Miss Isabella Thaws a Frosty Lord(29)

Not when she didn’t trust him sufficiently to agree to dance with him when he asked. Or to confess the truth about her afternoon lying-in, which was anything but. Not when she repeatedly accused him of being nothing more than a dangler, a rakeshame, interested only in a holiday dalliance.

It was time for a change in their circumstances.

Time to convince her of the sincerity of his regard.

Hell, she’d already changed him, Nicholas thought ruefully, barging past the heavy double doors and into the ballroom—wincing when his left hand hit the ornate wood harder than intended—humming a damn Christmas tune!

He’d begun enjoying the gaiety of the season again, enjoying life again, and it was thanks to an unassuming scrap of a woman he no longer wanted to live without.

And it was time she bloody well took him seriously.





Chapter Seven




Isabella—gasp!—Rejects a Festive Offer





Nicholas Michael Henry Winten, Lord Frostwood.

Isabella Jane Winten…Countess of Frostwood.

Lovely ring to it, she thought, envisioning the wondrous future her daughter would have as his bride.

Nicholas…so roguishly handsome, even with that dour frown—the one he had difficulty holding on to when Issybelle was near, she’d noticed.

She also noted how he’d moderated his consumption of spirits after that first night. Most thoughtful of him—one certainly didn’t want their future son-in-law to turn into a corned toss pot!

Aye, most thoughtful.

Even more so was how he forbore mocking her daughter for her most unusual pastime as Isabella’s papa had been wont to do—disagreeable toad.

Also quite unlike the cur she’d been wedded to, when Nicholas barked a command, it was out of habit and a desire for order, not with the intent to feel superior or lord his station over others.

And Nicholas was an earl, Hervey a mere baron. Ha!

Ah yes, she’d be smiling nigh until the wedding. If only she had someone to share her joy with…



“Lord Frostwood? Without doubt I’ve seen—dare I say it?—how pleasant he’s become of late and have you noticed what an attachment he seems to have developed for Isabella?”

“Why certainly! One would have to be blind to miss it.” There was a slight snicker, instantly subdued. “Oh, I did not mean that, truly. She’s a lovely girl but one who best take care ere she lose more than her heart.”

Isabella paused on her way to the ballroom. By now she knew exactly when the musicians started their rehearsal and she’d easily excused herself from an afternoon of charades—a most difficult game, to be sure, when one had only the shouted guesses of others to base their own wild conjectures upon.

Winding through the great manor, she’d come upon Anne’s mother and some of the other women in a side parlor, gossiping over tea and cakes—gossiping over her and Lord Frostwood.

They didn’t know Isabella sufficiently to be concerned about her feelings. Well, perhaps Martha did, Anne’s mama, but it had been a good many years since she’d seen the carefree Isabella who grew up romping with her daughter.

Hovering near the doorway, Isabella couldn’t bring herself to continue on, not yet. She should’ve anticipated something like this…she chose to keep to herself more often than not and rarely joined in large, convivial conversations. When too many people spoke at once, it was simply too much to keep up with, identifying who said what and who was about to jump into the fray, to know when it would be appropriate to add whatever comment might be flitting through her mind.

Compounded by her solitary existence at Spierton, it only made sense she tended to seek the privacy of her own company or that of a single cherished friend rather than actively participate in the larger assemblies.

Justified or not, none of that made hearing comments about her life being bantered about so blithely any easier…though she was curious how others saw her, and how they might view her current association with Lord Frostwood.

Praying no one would cross her path in the hallway, Isabella pressed against the wall, pushed away the guilt, and listened with all her might.

“Lose more than her heart? You don’t mean to imply she’s light-heeled or free with her favors?”

Mistletoe berries aside, she wasn’t…

“Oh, not at all. What I meant was everyone knows how he treated his mother all those years, consigning the poor woman to the country, never bringing her to London and never—”

“Never visiting her, not once!” another voice finished in astonishment. “So cruel! So cold and heartless!”

Someone else put in, “Well, I for one can hardly countenance his reputed treatment of her, not the way Lord and Lady Redford speak so highly of him.”