends,” Victoria announced.
Isla laughed. “You announce it?”
“I have learned one thing about the ton. If you declare a thing first and without embarrassment, they have less fun denying it.”
So something good has come out of this arrangement. A new friend.
Isla cynically told herself that the friendship was the only good thing to arise from her situation. But thoughts of Edward surfaced which could not be denied. He was her chain, her manacles, but he was intriguing.
He is handsome and that is different. I am not a foolish lass to lose her heid to a beautiful face. Even if it does look like it was crafted by a Renaissance master.
The notion of Edward as the product of a master sculptor seeking masculine perfection made her blush. She did not want to be reduced to a blushing fool by him, whether he was presentor not. She told herself that this marriage curtailed her freedom as effectively as any judge passing sentence on a convict.
The terrace door opened. Three matrons moved into view, converging like frigates. One was richly jet and sleek, the other a mass of ruffles and opinion. At their center, the Dowager Duchess of Ravenscroft. She carried the air of a woman who had sat too long at the head of too many tables and come to believe the furniture formed itself at her will. Her gaze caught Isla and stopped as if at a stain.
“Victoria,” the Dowager said without warmth, “do not keep the air when the company wants it.”
“I shall bottle some and bring it in,” Victoria returned pleasantly.
“And you.” The Dowager Duchess looked Isla over as one might a parcel that had arrived from the wrong shop. “It is charitable of Ravenscroft to invite you, charity begins at home. However, I believe Edinburgh would have served you better.”
Isla felt heat rise, swift and uncontainable. “Edinburgh has the advantage of sense.”
“Whereas London suffers from Scots.” The Dowager’s smile did not reach her eyes. “We are to be family, Lady Isla. We must learn to speak plainly. You will discover that English manners are a mercy in the face of barbarous habits. Be grateful for the mercy.”
Victoria’s hand brushed Isla’s sleeve, a warning or a plea. Isla tasted blood where she had bitten the inside of her cheek.
“I will be grateful,” she said evenly, “for truth when it arrives.”
The dinner bell rang, timely as a savior. The matrons swept away with their circling weather of opinions. Isla and Victoria followed from a safe distance. In the dining room, Isla found herself placed on the Dowager’s left. Edward sat opposite. He wore black that made his eyes look darker. When he raised his glass and the candle struck his strong but well-formed hands, something low and disloyal moved through her.
Weesht! Do not be a silly girl. He is merely a man.
Lady Charlotte Pembroke was there as well, Isla overheard her being addressed by name. She was pale and elegant, a swan composed precisely to be admired. She did not look once in Isla’s direction. Edward, however did. As the dinner progressed, Isla found herself stealing glances at the man who was to be her husband. Her eyes lingered traitorously on a noble profile when he turned to address someone next to him. Sometimes, she looked and his eyes stared back.
She counted the seconds between looks, forcing herself to look away. But her eyes always found him again. And those moments when she caught him looking at her sent a jolt through her as though she had been struck by lightning. Isla attacked eachcourse, forcing her attention on the food to distract from her … distraction. It did no good. Always she eventually sought the thrill of his eyes.
After dinner the company divided as custom demanded. The ladies dispersed to a music room that showed off harps and poor playing. The gentlemen took brandy and cigars. Isla tolerated the knives of the ladies' company for as long as she could.
When it became intolerable she quietly slipped away, through a door and into a corridor beyond. The first corridor gave into a second, the second into a third. Ravenscroft had grown in odd centuries and wore its additions like secret pockets.
She had intended a breath of air and a square of quiet. Instead the passages turned right, then left, then sloped slightly downward, growing narrower until the carpet gave way to polished boards and the wallpaper to painted paneling. She should have turned back. Pride and curiosity argued, pride lost.
There was a faint draught, an old house’s sigh. The paneling opened on a short, dim hall. A door at the end stood not quite closed, a spill of warmer light across the floor. Voices? None. She lifted her hand, meaning to knock and ask a footman to return her to civilization. She heard the soft scrape of a boot. Isla froze.
The door eased wider under the lightest touch. The room beyond was masculine and ordered. There was a low fire in a paneled hearth, a shelf of books and a long table where charts or billsmight be laid flat. On the far side, an inner door stood open, the bedchamber beyond, shielded by a screen.
Edward stood with his back partially turned, unbuttoning his waistcoat. His coat lay already across a chair, his cravat, loosened, hung in two careless tails. He reached to the screen and pulled a robe forward, then lifted his hands to his neck. The linen came away, smooth in his fingers. He drew the shirt over his head, and the movement bared him to the waist.
The word that rose in Isla’s mind was not one she had learned in a drawing room. Muscle mapped his shoulders without boast. His back was a geography of labor and old adventures. A white line cut across one shoulder blade, narrow and long. There was a small puckered mark at his ribs and another slashing line across the small of his back.
He stood for a heartbeat, head bowed, palms braced on the dressing table. Isla watched the muscles of his back and shoulders flex and relax. His shoulders seemed to drop an inch and he lifted his head, tossing back the mane of hair that Isla had not realized she found so damnably attractive. Until this moment. It added to the image of him as a savage. A corsair rather than a respectable officer of His Majesties navy.
I should not be looking. I am not the kind to peep at keyholes. I should slip away quietly and pretend I was never here. Why are my feet not moving!
