Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

" R emind me never to dance after eight courses again," Isolde said, grinning as she sat down next to Amelia on the pianoforte bench.

Her friend did not miss a single note of the music she had begun to play, her fingertips so deft and skilled that she could probably play blindfolded. "You make a very handsome pair. Is he pleasant?"

"Always such restrained questions," Valery jumped in. "Give us the juicier gossip. What did you talk about? You seemed to be conversing for most of the dance. Did your heart flutter when he looked at you? He could not stop staring!"

Valery's cousin, Beatrice, leaned over the main body of the pianoforte. "Everyone thinks that those pesky stomach butterflies are a sure sign of attraction, but one ought to consider the other times that one feels that way."

"What do you mean?" Isolde raised her gaze to Beatrice: a beautiful, exciting, feisty creature who was as intimidating as she was fascinating, just as Valery had said she would be.

"Well, the feeling is almost identical to the bad kind of nerves one gets before an important event, and the feeling you sometimes get when something is not quite right, but you cannot pinpoint what is wrong," Beatrice explained, jewels jangling on the bracelet that draped from her slender wrist.

Isolde pressed her hand to her stomach, as if she might feel those butterflies trying to free themselves. She had never thought of them as something unwelcome before, as her mother had always told her that they were a certain way of knowing if love could blossom.

"I am not sure that I felt butterflies," she admitted in a low voice.

"Did you feel anything? A sense of calm, a sense of ‘rightness,' a sense of complete ease?" Beatrice prompted.

Isolde frowned. "I confess, I was so occupied with the dancing and the talking, and not muddling either, that I do not believe I felt much of anything. But he is certainly the nicest gentleman I have encountered since my debut."

The second nicest, she reminded herself although, if she was being honest, she had no notion of what her savior was like. He had rescued her, yes, but what if he was otherwise an awful person? What if he was cruel or unkind or rude? What if they met again, and he ruined the image she had of him in her mind?

"Are butterflies always something to be cautious about?" she asked Beatrice, who seemed rather worldly.

Beatrice shrugged. "It depends on the context."

"So, if someone gave me butterflies, it might not be a bad thing?" In the palace gardens, and whenever she had thought of it afterwards, Isolde's stomach had definitely fluttered.

Beatrice leaned closer, her eyes flitting toward the middle of the room. "Is it that gentleman who claims to be your guardian?"

"What?" Isolde gasped. "Heavens, no! Why, if you knew us, you would realize that he is the very last person who could cause my stomach to flutter."

Valery sighed. "He is so ridiculously handsome, though. When he was seated beside Amelia, I do not mind admitting that I was a little bit jealous."

"There was no reason to be," Amelia murmured as she continued to play for the new couples who had taken to the dance floor. "My brother has made it clear that he wants me to ‘enchant' His Grace, but I have no interest in the man. Yes, he is handsome. Yes, he has been pleasant to me. Yes, he helped me in the park. But… he is not for me."

Valery scoffed. "Whyever not? Any gentleman would be lucky to have you. Isolde could put in a good word for you if you asked; I am sure."

The suggestion gave Isolde pause, for she had never considered that Edmund might find himself a wife before. Even before he went to the Continent for his grand tour, he had seemed disinterested in the idea.

She tried to imagine it: Edmund strolling around the park with a pretty wife upon his arm, dancing with her at balls, enjoying dinner parties at her side, making a home with her, but she could not get her brain to comply. In every vision that popped into her head, rather ridiculously, she was the one in the role of Duchess.

"Isolde?" Valery prompted. "You would do that for Amelia, would you not?"

Amelia grimaced. "I do not want her to. As I have said, I have no interest in His Grace, despite what my brother wants for me. And I doubt His Grace has any interest in me, either."

Puzzled by the sudden flurry of activity in her stomach, and the warmth that flooded her from her cheeks to her chest, Isolde twisted her head around to try and find Edmund in the room.

When she had started dancing with Noah, he had been at a table by the terrace doors. Now, he was nowhere to be seen.

"Well," she said hesitantly, looking back at Amelia, "if you ever change your mind, do let me know. I would, of course, be happy to sing your praises to Edmund."

