Page 6 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke (Scottish Duchesses #1)

Chapter Five

“ Y e will do yourself proud,” Isobel told her reflection, and picked up her fan and reticule.

She ran a hand down the chiffon Jane had put on her. Pearls were threaded through her auburn hair, glinting in the light, and pink silk gleamed on the bodice, matching the shade of her gloves. Scottish thistles, the pink flowers blooming, had been embroidered on the hem.

She felt almost at her finest, and although she had not taken many dresses with her, she found herself relieved that she had at least selected that one.

Holding her head high, she made her way down the large stairway just as Eliza and her mother, Lady Northley, were announced.

Eliza was dressed in a blue silk gown with white gloves, looking fresh and pretty.

Beside her, her mother, an abnormally tall woman, loomed.

She had the same blonde hair as Eliza, although hers was now streaked with gray, but her expression made Isobel feel as though the woman had seen an unwelcome rodent.

Isobel straightened her shoulders.

“Lady Isobel,” Eliza said with a grin, leaning in to kiss Isobel’s cheek. “See, Mama? Is she not beautiful?”

Her mother blinked rapidly many times. “Well—” She pinned her lips together and looked pointedly at the square neckline of Isobel’s decolletage.

Isobel glanced down at herself. To be sure, her dress showed a little chest, as did Eliza’s, but it was perfectly acceptable in an evening dress.

To her irritation, quick steps sounded on the corridor beside the hallway, and the duke came into view.

His gaze landed on Isobel’s, and she thought she saw a flash of something in his eyes.

Heat, hunger, as though he had been starving and had just witnessed a feast. Her skin felt scorched and sensitized, as though he had exposed her to a flame—and it ought to have hurt, but instead, she prickled with intrigue.

His gaze drifted to her decolletage, and she wondered briefly if she had too much exposed.

“Adrian,” Eliza said, kissing his cheek, too. He started, looking at her as though he had forgotten she was there. His familiar scowl crept back into place. “Have you come to see Lady Isobel off? Is she not lovely?”

The duke grunted.

Lady Northley fanned her ample breast with a nervous motion. “Lady Isobel,” she said. “Is it true you are a… Scot?”

Would she rather I were French or a peasant?

“Yes, ma’am,” Isobel said aloud. “Don’t worry, I don’t mind.”

She flinched as though Isobel had said the exact opposite. “Dearie me,” she muttered. “Dearie me.”

“Don’t tease her, Lady Isobel,” the duke said, the heat gone from his expression as though it had never happened. “She will not be able to tolerate your jokes as well as I can.”

Isobel raised her brows. “Truly, Yer Grace? I hadn’t thought ye were so fond of me.”

His expression shuttered still further, if that were possible. “Be off with you. Thank you for taking her with you, Lady Northley.”

“Oh, well, dearest Eliza asked me, and I could hardly deny her.”

“That is precisely the problem,” he muttered so quietly under his breath that Isobel thought she might be the only one of them who had heard the comment.

“Well, girls, we had better leave so we’re not late,” Lady Northley said, casting another apprehensive glance at Isobel.

Although her instinct was to frighten the other lady for being so easily scared, she decided against it for Eliza’s sake. Besides, she needed an excuse to escape the duke’s house and the strange intensity of his gaze. The one she hated.

Eliza linked her arm through Isobel’s. “I already know we’re going to be the best of friends,” she whispered as they reached their carriage. “Don’t mind Mother. She suffers from her nerves, you know. And she was alarmed to hear you were from Scotland.”

“I thought ye said your governess was Scottish?”

“Oh, she was, but the idea of ladies coming from a land of savages is harder to accept.” She rolled her eyes, and Isobel released a long breath.

Plenty of Englishmen held that assumption about Scotland—that because once it had been filled with clans and kilts, they were uncivilized.

Well, she would show them that she, at least, knew civility, even if she rarely chose to employ it.

The soiree was held at a large townhouse, and Isobel immediately had the impression that the location—and event itself—was extremely exclusive. No wonder Lady Northley had been so nervous about introducing Isobel to the ton today, uninvited and unknown.

Determined to please, Isobel fixed a smile on her face and curtsied low when Lady Northley explained that she was visiting from Scotland and had connections to the Duchess of Somerset. Lady Rothbury could say nothing to that, although her lip curled at the sound of Isobel’s accent.

