He inclined his head and moved on before he could say something foolish. The first carriages were already crunching on the gravel drive. Duty, blessedly impersonal, rose to meet him.
***
The ball began as they all did with a series of entrances, a flurry of names, an exercise in remembering faces. Edward performed as required, introducing Isla to those whose acquaintance she had not yet made.
Isla stood at his side for the receiving line, answering the endless “how do you do” with grace that looked unforced. He kept to his resolution and did not linger near her once formalities were done. Instead, he passed smoothly between groups, the way he had once moved between stations on a ship. All predictable. All manageable. Until he noticed how the room had gathered around her.
Not crowded, it was not a crush, but there was no mistaking the draw. Young women gravitated toward Isla in ones and twos, drawn by her ready smile and unguarded curiosity. They laughed together at something she said about a disastrous quadrille. Older ladies, initially inclined to frost, thawed visibly after speaking with her, as if reassured this Scottish element was not wholly barbarous. And the men. That was what pricked.
Jealousy stabbed sharp and clean. It was absurd. He had no claim on Isla beyond a contract he meant to keep as tidily as any other duty. He had resolved not to want more. And yet the sight of another man seeking her attention, her laughter, burned. He told himself it was merely concern for propriety. Isla’s reputation was fragile in a room that still whispered about stables and ballrooms.
My displeasure is purely protective. Not personal.
The lie did not hold. He turned away deliberately and sought the company of men who could be of use. Discussions of rents and roads, of harvest prospects and shipping routes. If he found his eyes drifting across the room, he forced them back. It was almost an hour before he realized he could no longer see Isla anywhere.
She was not near the musicians, where young ladies hovered. Not near the card room, where older ladies retreated. Not beside Victoria Melrose, who was currently pinned in conversation by a bore with an unfortunate voice. Not at the buffet, not on the terrace.
He told himself she had merely gone to the retiring room. He told himself he did not care. He lasted precisely three minutes before giving up the pretense. Edward slipped from the ballroom by one of the side doors, letting the murmur of music and talk close behind him. The corridor felt cooler, lit by fewer lamps, the air touched by night leaking in around old windows.
He checked the small parlor, the antechamber, even the shadowed corner near the back stair where young couples occasionally thought themselves invisible. No Isla. The library came to mind without his choosing it. That’s where he found her. The room was lit only by two lamps, one on the central table, one beside a worn leather chair near the fire.
Shelves rose to the ceiling, the old volumes absorbing sound. It smelled of paper, polish and the faint ghost of pipe-smoke from his grandfather’s time. Isla sat cross-legged on the carpet before one of the lower shelves, a book open on her lap. She had removed her shoes, her stockinged feet tucked neatly beneath her. The lines of her gown were softened by the posture, as if she had shed a layer of formality with the slippers.
She looked up when he opened the door and, for a moment, did not move to rise.
“Have I lost my duchess?” he asked, closing the door behind him.
“I escaped,” she said. “There is a difference.”
He stepped further in. “From what?”
“From smiling,” she said simply. “From nodding at people who wish to weigh my accent. From saying the same three sentencesabout Scotland to those who have never crossed the Tweed and think it a foreign country with better scenery.” She shrugged. “I like some of them. I do not like all of them at once.”
“You left your own ball.”
“I left your mother’s ball,” she said, and then added with a twist of her mouth, “and your ball. And London’s. They seem to share custody.”
He almost smiled. “You are neglecting your duties.”
“I am tending to my sanity.” She tapped the book. “Mr. Wordsworth is more comforting than Lady Beecham’s opinion of sheep.”
He blinked. “Wordsworth.”
“You are astonished?”
“Yes. It is … unexpected.”
She tilted her head. “Because you believe me a barbarian with no acquaintance with ink? Or because you do not expect a woman to read anything longer than a fashion plate?”
“Because I did not expect you to seek him out in a room full of music,” he said honestly.
“And you?”
He hesitated. She smiled, eyes glinting. “You cannot pretend you have not read him. This book falls open at certain places. I think it is an old friend.”
“Some would not call a book of verse, a friend,” he said dryly, “so much as an accomplice in wasted time.”
“Do you waste much time with them?”
