Page 14 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
Chapter Five
“Ye will do yourself proud,” Isobel told her reflection, and picked up her fan and reticule.
She ran a hand down the chiffon Jane had put on her. Pearls were threaded through her auburn hair, glinting in the light, and pink silk gleamed on the bodice, matching the shade of her gloves. Scottish thistles, the pink flowers blooming, had been embroidered on the hem.
She felt almost at her finest, and although she had not taken many dresses with her, she found herself relieved that she had at least selected that one.
Holding her head high, she made her way down the large stairway just as Eliza and her mother, Lady Northley, were announced.
Eliza was dressed in a blue silk gown with white gloves, looking fresh and pretty. Beside her, her mother, an abnormallytall woman, loomed. She had the same blonde hair as Eliza, although hers was now streaked with gray, but her expression made Isobel feel as though the woman had seen an unwelcome rodent.
Isobel straightened her shoulders.
“Lady Isobel,” Eliza said with a grin, leaning in to kiss Isobel’s cheek. “See, Mama? Is she not beautiful?”
Her mother blinked rapidly many times. “Well—” She pinned her lips together and looked pointedly at the square neckline of Isobel’s decolletage.
Isobel glanced down at herself. To be sure, her dress showed a little chest, as did Eliza’s, but it was perfectly acceptable in an evening dress.
To her irritation, quick steps sounded on the corridor beside the hallway, and the duke came into view.
His gaze landed on Isobel’s, and she thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes. Heat, hunger, as though he had been starving and had just witnessed a feast. Her skin felt scorched and sensitized, as though he had exposed her to a flame—and it ought to have hurt, but instead, she prickled with intrigue.
His gaze drifted to her decolletage, and she wondered briefly if she had too much exposed.
“Adrian,” Eliza said, kissing his cheek, too. He started, looking at her as though he had forgotten she was there. His familiar scowl crept back into place. “Have you come to see Lady Isobel off? Is she not lovely?”
The duke grunted.
Lady Northley fanned her ample breast with a nervous motion. “Lady Isobel,” she said. “Is it true you are a… Scot?”
Would she rather I were French or a peasant?
“Yes, ma’am,” Isobel said aloud. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind.”
She flinched as though Isobel had said the exact opposite. “Dearie me,” she muttered. “Dearie me.”
“Don’t tease her, Lady Isobel,” the duke said, the heat gone from his expression as though it had never happened. “She will not be able to tolerate your jokes as well as I can.”
Isobel raised her brows. “Truly, Yer Grace? I hadn’t thought ye were so fond of me.”
His expression shuttered still further, if that were possible. “Be off with you. Thank you for taking her with you, Lady Northley.”
“Oh, well, dearest Eliza asked me, and I could hardly deny her.”
“That is precisely the problem,” he muttered so quietly under his breath that Isobel thought she might be the only one of them who had heard the comment.
“Well, girls, we had better leave so we’re not late,” Lady Northley said, casting another apprehensive glance at Isobel.
Although her instinct was to frighten the other lady for being so easily scared, she decided against it for Eliza’s sake. Besides, she needed an excuse to escape the duke’s house and the strange intensity of his gaze. The one she hated.
Eliza linked her arm through Isobel’s. “I already know we’re going to be the best of friends,” she whispered as they reached their carriage. “Don’t mind Mother. She suffers from her nerves, you know. And she was alarmed to hear you were from Scotland.”
“I thought ye said your governess was Scottish?”
“Oh, she was, but the idea ofladiescoming from a land of savages is harder to accept.” She rolled her eyes, and Isobel released a long breath.
Plenty of Englishmen held that assumption about Scotland—that because once it had been filled with clans and kilts, they were uncivilized.
