She sipped it gingerly before she said, “The viscount and his wife were very friendly.”
That was true, at least. The viscount was a handsome man and his wife was beautiful and sweet. They were clearly in love, something that surprised Isabel, for she knew many Society marriages were arranged and loveless.
Not that she could talk.
Uncle Fenton hurrumphed. “Shedidn’t used to be so high and mighty,” he said.
Isabel let her gaze slip to the viscountess again. “No?”
“It’s unseemly to talk about,” her uncle said with a shake of his head. “I should not have brought it up. But since there is a bit of scandal to the couple, I thought it wouldn’t be a bad start for you in Society.”
Isabel pressed her lips together hard at the veiled insult. “Thank you, uncle.”
He shrugged. “I don’t mean because of any scandal associated with you,” he explained. “Unless there is more to your sneaking out than I yet know. But because everyone is judging her, perhaps you would feel their judgment less.”
Isabel sighed. She supposed, in his own way, he was being kind. Trying to make it easier. It wasn’t though.
They stood together in silence for a moment as she stared out over the crowd. She felt so on the outside of this world. Pressed against the glass but unable to truly enter. She had rather hoped Sarah might come tonight, but her mother’s illness had prevented it.
So Isabel was truly alone even in the crowded room.
“Isabel!”
She turned at Uncle Fenton’s call and found that he was no longer alone. A gentleman stood next to him. He was tall, broad-shouldered, not unhandsome. But he was likely a contemporary of her uncle, older than Isabel by at least twenty-five years.
Her heart sank.
“May I present Mrs. Isabel Hayes,” her uncle said. “Isabel, this is Sir Daniel Goodacre.”
“Sir Daniel,” she said, extending her hand.
He caught it and lifted it to his lips. As he brushed them over her gloved knuckles, she tried to keep her smile on her face. He was staring at her breasts. Of course he was.
“Mrs. Hayes,” he drawled. “You are a vision.”
Uncle Fenton smiled at the man. “Sir Daniel is an old friend,” he said.
“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Isabel said as she extracted her hand from his grip.
She fought the urge to shake it out. Shake off his touch. God’s teeth, she was traveling down the same road her father had put her on. Her uncle might marry her higher, but it was practically to the same man.
“I wondered if your dance card was full this evening, Mrs. Hayes,” Sir Daniel asked with a side glance for her uncle.
She swallowed. “Indeed, it is not, for we only just arrived.”
“Then might I be so bold as to ask you to dance the next with me?” he said, motioning to the dancefloor where couples were just departing after the lilting end of the previous song.
Isabel inclined her head. This was the worst part of these events. While a woman might be asked to dance, it was only in theory that the answer could be no. In truth, she had more power at the Donville Masquerade than here in a public and presentable forum.
“Certainly,” she said through clenched teeth. “It would be an honor.”
He extended an arm and she took it. When she glanced back, she found a satisfied smile on her uncle’s face. He almost looked as though everything had been determined. Her future taken care of so he could go back to ruthlessly grieving the past.
And her heart sank as the tones of a country jig began and she was forced to dance lightly while her entire being felt so desperately heavy.
Matthew stood along the wall as the ball went on around him, but he was not truly attending to it. His mind was turning to another room, another dancefloor, one that would shock the people in this room if they encountered it.
He was thinking of his stranger. His swan.
