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. Hecouldhave 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 younotend 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. Onemightask 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?”
