Page 32 of A Duchess of Mystery (The Mismatched Lovers #3)
R ichard watched Isabella depart with the two younger Brocklebank girls with a wry smile.
How typical of her to find an excuse to shrug off her duties as hostess and escape.
With a silent sigh, he turned his attention, with a little trepidation, to the girls’ sister and parents, and the object of Isabella’s hatred, Lady Dangerfield.
Not that the woman had been included in the invitation he’d had Philip Sanders send out over a week ago.
No chance of that, as they’d been working from a list of invitees provided by Isabella and Dora.
Of course, he’d unofficially met Lady Dangerfield in that dressmaker’s in Newbury, but at the time, unaware of the reason for Isabella’s hatred, he’d not taken nearly as much notice of her as he was doing right now.
He’d been too amused by Isabella’s catty putdowns of the woman and obvious dislike of her.
Now he knew more about their history, he regarded her with a lot more curiosity.
Dora, he noted, had a mulish expression on her face, but whether it was due to the blue gown she’d been coerced into, Isabella’s sneaky departure, or her disapproval of this uninvited guest, he couldn’t be sure. It could well have been all three.
“Your Grace,” Lady Dangerfield purred at him.
Good heavens. Did she talk like this all the time?
Obviously not, because he’d already seen the unpleasant manner in which she’d spoken to Isabella.
Most likely she reserved this particular tone of voice for gentlemen.
Well, it wasn’t going to work with him. Even if he’d been susceptible to her all-too-obvious charms, he would not have wanted to hurt Isabella’s feelings by succumbing to them, even for a moment.
Beside Isabella, which thankfully she wasn’t at this moment, she looked what she was—an ageing courtesan, long past the flower of her youth.
A courtesan indeed. She might be a lady by title, but that didn’t have to also be a description of her.
Oblivious to his internal condemnation of her, Lady Dangerfield extended an elegant, gloved hand, and he was obliged to take it in his and kiss it, making the brush of his lips on her glove as perfunctory as possible.
“Lady Dangerfield, how nice that you could accompany the Brocklebanks. This is a pleasant surprise.” At least Isabella wasn’t able to hear him being mendaciously polite to her, although why he should be bothered what she thought of his actions, he still wasn’t quite sure.
He only knew that he was bothered, and the happiness of Isabella, no matter how difficult, capricious, and determined she could be, was of great importance to him.
Lady Dangerfield batted her eyelashes in the most obvious of manners and he couldn’t miss the sharp intake of angry breath from Dora. Good God, was he spied on from all sides? Could he do no right?
Lady Dangerfield either didn’t hear Dora or had decided to ignore her. “How could I resist an invitation to meet a newly minted and extremely handsome duke?”
Hard to place her age, but he suspected she must be a lot older than she looked.
Older than he was, that was for sure, and older than Marcus had been.
No gray hairs as yet in her lustrous chestnut locks, although she might have had her maid excise them, but small lines radiated from around her eyes that not even judicious application of powder and paint could disguise.
Yet she was undeniably beautiful, in an overblown way that was nothing compared to the fresh beauty Isabella possessed.
No surprise that his cousin, who’d from an early age been drawn to older women, starting with the servant girls, had fallen for her charms. Although…
with the possibility of a woman like Isabella in his bed every night, why had Marcus even felt the need to stray?
Richard was well aware that many men, many happily married men, kept mistresses as well as wives, as if it were de rigueur.
And yet, having seen Isabella tricked out in all her finery, he couldn’t help but wonder what had gone on between her and Marcus that had driven them apart, and Marcus into the arms of another.
Even though he knew what Marcus was like, he still couldn’t quite find it in himself to believe maturity hadn’t changed his cousin for the better. Even though it clearly hadn’t.
There was nothing much he could say in reply to such a gushing compliment about his looks from a lady.
“You are too kind,” was about all he could muster.
If she thought she was going to worm her way into his affections through flattery, she was deluded.
What might have worked on Marcus was not going to work with him.
