Page 22 of Lady Controversial
‘Ah, there is that. I had my sights set on Miss Teddington but she seems to prefer you, Finchdean, damn your eyes.’
‘By all means try your luck,’ Ellery replied languidly. ‘I have no serious interest in the lady.’
‘More fool you,’ someone else remarked.
‘Take a look at the mother before committing,’ was the general advice. ‘These young gels have a habit of turning into ’em.’
‘Ah,’ said the man with his sights set on Miss Teddington’s dowry.
Ellery leaned back in his chair and let the conversation flow around him, taking little part in it and instead wondering what Isolda Crawley was doing at that precise moment.
Chapter Seven
‘But why, Isolda. Why did the earl ignore me?’ Jane asked for the tenth time, stamping her little foot, her tantrum in full swing. ‘I cannot understand it.’ She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. ‘Unless you said something to deter him.’
‘Perhaps he sensed your habit of sulking when you don’t get your way,’ Mrs Compton said, her back to the girls as she stirred something that smelled enticing as it bubbled away on the range.
‘I do not sulk, Mrs C!’ Jane said hotly, stamping her foot once more in contradiction to her claim. ‘He is fearful handsome,’ Jane added, ‘but whatever can he have thought of us living in this hovel?’
‘If he didn’t like it, he still stayed long enough,’ Mrs Compton remarked.
‘Yes, what in Heaven’s name did you find to talk about?’ Jane asked.
Isolda waved the question aside. ‘Nothing that would interest you.’
‘And why did he ask you to walk him to his horse?’ Jane wrinkled her brow, genuinely confused by the earl’s preference for Isolda. ‘You ought to be ashamed, looking so…well, so ramshackle,’ she said, treating Isolda’s admittedly dishevelled person to a scathing look.
‘It’s one of life’s mysteries,’ Isolda said, weary of the subject but sharing a smile with Mrs Compton nonetheless. It was rare for Isolda to eclipse her sister in the eyes of any man, much less one as prepossessing as the earl, and she would be deceiving herself if she pretended not to enjoy the experience. ‘Don’t let it tax you, Jane. You are right to say that we are in no position to receive gentry and I doubt we shall see him again. He was merely being polite in rescuing me. Well, in fairness, he was partially responsible for my accident, so I expect he felt obliged.’
‘Oh I’m sure that’s all it was.’ Jane seemed relieved to have hit upon an explanation that salved her wounded pride. ‘You must drop him a note and thank him. It will remind him we are here and perhaps his mama will call.’ Jane cast a look around the kitchen, their only half-respectable room, and pouted. ‘How soon will the parlour roof be fixed?’ she asked disingenuously.
‘I don’t suppose there’s the slightest possibility of some hot water for a bath, Mrs C?’ Isolda asked, stretching and withstanding the protest raised by all the aches and pains resulting from her accident.
‘Of course there is, lamb.’ Mrs Compton pointed to the small room off the kitchen where the tin bath was kept. ‘You get yourself in there and strip off and I’ll have the bath filled as quick as you like.’
A bath was a rare luxury that Isolda felt she had earned; an opportunity to relax, forget her responsibilities for a short time and reflect. She leaned back in the warm water and closed her eyes, reliving her time with the earl. Re-examining every word he had spoken; every nuance, every change in his expression, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled—which he did a great deal. She knew without…well, without knowing why that he had been more relaxed with her than was customary for a man with so many responsibilities. It would explain why he had tarried for so long. That and because for some inexplicable reason he found their basic living conditions relaxing andhe wanted to be sure that she wasn’t in league with Lord Brooke.
That very real possibility brought her pleasant speculations crashing in on her, to be replaced by reality. The water had cooled and her fingertips were in danger of wrinkling, so she stepped reluctantly from the bath and wrapped herself in the towel that Mrs Compton had left out for her. She could hear that lady talking to Jane in the kitchen beyond and Jane’s monosyllabic responses. Her sister was in a fractious mood, which spelt trouble. She would be argumentative for the rest of the day and would pick a fight just for the fun of it.
Sighing, Isolda scurried off to her room, draped in a towel, in order to dress. It would be a long evening.
Longer than she had anticipated, she realised, when she emerged from her room, respectably clothed in a serviceable gown that had seen better days. She heard Jane’s laughter. Relieved that her sister’s fit of pique had evaporated, her pleasure was short lived when she detected the deep rumble of a male voice.
Lord Brooke’s voice.
‘What the devil is he doing here?’ she asked Brutus, who had curled up on Isolda’s bed.
Part of Isolda wanted to leave Jane and Brooke to it, but she knew that would be dangerous, especially following her conversation with Lord Finchdean regarding that gentleman’s hidden agenda.
Could it be a coincidence that both gentlemen had graced Rose Cottage with their presence in the same day? Was she being watched? The possibility made her shudder.
With a sigh, Isolda drew a deep breath, plastered a smile on her face and walked into the kitchen with Brutus dancing around her ankles.
‘Lord Brooke,’ she affected surprise. ‘This is an unexpected treat. We did not know that we would enjoy the pleasure of receiving you today, or indeed at all.’
Brutus snarled and attacked the tassels on Lord Brooke’s boots.
If Isolda’s mild reprimand registered with Lord Brooke—a gentleman simply did not call upon unmarried ladies without first requesting permission—he gave no indication. Instead he took Isolda’s outstretched hand in his, kissing the back of it. Isolda resisted the urge to wipe it down the side of her gown when he released it again.
