It galled him that he somehow always knew Eversea’s whereabouts. He supposed it was for the same reasons two rival wolves might always be particularly attuned to the scent of each other on the wind.
It was given to understand that Eversea men tended to go off on long sea journeys to faraway lands upon leaving university, which was apparently meant to build their characters or some such rot. Isaiah could not see how any Eversea had ever been improved by this. Like most normal wealthy young men, Isaiah had toured the continent for a few months and returned to England apace.
Something about just the very presence of Jacob Eversea made Isaiah feel more acutely all of his secret inadequacies, the way a stiff wind could find all the cracks in an apparently sound building.
Isaiah had once found himself confronting Eversea during a fencing competition at university two years ago. Both were exceptionally skilled, aggressive, nimble swordsmen. Both were hellbent on victory.
The crowd knew this, and watched in held-breath tension. A gasp went up when Eversea seemed to lose his footing and stumble. He fell hard on his back.
An instant later Isaiah was crouching over him, the point of his foil touching Jacob’s throat, caught in the grip of a reflex forged by centuries of bad blood between their families.
He’d been disqualified from the competition.
Isaiah both savored and feared that memory. Because he knew the hate burning in Eversea’s eyes during that moment lived in him, too, beyond the reach of reason.
He was glad Eversea was somewhere out on the ocean.
What a pity it would be if pirates got him.
Would Isolde Sylvaine suffer if pirates got Eversea?
His stomach muscles tightened against the notion of grief shadowing her bright little face.
Eversea probably made her laugh all the time.
At university, one could find Jacob Eversea by following the sound of laughter. He effortlessly gathered crowds of friends with his showy charm.
Lodged in Isaiah’s heart like a splinter was the suspicion that Eversea was the sort of son his father would have preferred.
Fanchette seemed inured to the kinds of emotional surges that prompted shouts of mirth or thunderous scowls; she seemed to do everything with grace but nothing with abandon. When Isaiah said something in jest, she usually tipped her head and eyed him with rueful indulgence, as though he was a naughty child who ought to know better. He found this equal parts charming and irritating. He was about as far from ‘naughty’ as a man could get.
But he loved how all eyes were on them when they rode together in Rotten Row. He knew they looked magnificent together. He was enchanted and bemused by the contrast between her otherworldly beauty and her strictly prosaic interests and expensive and particular tastes. It was like listening to Aphrodite go on and on about the latest bonnet trimmings. Her artless assumption that he would be interested in listening to her go on about such things he found touching and almost childlike.
But she listened with flattering attention when he talked about his plans to become even wealthier. They both loved opera and horses and fine objects and they both wanted the best of everything.
Which obviously meant each other.
And perhaps most importantly, Isaiah knew his father craved a relationship with Chancellor Tarbell. “Once you’re in with the politicians, Isaiah, my boy, the world is your oyster,” he’d told him more than once during one of his many lectures about life.
“So. More girls for me, I suppose, because I imagine you'll be leg shackled e'er long to the exquisite Miss Tarbell, you lucky old dog.” Augustus patted his lips with his napkin. “Surrounded by a brood of handsome little brats, and all that.”
This was the plan, of course. Just as one did not go through all the steps of loading a musket unless one intended to fire it, Isaiah knew the only possible conclusion to a lengthy, formal, public courtship of a girl like Miss Tarbell was a proposal. Anything else would be unthinkably dishonorable. Disastrous for both families.
He knew both of their families tacitly approved and expected this outcome, and it worked in Isaiah’s favor that the Redmonds were wealthier than the Tarbells.
And so, Isaiah’s heart had sped with triumphant anticipation when he’d told his father that he hoped to propose to Fanchette during the Tarbell’s visit to their home in Pennyroyal Green this week, and perhaps even announce his engagement at the upcoming assembly. His father’s face had suffused with a rare warmth. He'd gripped Isaiah's shoulders; briefly, he'd pressed his forehead to his. “Good God, but it will be a splendid match, Isaiah. I've never been so proud of you, son.”
It had almost felt like love.
“Every man should be blessed with wife and progeny, Finchley,” Isaiah told his friend, dryly. “And of course, the world deserves more Redmonds.”
When Finchley laughed, Isaiah’s tension eased a little. He sometimes forgot he could be liked for his own sake.
He looked forward to being the patriarch of his own family. It would be no hardship to bed a beautiful woman whom he could fluster into a blush by just smoldering at her. Certainly, if he dwelled upon the idea of a naked Fanchette, he could conjure lust. But doing it for the sake of coaxing forth an erection seemed ungentlemanly, something an Eversea might do to pass the time. He did not burn for her.
Did Jacob Eversea burn for Isolde Sylvaine?
The dimple at the corner of Isolde’s lush little mouth flashed before Isaiah’s mind’s eye and the bands of muscle across his stomach tightened.
