Page 21 of The Lover’s Eye

An invisible band of tension formed around Isobel’s head as Betsey curled her hair and helped her dress for dinner.

She had lost all her energy to irritation and fear—her interaction with Lord Trevelyan and Marriane’s harbinger of bad news made for a suffocating combination. Isobel despised how sensitive she was.

The letter of rejection did not change much. She had already made up her mind; regardless of what her father, sister, or anyone else said, she would not marry Elias. She could devolve into spinsterhood and use her respectable name to procure employment as a governess or a lady’s companion.

As for Lord Trevelyan, it mattered naught what he thought of her. She handled scorn from other people well enough, did she not? She would return his blasted book and have done with him.

Even as she made these private, impassioned declarations, her chest ached.

Beneath it all, she understood the letter and the sour conversation were killing something good in her.

Her girlish hope. Her irrational dreams of a happy marriage.

She hadn’t realized the full scope of that grief before; how fully some small part of her had believed it possible.

Now, Isobel was forced to confront the idea that she would always be alone. It was an awful, blistering pain.

“You look lovely, miss,” Betsey said, patting Isobel lightly on the shoulder.

She had selected the silk evening gown. Its beauty rested in its simplicity—the fine stitchwork and perfectly flat seams, the glossy fabric a shade of such pale, shimmering olive, it almost appeared silver in the light.

“Will you be going down to the drawing room to keep Lord Trevelyan company?”

Isobel shot her a look. “He’s already here?”

“Yes, miss. I believe he’s been here a good while, waitin’ alone.”

Isobel had the silly urge to hop out of her chair and run to him, hoping for another of their sweet, private moments. She squashed the idea, recalling, for the hundredth time, the events of that morning. “I’d like a moment to myself. Thank you, Betsey.”

The door clicked shut, and Isobel heard her breathing change. Deeper inhalations, more labored. More nervous. She pushed aside the carefully arranged tendril curls to massage her temples. No use in waiting.

It would be far easier to return Trevelyan’s book without Pemberton or Marriane lording over them. Before she could give pause to doubt, Isobel rose and went to her trunk, drawing out the wrapped parcel. She squared her shoulders and strode toward the drawing room.

Her pace maintained its confident strength as she crossed the threshold, not faltering even as she saw him there, lounging in an overstuffed chintz chair.

He looked so infuriatingly at his ease, his legs stretched out before him and his hands cradling a book.

Of course, she thought. Damn him. It was impossible to find him anything but excruciatingly attractive.

He turned his head, hearing her approach, and the change she affected in him made her stop. His eyes brightened and he rose in an instant, his body all alertness and regard. Why could he not be like Pemberton or Elias, and barely notice her entry into a room?

Isobel cleared her throat gently, forcing herself to close the short distance between them. She gripped the edges of the wrapped book so tightly, the paper tore. Trevelyan did not seem to notice.

“Good evening, Miss Ridgeway,” he said, bowing.

“Good evening.” His name was on the tip of her tongue, but her mouth was suddenly dry, and she felt the danger of saying more than was necessary. “I wished to return this to you.”

He looked down at the offering she extended, but ignored it. His eyes returned to her face, and he took a step nearer, forcing her to lower the book and make more room for him.

“About this morning,” he said, sounding as unsure of himself as she felt, “I … had not expected to see you.”

A wondrous apology, Isobel thought scornfully. She latched onto its insufficiency with undue strength, using it as a reason to keep her guard up. It would have been so shockingly easy to let it down.

“And I did not expect you to be dining with us tonight,” she said. She could have sworn his cheeks turned pink.

He placed his hands on the book, but aligned them over hers. Isobel drew in a shocked breath at the brush of his bare fingers, warm and faintly calloused. Just as she’d imagine they would feel. Somehow, that made it worse. As if maybe all her other lofty imaginings about him could be proven true.

“I wanted to see you again,” he said. “To have the opportunity to—”

“Do you realize why I am here?” Isobel asked suddenly, stepping back and out of his touch, leaving the book in his hands.

Her fingers seemed to sting where he had touched them.

