Tucked into her new novel was a pamphlet she’d purchased describing the steps for the latest dances. She retrieved it to avidly review.
Presently, something flashed at the corner of her eye.
She ignored it, assuming the leaves fluttering in the breeze had allowed in a brief sliver of light.
When it happened again, she lifted her head and swiveled it about in search of the source.
Her breath hitched.
A young man had materialized on the opposite side of the trees.
She watched as he flicked open a gold pocket watch and examined the time.
He closed it again.
A moment later, he flicked it open again.
Then closed it again.
The glint of sunlight on the gold was the source of the winking.
He was tall; one of his long legs was indolently bent. A mantel of leafy shadows shivered across a fine set of shoulders. He wore his dark hair in a queue; the exquisite tailoring of his long-tailed coat and the gloss on his boots suggested he could afford the exorbitant tax on hair powder that had caused the usually very genial Mr. Sylvaine to put his foot down and forbid his raven-haired daughters to continue using it. Fortunately, powdered hair was already going out of style.
Gradually it dawned on her that she was staring at Mr. Isaiah Redmond.
She stifled a gasp and pressed herself back against the tree trunk.
Why on earth was he standing beneath the Eversea-Redmond oaks at this hour?
It amused her to imagine that he'd dropped from them like a great acorn.
Finally, unable to resist, she stealthily craned her head and studied him unabashedly.
Suddenly his head shot up and he turned it like a fox sensing something in the wind.
Their gazes collided before she could dodge out of view.
Two choices, both ridiculous, confronted them: Look away immediately, which seemed unthinkably rude, as they were the only two people currently standing beneath the trees.
Or continue staring.
They both chose the latter.
Thusly there ensued a peculiar moment of profound stillness, which oddly didn’t feel as awkward as it should have.
“Miss Isolde Sylvaine!” he finally announced with relieved triumph, as if he'd been furiously working out an equation of some sort in his mind.
She nearly laughed. She supposed she must be out of context, too. Perhaps someone had pointed her out to him one day. He likely knew her only as the outline of her best Sunday bonnet, or as the fourth tallest human in the cluster of Sylvaines who filed into church.
He swept off his cocked hat and bowed, elegantly. Which was, of course, the only way a Redmond would bow.
“Good evening, Mr. Redmond.” It seemed absurd to pretend she didn't know who he was. Curtsying gracefully with a book tucked under one arm and a sore toe proved a test of her balance, however. She nearly wobbled.
A slightly nonplussed silence ensued, during which they regarded each other steadily, and with, it seemed, mutual fascination.
He cleared his throat. “It’s astonishing that two people whose names begin with “IS” should find themselves simultaneously beneath these trees at this hour.”
Delight swept through her at this unexpected whimsy.