She smiled, her tongue darting out to lick her lips in a most suggestive manner.
“Although, of course, we already encountered one another in slightly awkward circumstances at that provincial dressmaker’s, did we not?
I must apologize for my precipitate departure from that establishment.
It was not you who caused that but your choice of…
company.” She ran her eyes up and down his body as if assessing a prize stallion.
If he hadn’t known her history, he might have begun to feel hot under his collar.
As it was, though, a sense of disgust began to trickle through him. He did not like this woman one bit.
This was quickly followed by a desperate wish to be rescued from her clutches.
Providence provided his escape as a second carriage rumbled in to replace the first. Atkins leaned in close, his voice low. “The Earl and Countess of Manville are just arriving, Your Grace.”
Richard heaved an inward sigh of relief. “Perhaps, Lady Dangerfield, you would like to accompany Lord and Lady Brocklebank into the drawing room. My duties as host tonight must, I’m afraid, impose on our conversation. Perhaps we can continue it later?”
Not if he could help it.
Thankfully, the Brocklebanks were well versed in the etiquette of receptions and could be relied upon to know the part they had to play, even if he was only learning his.
Their whole party did as it was bid, with obliging smiles and many bows and curtsies.
He watched their departure for a moment, with the older Brocklebank girl following her stately galleon of a mother like some small outrigger.
Lady Brocklebank was gazing about herself in avid curiosity, no doubt at being inside so notorious a house that might have hosted a murder, but Lady Dangerfield had about her an air of familiarity as though she considered Stourbridge part of her own domain.
A pity the absent Lord Dangerfield wasn’t here.
She certainly needed the heavy hand of a husband to keep her in line more than most women he’d encountered.
Pushing those thoughts to one side, he turned to greet his new guests, acutely aware that Isabella should be by his side to do the same but had somehow escaped.
However, he had Dora in her place, and, as if she guessed his nervousness, she gave him a quick reassuring smile as the Manvilles headed their way.
In the drawing room Isabella was in the unhappy process of discovering that Imogen and Cecilia Worthing were as empty headed as a pair of chickens.
Rather a let down, as she’d initially assumed them to have more to them than this.
But no, two more feather-brained young ladies it would have been hard to find, and, as Isabella was not blessed with any degree of patience, she was fast becoming annoyed with them.
Like so many other young ladies, all they seemed to want to talk about was clothes and what they would wear when they made their debut at the start of the next Season, and how many handsome men they could expect to come calling on them, and what fun they would have.
Not that clothes didn’t interest Isabella, because they did.
However, she had no desire to talk about them other than to remark on what other ladies were wearing.
And as the only other ladies present so far were Lady Brocklebank, the twins’ older sister, and the ghastly Lady Dangerfield, even she drew the line about sharing her opinion of those ladies for fear of offending her new companions.
Especially as anything she could have said would have been unflattering in the extreme.
As the white-haired Earl of Manville and his new young countess, who could hardly be much older than Imogen and Cecilia, entered the room and one of the footmen supplied them with glasses of ratafia, she excused herself and made a beeline for Lord Brocklebank.
What better way of annoying his wife than some healthy flirting with her husband, even though he was not in the least bit attractive?
Although her son, Giles, would have been more fun, as Lady Brocklebank would have been suspicious that Isabella intended him as her next husband.
But as Giles was not here, his father would have to do.
“Lord Brocklebank,” Isabella said, smiling her most ingenuous smile, one that so often got her just what she wanted. “I declare that you look younger every time I see you. You must share with me your secret—an elixir you imbibe daily, perhaps?”
She had prior experience of Henry Worthing, Viscount Brocklebank, and his susceptibility to flattery.
It worked. Again. He puffed out his chest at her flattery and ran a self-conscious hand over his thinning hair, which his valet must have spent considerable time arranging to disguise the expanding bald patch.
“And may I say that you look quite charming, Your Grace, as usual. So nice to see you out of mourning at last. I always think it a demmed shame when young ladies like you have to go about swathed in black and are not allowed to have any fun.”