Page 31 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)

If she’d imagined this sort of a transformation would make him look more like his predecessor, she’d been wrong.

Somehow, despite being attired very much as Marcus had been fond of dressing, Richard had contrived to look quite different to his late cousin.

It was as if his face had changed, and his body had driven the change.

Marcus, at thirty-eight, had been starting to get a small pot belly thanks to his excesses.

Richard had about him a whipcord strength as though not an ounce of fat adhered to him.

For a single moment, the thought that he would look good naked flashed into her head before vanishing.

Not quickly enough. Heat rose from her breasts, up her throat to her cheeks. How vexing.

“Isabella,” Richard said, a smile hovering on his lips as though, heaven forbid, he knew exactly what she was thinking, the admiration still hot in his dark eyes.

Eyes like peaty pools. No, she must stop thinking like that.

Her flirtations had always worked best because despite the ardor of her admirers, her own feelings had never been engaged with any of them.

Richard was just like all the others. Wasn’t he?

She would not allow herself to engage with him other than to hook him like a prize fish.

He took her hands in his. Whatever for? She would have liked to snatch them back, but that would have looked rude. She might be a tease and a flirt, but she was not rude. Not very, anyway. Well… not all that often. She made him a curtsy. “Your Grace.”

Dora moved close enough to whisper. “I wish you had not made me wear this gown. I would rather be in my mourning black still. What will people think of me with my brother hardly cold in his grave?”

Isabella dragged her eyes away from Richard’s.

More difficult than she’d thought it would be.

Damn him. He had no right to have changed the way he looked.

With his appearance too much like Marcus, he’d been easier to disregard.

“Nonsense. Marcus is definitely nicely cold and forgotten. We have a new duke to celebrate, and we can’t be looking like a pair of old crows at his ball.

No one will think badly of you, Dora. You are far too nice for them to do that.

” She tossed her head, wishing with all her heart Dora didn’t look so damned guilty all the time.

Even her eyes looked more sunken and shadowed than usual.

If only she could forget what was past in the same way she, Isabella, could.

“And what do I care if people whisper behind my back? You know I don’t give a jot.

” If she said it enough, it would be true.

Richard at last transferred his grip on her hands and drew her arm through his.

“Come, I think I hear the wheels of a carriage outside on the gravel. Our first guests are arriving.” He smiled at Dora.

“Isabella is correct. No one could possibly think badly of you. And you do look quite beautiful in blue.”

Isabella frowned, a little miffed that he hadn’t said that about her.

She let Richard usher her nearer to the doors, just as Atkins swung them open. Outside, dusk had already fallen and with it had come an unmistakable chill, but lamps flickered in brackets on the pillared portico, and two of the footmen were in place on the steps, resplendent in their best livery.

A large carriage drawn by four matching bays was just circling to a halt on the gravel, the crest on the door announcing that this was the chosen vehicle of the Brocklebanks of Bembridge House, their nearest neighbor.

Having to be polite to Lady Brocklebank still rankled with Isabella after all these years, but they’d had to feature on the list of early invitees due to their close proximity to Stourbridge Park. Unfortunately.

The two liveried footmen riding on the back of the carriage jumped down, one going to hold the leading horse’s head and the other to let down the step and open the carriage door for its occupants.

He offered his hand in support, and the imposing figure of Maria Worthing, Lady Brocklebank, descended to the gravel drive.

Tonight, she’d chosen to bedeck herself in a magnificent gown of the deepest puce, amply embellished with dark green, neither of which choices were flattering to her ample figure.

Her grizzled hair was piled high on her head to give added inches, and decorated with a sizeable, and, in Isabella’s opinion, far too ostentatious, tiara that glittered with diamonds.

Was this in honor of meeting the duke? After all, she did have three daughters of marriageable age, although strictly speaking one was already spoken for.

No doubt she considered that if a better offer came along, that engagement could easily be broken.

However, it was not the daughters who descended behind her. Isabella’s heart skipped an unruly beat as Lady Dangerfield, resplendent in a gown of deep immodest red, stepped onto the gravel with the air of one who thought she should own the castle.

Isabella drew in a steadying breath. Whoever had invited her to the pre-ball reception?

She certainly hadn’t featured on the guest list for either the reception or the ball afterwards, and if anyone had suggested her, Isabella would have put her foot down.

