“Isolde,” he said hoarsely. “I swear I never meant to… I do not deserve you or your forgiveness. I hope one day you will understand.”
He walked backward three strides, his eyes burning into her as if seeing her for the last time.
Then to her amazement, he spun about and bolted into the woods.
In seconds he had vanished from view.
Leaving her standing alone, head spinning as if she was drunk.
She touched her lips. They felt stung.
“ISAAAA—Oh! Miss Sylvaine.”
Miss Redmond stopped abruptly, at a distance, as if Isolde were a volcano, or something equally unpredictable and possibly perilous.
If it had been any other two people—if this had been a pantomime, for instance—it might have been funny. Imagine stumbling across a lone woman on the fringe of their property, face scarlet from passionate exertion. Eyes kiss-hazed.
The two young women stared at each. Isolde could still feel the heat of Isaiah’s body on the front of her dress. She wondered if her hair was mussed.
Miss Redmond’s expression at once went carefully bland.
“I thought I heard my brother’s voice. I must have been mistaken.” She said this with slow, masterful neutrality.
Isolde didn’t reply, because she couldn’t yet speak.
At last, she cleared her throat. “I’m so sorry I’m late for the picnic.” Her voice was shockingly hoarse. Kiss scorched.
Neither one of them mentioned that she seemed to have taken an unorthodox route to the rose garden.
“Well. I’m glad you were able to come. We were worried about you.”
“There was just a bit of a mix-up in plans,” Isolde managed. Her voice still sounded creaky.
Miss Redmond nodded carefully. “I was just looking for my brother because I wanted to make sure he knew that Miss Fanchette Tarbell arrived.”
That name rang with portent.
This day became stranger and stranger. Imagine, a person who had featured so flatteringly in the London gossip sheets, here at the Redmond’s.
“Is Miss Tarbell a friend of your family?”
Miss Redmond hesitated. “In a manner of speaking,” she finally replied gently. “Why don’t you come and meet her?”
ChapterTen
Isolde contemplated claiming a stomach upset and staying home from the assembly. This was only a fib insofar as literally every single part of her was upset in some way, not just her stomach.
In the end, pride, nerve, and God help her, the fact that she looked wonderful in her pink dress, won out. If Jacob attended, at least she would look pretty while he stood there, hating her.
And Isaiah would see that she wore the pink rose pinned at her waist.
She was without her celandine for the first time since Jacob gave it to her. She’d left it in the drawer of her writing desk.
The Sylvaines arrived at half past seven to find the town hall already brimming with people. Isolde dazedly beheld the flowers, bunting, and the charming little lanterns in which candles glowed that were scattered about, wondering how different her life would be at this moment if she hadn’t giggled too much with Maria in the planning meetings. Perhaps if her life went wrong from today forward, she could always blame Mrs. Sneath.
Maria and George, who had come home from London in time for the festivities, bolted at once to one of the refreshment tables. Her parents were swept into a conversation with Lady Fennimore and her husband.
So Isolde ducked into the little retiring room set aside for ladies to pin more securely the pink rose Isaiah had given her a few days ago, and, after the longest, most eventful day of her life, to gather her nerve for the absolutely fraught unknown of the night ahead.