There was also the matter of her hair, Isobel thought ruefully. Red hair and freckles were hardly a common combination, especially amongst the ladies of the ton. If her accent were not enough, her complexion would be enough to set her aside from the other ladies present.

“Well,” Lady Rothbury said in an Arctic voice that more than hinted at her displeasure, “of course I could never turn away someone connected to the Duchess of Somerset.”

Eliza beamed. “Of course.”

Lady Rothbury turned away and Eliza led her away to find some lemonade. Isobel felt curious eyes on her as she crossed the large drawing room.

Lady Northley, after bidding Eliza to hold her tongue, allowed herself to be pulled into a conversation with another middle-aged lady.

“Ah, here they come now,” Eliza said as two gentlemen broke off from their groups to approach them. “I knew no lord could have a strange young lady at one of these events and not talk to her.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Isobel muttered before making sure she smiled encouragingly at the first young man who joined them. This was not her favorite way to spend her time, but needs must.

“Lady Isobel, is it?” the first young man said. He wore his hair in the latest fashion and had evidently attempted something ambitious with his cravat. It did not look as though it had gone particularly well. “A Scot?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, dipping into a curtsy.

“Lord Bertram Lancaster,” he said with a small smirk that she knew from experience meant she was supposed to have heard of him. “Although I suppose you’re not familiar with the Lancasters, being as you are from over the border. Who are you familiar with?”

“Sheep,” another young man said and laughed. “I do apologize, my lady. No doubt you have a variety of society in the Highlands. It is the Highlands, am I right?”

“I have spent some time in Edinburgh,” she said, biting her tongue so she did not throw his assumptions back in his face. To Eliza, she added, “ Tha an duine seo na amadan.”

This man is an idiot .

Eliza giggled before saying, in her broken Gaelic, “ Tha iad uile .” They all are .

That made Isobel smile. At least she had one person on her side.

“Do you dance, Lady Isobel?” another of the boys asked her.

His cheeks were a trifle flushed, and Isobel suspected he’d had more than one glass of wine.

There was also brandy served in the card rooms, and she imagined he had indulged prior to coming here.

After all, young bucks had nothing better to do than indulge in all their worst vices and then inflict them upon society.

“I do,” she said.

“Of course she does.” Bertram, Lord Lancaster, nudged his friend. “Every savage can dance.”

Eliza flushed with anger. “Leave her alone.”

“Don’t, Eliza.” Isobel put her hand on her friend’s arm. “I’m sure they mean no harm.”

“Of course not.” The inebriated one swayed a little on his feet. “What I meant to ask was have you ever danced with a human ?”

Her spine went rigid. “As opposed to what?”

“A sheep!” He dissolved into messy laughter. “Or perhaps a pixie. I hear there are plenty there. And Highland cows, although you should watch their horns.”

“I doubt ye know very much about how to use a horn,” she muttered under her breath.

He frowned, obviously having heard a word or two of her comment and being unable to piece it together. She smiled sweetly up at him, resisting the urge to verbally attack him for his rudeness and ignorance.

Scotland was not a land of savages and brutes. They were not Picts with painted faces and bare chests, wielding axes and invading the English. They were British citizens, people making their lives just the same as anyone else.

Just then, the door to the room slammed open. Isobel turned to see the Duke of Somerset stride in, his brow lowered and his movements purposeful.

“Oh my,” Eliza whispered from beside her. “Adrian never attends events like these.”

“I heard a rumor you were staying with the duke,” one of the young gentlemen said. “Did he bring you down from the wilds to tame you?” They sniggered. “You don’t look as though you are easily tamable.”

Isobel glanced over their shoulders to see rage darken the duke’s face as he approached.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said, his voice pure ice.

They froze, shock written across their faces.

And chagrin. “It strikes me that not only do you not have the right to be making personal comments about a lady, one under the patronage of the Duchess of Somerset, but you know very little of which you speak. A lady is not something to be tamed, and neither of you would be capable of the job.” His hard gaze moved from one face to the other.

“Moreover, the fact that a lady is from Scotland, a land with a history as rich and important as our own, puts her at any social disadvantage. She , at least, possesses manners, which you do not.” He glanced from one to the other. “Get out.”

They practically tripped over one another in their urgency to get away.