Beatrice grinned at that, clicking her tongue. "Edmund, is it? You call one another by your names?"

The butterflies transformed into panicked moths, Isolde cursing herself for using his given name. In public, she rarely made such a mistake, and the more she attempted to explain herself, the more Beatrice would probably think she had something to hide.

"Did I say his name? Goodness, I did not mean to," she said. "It must be the dancing; it has left me quite dizzy."

She braced for Beatrice to press her, but she did not. Instead, Beatrice offered a sad sort of smile and stuck out her hand, saying, "Then let us be dizzy together, for I am in the mood to dance, but I am not in the mood to dance with a gentleman."

Laughing at the surprising gesture, Isolde took Beatrice's hand and nodded. "You shall have to lead."

"It would be my honor," Beatrice replied, as they joined the rest of the dancers arm-in-arm.

They had just begun a merry jig, hopping from foot to foot before whirling past each other to switch sides, when a breeze blew in from the terrace, drawing Isolde's eye. Edmund stood there, as stern-faced as ever, but as he met her gaze and saw her dancing with Beatrice, he did the strangest thing she had ever beheld in his presence: he smiled at her.

The next morning, Edmund slept late and took his breakfast in the guest chambers where Julianna had insisted on him residing until Vincent's return. He could have continued to commute from his own townhouse, but he had relented in the end, not wanting to insult Julianna's generosity.

As such, by the time he descended the stairs to see what might be on the agenda for the day, it was already ten o'clock. Ordinarily, that meant that suitors would start calling upon Isolde within the next quarter of an hour or so, but he doubted any would on that particular morning, considering he and Isolde had returned from Martin's dinner party after midnight.

Noah might , he realized, praying that ridiculous feeling of envy did not return, praying it had been a one-time sensation.

"There you are!" Isolde's voice stopped him just shy of the bottom step. "I did not realize you were a secret lazybones. My future husband might be arriving in a moment, and you still look half asleep! Have you decided not to fulfil the task my brother set you after all, hm?"

Edmund gripped the banister, knuckles whitening. He stared at Isolde as if she was appearing in the Assembly Rooms for the first time, making her debut—an event that he had missed due to a lame horse.

She wore a simple dress of magnolia muslin, her hair in loose waves that had been pinned into a bun, and nothing new or different about her face, but she looked impossibly radiant. More radiant than he had ever seen her, including the previous night. A glow that came from within. A glow he had heard about but had never witnessed for himself: the radiance of a woman in love.

My future husband might be arriving in a moment… Her words repeated in his head, sinking in this time. It did not require a great mathematician to put two and two together, and the realization left him feeling like he had wandered into a room to search for something, and had forgotten what it was he meant to find.

"Did the Viscount tell you that he intended to call on you today?" Edmund asked, realizing that she was waiting for him to say something.

She frowned as if she did not understand, then her eyebrows shot up in something like shock, before she finally descended into soft chuckles. "You thought I meant the Viscount of Mentrow would be my future husband? Goodness, let us not get ahead of ourselves. He and I barely know one another."

"It was not an outlandish assumption," he replied coolly. "You enjoyed many conversations, you danced when dancing was not expected, and you shared many smiles and laughs. Why would you not end up marrying him? Thousands of engagements have been arranged on far less."

"I also danced with Beatrice. Should I marry her in haste, too?"

He narrowed his eyes. "Do not be juvenile, Lady Isolde. It does not become you."

She waved his remark away and set off down the hallway, beckoning for him to follow her. Ordinarily, he would have taken offense to her expecting him to traipse after her, but since he had nothing better to do, he did just that.

"You could do worse than a Viscount," he said upon entering the drawing room, where a tea tray already sat on the low table in the center.

Isolde had wandered to the far side of the room, to the garden windows, where the golden morning light bathed her in a remarkable halo. The heavens were certainly smiling on her today, for while he felt as if he had been dancing a lively jig in his sleep, his body aching and his stomach sore, she looked as fresh as if she had slept for days.

"I know I said that I must marry quickly to appease my mother and brother, but I would like to think that I have a morsel of time left before I have to make a choice," she replied, opening the door to let in a waft of earthy morning air. "Or would you like to just throw me headfirst down the aisle without delay?"

