Lord Livingstone flicked his riding crop toward his grey horse. “My animal has not been seen to properly. I detected a fur tangle, evidence that he has not been brushed today.”
“He was brushed this morning.”
“You insinuate I am lying?”
“I insinuate nothing. I am but informing you when he was last brushed.”
“This impudence is shocking.” Lord Livingstone glanced at Isabella. “Does your father allow such servants who will dishonor his guests?”
Isabella kept her eyes to the ground. “Excuse me, but I must return indoors.” With Bridget on her arm, she hurried away without glancing back.
William swallowed past a lump of disappointment. Not that he had expected her to defend him. He hadn’t. But treating him as a stranger, not looking his direction, walking away without—
“I have never been so degraded. If you were more my equal, I would demand satisfaction in a duel.”
William glanced at the man’s face. His eyes burned, feverish almost, and both of his cheeks flamed red. Thunder and turf, he was serious.
Though a duel did not sound exactly undesirable to William either.
“See that the animal is brushed twice a day. I want him walked daily and I want him ridden every evening—though not by you.” His lips curled in disgust. “You reek of dung.” He marched back toward the manor, muttering under his breath, coattails flapping behind him.
William dragged a sleeve across his sweating face. He caught a whiff of his own clothes and tightened his lips.
Hedidreek—and it was a stench he would never quite be free of.
No matter how much he wanted to be.
How dare he.
Isabella avoided the board that squeaked—evidence that this was not her first time eavesdropping outside Father’s study—and leaned close enough to the cracked door to catch Lord Livingstone’s distinct voice.
“I rather thought it worth bringing to your attention, my lord. For myself, the insults were bearable. It is only foryoursake that I raise such alarms, as one can never trust a servant who does not know his place.”
“He has always seemed rather even-tempered to me.”
“Of that, I would know nothing. Though I do confess to remembering him at your townhouse in London, when he persuaded your daughter into inviting him to a dinner party.”
“Isabella did that?”
“Indeed, my lord, and I fear I have but one more caution to mention to you, though I …” The words trailed into a sigh of gravity. “Forgive me, my lord. I dare not speak my mind until I am more certain.”
“Certain of what?”
“Suspicions which I greatly hope are untrue.”
Her heart thumped as she drove her teeth into her bottom lip. He could not possibly know about the kiss. Or the seashore. Or all the other rides. Could he?
“I shall leave you now, my lord, and will trouble you only in asking that you be very cautious. People are not always as they seem, and some have great powers over innocent, susceptible minds. The last thing in the world I would wish to see would be for anyone to take deceitful advantage of you—or your daughter.”
With heat curling from her toes to her fingers, she backed away from the door, avoided the loud board, and fled down the hall. She turned into an unoccupied room and closed herself inside.
How dare he accuse William this way. How dare he insinuate she was falling prey to a deceitful manipulation. None of it was true.
William was her friend and nothing more. If it had not been for the misunderstanding, when she had imagined he was her brother, she would likely not even be that. If things had been different, she would not have looked at him twice or spoken to him once.
He was poor. A servant.
She was the daughter of a viscount and well knew her place.
