Page 16 of The Lover’s Eye

Three weeks later

Isobel felt exposed the moment her cape was taken at the Everly’s door. The cool April air circulated in the entry hall, raising gooseflesh above her low neckline. She was self-conscious, excruciatingly aware of the heavy pendant scraping her throat.

Her papa had given her the necklace to wear, and even his gruff manner could not conceal the significance of the piece. It had been her mother’s. The gold neck chain drooped with the weight of seven opals, arranged around a hand painted miniature of Lord Ridgeway’s eye.

Isobel had never worn it before and had only seen it a few times in her life, when her father brought it down from his special hiding place. The only other time she had seen it worn was around Marriane’s neck—to the last ball she attended before her engagement to Pemberton.

Knowing her papa treated the piece as some sort of sober farewell to his daughters’ innocence made it feel obstructive, not sentimental. And, truthfully, Isobel found the lover’s eye trend ghastly. She would have preferred a full miniature. A pleasant, identifiable face. No mystery, no intrigue.

Isobel and Elias were being greeted by their hostess, whose eyes twinkled veritably. This look, and the high compliments Lady Everly levelled at the young couple, only made Isobel more nervous. She felt as if someone were tightlacing her stays until they stole all but a thin thread of her breath.

Lady Everly knew, the necklace knew, everyone and everything knew. There was a cloying congratulatory air around every turn; Isobel may as well have been wearing a stone from Elias Sempill on her finger.

“You do look beautiful,” he said, lowering his mouth to Isobel’s ear as they wove through the crush of people and toward the ballroom.

It was a compliment as dry and common as a loaf of burnt bread, and tasted as bitter to Isobel, too. She elected not to answer. Heaven knows it would not be the first time she had ignored Elias tonight.

She had held true to her word and not entertained the Sempills a day in the four weeks since Elias had behaved so brutishly with her in the woods.

She had pled megrims and stomachaches and simple fatigue on every occasion the Sempills had dared to show their faces at Ridgeway House.

She had barely interacted with her father aside from mealtimes, preferring to stay locked up in her room, reading and scribbling notations into the commonplace book Lord Trevelyan had given her.

The mere thought of him made her eyes flit across the crowded room.

He had possessed such exact knowledge of this event, and Isobel had caught herself wondering time and time again if he would be in attendance.

Not that she could enjoy his presence, if he were.

She would be glued to Elias’s arm the whole of the night.

It was what she had to do—survive it, and she could climb into the coach tomorrow morning and flee for Northumberland.

Remarkably, her blatant renunciation of the Sempills didn’t seem to trouble anyone overmuch. They still expected she would give them the only thing they desired more than her acquiescing disposition, and marry Elias sooner or later.

No doubt their tongues been wagging far and wide, if the reception from Lady Everly was any indication. Every eye that fell on them was curious, glimmering with quiet approval. Isobel could almost read their thoughts. A fine match. A handsome couple. A favorable pairing for both families.

Her strength lay in her secret: she was not going to return from Northumberland.

The air inside the ballroom was nothing like that of the open doors.

It was thick and humid with the exhalations of so many lungs, smelling more of spirits and perspiration than of perfume and pomade.

Isobel flicked open her carved ivory fan, beating it in front of her face until the black ringlets trembled at her cheekbones.

“I thought you just said you were cold,” Elias said.

“And now I am hot,” she replied curtly, not looking at him.

Strains of music bled over the room and above the swimming heads of attendees. Monstrous arrangements of flowers, raised in hot houses, were situated in every corner and littered upon every surface.

Isobel usually loved the blooms, but seeing their severed stems and smelling their powdery saccharinity did nothing for her. She wanted to see them flourish in the open garden, coaxed to life by the sun and left to prosper.

A country dance was being called by the Master of Ceremonies, and she was obliged to follow Elias out onto the waxen floor.

Dancing couples surrounded them, and beyond, rows of people clustered the walls.

Everything was hot. The embroidered hem of her neckline and sleeves scratched against her skin.

She wanted nothing more than to go home, but Elias was taking her hands.

She was thankful for the thick barrier of her long kid gloves; she might have fainted if she had to feel his skin against hers again.