Edmund sighed, secretly pleased that she was exercising more caution than she had with Lord Spofforth. "No. All I am saying is that the Viscount of Mentrow is a very pleasant gentleman: he is of good stock, good standing, good fortune, reasonable looks, and you favored his company. One might ask what else you are waiting for?"

"Well, a proposal for one thing," she shot back with a mischievous smile. "And there can be no harm in becoming better acquainted before we rush into marriage, can there?"

Edmund shrugged. "I suppose not."

He watched her move around the drawing room with an air of anxiety, adjusting ornaments, turning vases, fluffing up the flowers that had begun to wilt, playing a strange game of chess with the teacups and plates on the tea tray.

When she reached the bookcase, he noticed her pause, her fingertips lightly brushing the spine of a familiar novel. A memory pulsed into his head, so vivid that he had to curl his hands into fists to stop his own fingertips from making the same accidental caress they had made once before, in that very room.

The peculiar intimacy of the memory made him realize, with some horror, that he was alone with Isolde when he should not have been.

"Should your mother not be in here, ensuring that everything is in the proper condition for visitors?" he asked tightly, wondering if he ought to step outside until Julianna was there.

Isolde drifted away from the bookcase to push the carriage clock on the mantelpiece a quarter of an inch to the left. "Probably, but she is not here."

"Pardon?"

"She left with my sisters half an hour ago," Isolde replied, moving the clock to where it had originally been. "I believe the three of them intend to do some financial damage to our family coffers at the modiste."

Edmund's eyes widened. "But… why would she do that?"

What he really meant to say was, why would she leave him alone with her unwed daughter?

"Prudence left a haddock in Mama's vanity drawer, and Mama found it just before breakfast," Isolde explained. "There is no telling when it was placed in the drawer, but Mama decided that Prudence played the trick out of spite."

Edmund understood less and less with every word. "So, her solution was to take the girl to purchase a new dress?"

"In essence." Isolde nodded, punching a few cushions back into plumpness. "She suspects that Prudence feels neglected because of all the attention that has been placed upon me of late, so she thought buying dresses and adornments might resolve the issue. Personally, I believe that Prudie just wanted to put a haddock in Mama's vanity drawer because it is amusing."

Edmund did not know how to feel about the Dowager's absence, his responsibility shunted from distant guardian to true chaperone. The trouble was, he was not eligible to be Isolde's chaperone.

"And your mother thought this was a good idea?" he said in disbelief.

Isolde came to rest on the side of the settee. "She would not have departed if she did not. I suppose she sometimes forgets that you are not, in fact, part of the family."

Taking himself to the garden doors to feel the refreshing breeze on his warm face, he paced back and forth for a short while, struggling to decide what to do. Julianna might not have seen any issue with the situation, but if there were any visitors, they certainly would.

"We shall just have to explain that Vincent has given me this responsibility," he said after a few moments, grimacing. "In the meantime, you should dance."

"Excuse me?"

Edmund sniffed, straightening his posture. "Last night, I noticed you missed a few steps. You cannot afford to be thought of as a poor dancer. While we are waiting to see if you have any callers, you should dance, so I can ensure you do not make the same mistakes again."

She pushed away from the settee and came to stand a few paces away from him, resting her hands on her hips as she cast a dubious look at him. He could not blame her; it was an odd request.

"Speaking of last night, you ought to address your manners. You were very badly behaved at the dinner table," she remarked, searching his face in a manner that made him want to turn his gaze away.

He forced himself to hold her curious gaze instead. "You are right; I was. I have apologized already."

"Maybe so, but if I am to dance with no music and no partner, then you can stand there and think about what possessed you to act foolish last night," she said with a smirk. "That way, we can both feel foolish at the same time."

Edmund was walking before he could stop himself, closing the gap between them, until he was close enough to see the faint freckles that had appeared upon her cheeks. Rather charming, in his opinion.

Gazing down at her, noting the gleam of surprise in her eyes, he said softly, "I can do nothing about the music, Isolde, but who said you would have no partner?"