“Because my sister intends to give me a Season. Therefore, a man so consumed by propriety as you are, must understand the perfect impropriety of my being here, alone with you.”

To her chagrin, Trevelyan gave a breathless laugh, as though he enjoyed her spirited outburst. “I deserve that. If I reminded you of the time we spent alone in winter, could I convince you to remain in my company for a few minutes longer?”

She did not need to be reminded. Isobel had lived those sweetened moments over and over again in the tortuous privacy of her mind. She did not need this towering man in his perfect black evening kit to shove the thorn deeper.

“I …” Isobel had to break his gaze to speak efficiently. Her neck burned, her head pounded, and she wished she had another dratted pillow to throw. “… Will see you at the dinner table, Lord Trevelyan.”

Without a backward glance, she stole from the room, her fingers still simmering with his imprint.

?

Isobel watched Trevelyan with keen interest, her eyes an absorptive sponge to detail.

He had entered the dining room in measured strides, his large hands folded behind him.

His posture was immaculate, the straight line of his back sharp as a knife’s blade, its contours made clear by whatever exquisite tailor stitched that black coat.

Whatever unseen powers had seated them side by side some months earlier now saw fit to seat them across from one another.

Isobel blew out a relieved breath. She was not comfortable in his presence, but found it much easier to be at an observer’s distance, rather than a conversational closeness.

Never mind that there had been earlier moments when she’d felt at ease with Trevelyan; perhaps more at ease than she’d ever felt with anyone.

Pemberton was in a talkative mood, invigorated by the warm weather and a successful morning at sea.

He kept his friend constantly engaged, not so much in conversation as in demanded listening.

“I am of the opinion we have gotten too much away from man’s true nature.

On a very primal level men need to provide, and not be so petted—”

Isobel ducked her chin, taming down the corners of her lips, and speared another flaky morsel of Pemberton’s halibut. The act of participating in his family’s supper always left his ego fit to bursting.

She was thankful for the distracting rumble of his talking, however. It filled the little gaps of silence with all the pliability of wet plaster; created enough output in the air to distract from the tension pulling at either side of the table, stretching between herself and Trevelyan.

The masculine banter allowed time for Marriane and Isobel to talk quietly amongst themselves.

Marriane led the conversation, centering it around Isobel’s presumptive Season.

It seemed the first letter of rejection only intensified her nervous fixation on the subject, as if she could speak success into existence.

Isobel strained to listen. She tried to catalogue the rules of etiquette and decorum being rattled off to her, to cement her focus on the Season and the marriage mart and her own match. But some deep call in her breast pulled her attention across the table.

She ached to keep Trevelyan within her gaze, to study the lobelia blue of his eyes and wager what thoughts lay behind them.

The silvery strands mixed among his black curls glistened like hoarfrost in the candlelight.

Everything about him was classically handsome, down to the vertical line in his chin, its faint depression emphasized by the evening’s shadows.

He shifted in his seat. He had readjusted his silken white cravat twice, now, and began turning his glass methodically between his fingertips.

“Isobel?”

Isobel nearly jumped, but composed herself. Marriane was looking at her with large eyes and a creased forehead. “Yes?”

“You did not hear me at all, did you?”

Isobel took a long sip from her glass. “Yes, of course I heard you. I will not have any garments made up in the shade puce.”

Marriane gave an exasperated sigh. “That was ages ago! I was saying how terribly I wish to hear music again. You cannot understand how lovely it is in London, the talent of the musicians playing at each engagement, and …”

Isobel had been successfully resisting the impulse to look at Trevelyan, but she felt his gaze hovering about her now with all the subtlety of a steaming hot rag. It seemed to stifle the air she breathed and burn her flesh. She looked across the table.

Etched in Trevelyan’s gaze was the same look she had seen that morning. Not the cold appraisal, but the shocking warmth that had presented itself in the first, brief second he had seen her approaching. She knew she should look away, but she couldn’t.

“Time for port!” Pemberton bellowed, breaking the idleness of the table. The intense, unspoken burden between them died along with it.