His sharp blue eyes searched her face. Had he said something?

She had barely looked at him until now, and their new closeness brought back the memory of his unwelcome advances with wretched clarity. She hastened to look away, her heart pulsing with obnoxious strength.

If Elias had said something, he didn’t repeat it. But Isobel had missed the communication of figure sequences she was supposed to be dancing. She stumbled through the first few with unconcealable awkwardness, her white satin slippers landing on her partner’s toes more than once.

Embarrassment tingled all the way to her hairline, and she managed to get through the figures only by observing the other couples and absorbing hissed instructions from Elias. When the dance at last concluded, she struggled to draw sufficient breath.

“I need to sit.”

Only after Isobel had made the request did she realize she would be taken directly to Lady Sempill’s side. She rallied quickly, asking Elias if she might stop short and sit with some other ladies of her acquaintance. “Only for a moment,” she said. “I am feeling a little faint.”

It was not a lie.

“I will find you some refreshment,” he said, leaving her with two dowagers of middle age who were vaguely familiar to her.

Isobel was relieved when the two women bore the brunt of conversation, leaving her only to nod and insert the occasional agreeance.

Her thoughts wandered. She knew Pemberton and Marriane would not be in attendance, citing the distance and her sister’s health.

According to her letters, Marriane was feeling much improved, and only worried such a journey would upset the healthful balance she had worked so hard to achieve.

The guest Isobel was really scanning the crowds for was Lord Trevelyan.

The ghost of him lingered in her mind. It had been over two months since she’d last seen him, since he’d given her his books.

She told herself she wasn’t attached to him, that she only wanted to express her thanks, but the thready rate of her pulse proved otherwise.

She wanted more conversations with him. To breathe in his scent and share his books, to feel like herself and like she had an ally in this world.

It seemed a ridiculous path for her mind to tread, given the serious turn her life had taken.

Lord Trevelyan could not save her. She was in no position to be daydreaming of winter storms and chance.

He had moved on with his life, and she was a lady on a mission: evade marrying Elias Sempill, no matter the cost.

Even if circumstances were different and she met Trevelyan here, he would probably scowl at her, utter a few brief pleasantries, and vanish into a throng of lovelier ladies. They would never get on in true society.

“Have you ever encountered him while visiting your sister?”

One of the ladies was speaking to Isobel. Her mouth opened and closed in temporary bewilderment. “Forgive me,” she said, her gaze flitting between the four expectant eyes fixed on her. “It is so loud—could you repeat it for me?”

“Lord Trevelyan,” the blonde woman said. “Have you ever seen him while about Shoremoss Hall?”

Isobel’s blood suspended in her veins. Good God, have I spoken my thoughts aloud? The inquiring ladies leaned forward with taut interest, and she decided she was only yielding to paranoia. “O-Only briefly,” she said feebly. “I cannot say I am acquainted with him well at all.”

She only hoped her impromptu stay in his home had not reached the general gossip mill.

“It must be true, what they say,” continued the fair-haired lady. “He must be in the deepest mourning still.”

“I could not believe it, when Lady Everly said he sent his regrets. This must be the first Everly Ball he has missed in years.”

The blonde nodded, long and slow with her eyes shut reverently. “Indeed. I can only recall him declining the year his father passed.”

“I guess this was very much the same loss for him. Miss Gouldsmith was to be his wife. She was nearly family, too.” Isobel’s companions turned their attention back to her. “Did you ever see Miss Aurelia Gouldsmith during your visits to Shoremoss Hall?”

“I—No,” Isobel said. There was no use in explaining she had only visited her sister once, well after the disappearance of Trevelyan’s bride.

“We only met her the once. Here, last year, when she arrived on Lord Trevelyan’s arm.

She was lovely as sin.” The lady spoke in sensual tones so soft, Isobel had to lean closer to make out her words.

“She had hair like spun gold, shiny as silk, and a figure said to lure every man in her vicinity to carnal depravity.”

The blonde dowager let out a small, indulgent gasp, and opened her fan. “Lady Anne, my bosom friend, has relations near Cambo. She says the vicar thought it his personal penance to pay, having to rear a daughter with such unruly conduct.”