“Ooo, look yonder, comin’ in from the card room, a veritable bonny tulip among men, that waistcoat is surely the brightest shade of green and yellow paisley I ever did see!” a Scottish neighbor complimented Lord Redford’s visiting cousin Aylmer. ’Twas not the first time his appearance had garnered comments.
“Wears his inexpressibles too tight if you take my meaning,” Anne’s mother huffed, causing Isabella to free a smile. Who needed their own good fortune when they could share in others’?
“Did you notice precisely where the fabric’s come undone?” Harriet asked everyone in a loud whisper. “Between his legs…high on the inside of his left thigh?”
“Harriet! Be gone with you, girl, if you’re so impudent as to mention such a thing!”
Isabella’s smile widened.
“That spot is practically at eye level, Mama, when one is seated as we are. I even believe I can see two hairs peeking—”
Anne gasped to cover a giggle. Her mother squawked and two more women made swooning noises while the rest of them, Isabella included, only laughed out loud.
“I cannot help but notice,” Harriet protested sincerely. “They are right there.”
“Up! Up with you, young lady, and straight to bed!”
Isabella made every attempt to subdue her mirth but failed miserably. Poor Harriet, she didn’t even have the promise of a new kitten to soften the scold that would likely be ringing in her ears the remainder of the night.
Isabella did a quick calculation. Including the frowning newcomer, most all of the anticipated party had arrived—there were to be eighty-eight guests and she’d met eighty or eighty-one…having lost the exact count somewhere between Lady Fairfax and her daughter Uriana—unfortunate girl had a dreadful case of snuffles—and the Gregory brothers, two young gentlemen who both flattered Isabella with Spanish coin until she knew her face must be as red as the satin ribbons Anne told her graced every available surface.
“Miss Isabella,” a precise, clipped voice interrupted the feminine chatter, addressing her directly, “may I have the honor of escorting you to dinner?”
As if conjured by her thoughts, it was one of the Gregory brothers, though she hadn’t made sufficient distinction between them to know which. Concentrating on holding her gaze steady as she and Mama had practiced, Isabella focused on the speaker. “You may indeed, kind sir.”
She rose and, with her steps lighter and more sure than she’d expected weeks ago, made her way from the room on his arm.
Dinner was a bore. Everyone in attendance was a bore.
Hell, he was the bore, Frost realized, noticing the downward turn of his thoughts and forcing his lips into a smile. It felt like a grimace so he tried again, ordering his lips and cheeks to cooperate. He was here after all, he could at least attempt to do the pretty, to act the gentleman.
He’d been told he had adorable dimples, might as well release them for the holiday. His gift, as it were.
Adorable, blast and damn, the bane of every male. As a youth, he’d undergone significant practice to eradicate the dreaded indentations, and by the time he needed to scrape whiskers off his jaw, he’d ruthlessly taught himself how to suppress any hint of a damn dimple, adorable or otherwise.
Draining his wineglass for the seventh time—a number that tended to grow exponentially each year around this particular date—he resolved to ask at least one of the unmarried females to dance that evening. He could do that, could he not—mask his irritation for a single dance during the night’s promised entertainment? Surely he could, he thought with a smile that likely belonged on a hyena. So long as it wasn’t a bloody Christmas song.
Nicholas Winten, Earl of Frostwood…a chilly nomenclature for such a fiery fellow. Cold and unfeeling he might be perceived, but she saw beneath exteriors. Always had—since the day she lost hers.
Anger and resentment simmered below his frosty façade. That and a cartload of hurt. Poor chap, he was taking after his termagant of a mother—the most unpleasant creature to dash across her path in the ether, heading south if the disagreeable cackle and hateful remarks were anything to go by.
But she could sense how his moods were nothing more than contrivances to protect the wounded boy hiding inside. A little boy she suspected Issybelle would know just how to reach—and heal.
The dangling ringlet upon Isabella’s forehead swayed with the motion of her feet. She’d requested the maid arrange it just so, and every light brush was a reminder of how pleasing it was to have her wishes regarded.
Spine flush against the wall, Isabella’s toes rose and fell in time with the lively music. Her right hand, snug upon the strap of her fan, tapped against her thigh in tandem with her dancing toes. She itched to be alone. To indulge in her one vulgar pastime—or so Father labeled it, saying the habit made her look no better than a “bingo mort”, a female drunkard—the activity that had earned her more than one bruised shin and worse, Father’s further disdain. But all the same, the obsession beckoned.