She had to fight to keep her smile, false though it had been in the first place, fixed on her face as Lady Brocklebank passed through the wide-open doors with Lady Dangerfield, stately and superior, on her heels.

She had the look of someone assessing the value of all she beheld. Taking an inventory, perhaps.

“Lady Brocklebank, Your Grace,” Atkins said, and Isabella thought she surmised an expression of distaste in his eyes, quickly hidden, as he, too, spotted Lady Dangerfield.

The senior servants all knew about Marcus’s mistress.

They could hardly have avoided knowing, as he’d brought the creature here to the castle when Isabella had been in Town.

No Lord Dangerfield though. No surprise in that, as he was elderly, gouty, and spent most of his time at his estate in Warwickshire, hunting and shooting, which had led to the ease with which his wife had been able to carry on her affair with Marcus in full view of the public eye.

Lady Brocklebank’s husband, the portly viscount, and his three unprepossessing daughters followed the ladies inside. No Giles this time.

Isabella snatched her attention back, with a little difficulty, to her duties as hostess and returned Lady Brocklebank’s curtsy. The one she gave to Lady Dangerfield she kept as minimal as possible, scarcely bending her knees at all. And to be fair, that was all she received in return.

The three girls came forward. Like their mother, they were inclined to plainness, but all possessed a look of pillowy kindness their mother lacked, with wide brown eyes beneath carefully plucked brows and excited but nervous smiles on their faces.

What age were they? Not yet twenty, surely?

And from the look of them, the younger two were twins.

Identical twins. Isabella searched her memory but could find nothing in it about them.

Not even their names. Remembering her own debut into society at much the same age, she bestowed her sweetest smile on them, partly out of an impulse of generosity but also from a desire to snub that dreadful woman.

Lady Brocklebank was concentrating her attentions on Richard.

“This is my oldest daughter still at home. Her sister is now Lady Chase, you know. Honoria, come forward.” Honoria in a gown of pale green that failed to make the most of what bust she possessed, bobbed a polite curtsy to Richard and Isabella, keeping her eyes demurely downcast as an obedient and chaste girl should. Not so her twin sisters.

“And these are my youngest daughters, Imogen and Cecilia.” Their mother gestured them forwards.

They came, giggling with excitement and casting longing eyes over Richard’s person.

They must be as aware as their mother of the attractions of an unmarried duke.

As plain as their more staid sister, these two had the rebellious look about them of girls itching to escape their mother’s apron strings.

“Honoria came out last Season,” their proud mother said. Noticeable that she hadn’t mentioned Honoria’s engagement. “And both Imogen and Cecilia will be out in the new year. Looking for eligible husbands.”

As if any girl coming out in Town would not be.

Silly woman. She couldn’t have been more explicit if she’d tried.

Clearly she was of the opinion that as she possessed three marriageable daughters, she was in with three chances of a daughter as a duchess.

Isabella recognized the look in Lady Brocklebank’s eyes.

It was just like her father’s had been. She had to feel sorry for the three girls.

If only someone had felt the same about her and rescued her before Marcus had got his claws into her.

“I’m so pleased your mama has brought you,” Isabella said, glad that she now had their names. “It’s a shame that we are such close neighbors, and yet we have never been properly introduced.”

All three girls’ eyes widened as though in shock, although both the twins also managed to look suitably impressed.

Those were definitely naughty twinkles she saw in their eyes.

Good luck to her mother in the new year trying to keep a watch over these two with all the young men likely to recognize those twinkles as the light of encouragement.

What had their mother told them about her?

Nothing good, she’d wager. She continued to smile, relishing how that lady would be annoyed if she were to make friends with her daughters, especially these younger two.

“Come, let us go into the drawing room and take a glass of ratafia.” Holding out her arms for the twins to link with, she whisked them off into the drawing room, a feeling of smug satisfaction coursing through her, abandoning Richard to reception duties alone.

The much more strait-laced-looking Honoria remained resolutely at her mother’s side.

Isabella felt smug. She might have a reputation as a woman who preferred men, preferably those already married, but she could also be as nice as the next person, and she intended to allow that side of her personality free rein this evening. For a while, at least.

The thought arose that if Richard were to choose one of these two plain but rebellious girls as a wife, she might not be able to mold them to her own design.

She brushed it away with confidence. No, these girls were not ones she would choose for him.

The fact that she might not be able to find any suitable girl she acknowledged with a small smile.

As far as she was concerned, he could stay a bachelor forever.