Page 48 of One Night of Surrender
“Thank you.I understand you are going to Oxford tomorrow.”
They were going to discuss that here?Isabelle glanced about.It wasn’t as if anyone could hear them over the music and conversation, even if they were staring.
“Yes.Mrs.Featherstone invited me.She is considering retirement.It’s possible a year from now I could be headmistress of my own school.”She looked at him sideways, waiting for his reaction.
“That’s precisely what you wanted.”He didn’t sound nearly as enthusiastic as he should, but then, she didn’t feel nearly as enthusiastic assheshould.
“Yes.”
The music finished, and he stopped, turning toward her.“Are you ready to dance?”
“No, but I will try.Have a care for your feet.”
His lips spread in a grin that made her heart flip over.“Do your worst.”
He led her onto the dance floor.“It’s a waltz.Do you know the steps?”
“Barely.”Viola had given her a cursory overview, but Isabelle had never seen it, let alone danced it.
“While you will likely have more occasion to destroy my feet in a waltz, I will also be able to guide you more carefully than in a country dance.Ready?”He gently clasped either side of her waist while she placed her hands on his shoulders.It was an alarmingly intimate dance meant to be tempered by holding each other at arm’s length.However, Isabelle was far too keenly aware of his touch and where it could lead were they not in the middle of the most popular Society location in London.
Why oh why had she agreed to this?
Then the music started, and he swept her in elegant circles.The light sparkled around her, and the music hummed through her body.She was suddenly very glad she’d come.
She immersed herself in the gaiety and splendor surrounding them, laughing as she stepped on his foot for the third time.He grinned in response, seeming to be having as wonderful a time as she was.Then she began to feel a bit dizzy and, laughing, asked if they could slow down.
“I will go at whatever speed you decree.”He moved her out of the way of other spinning couples so they could twirl at a more sedate pace.When the music came to a close, she found she couldn’t stop smiling.
“You enjoyed that,” he said, his green eyes twinkling beneath the chandeliers.
“More than I ever imagined.”Whatever happened, she had no regrets.Tonight, she’d danced in the arms of the only man she’d ever loved, and nothing in the rest of her days would compare.
He offered his arm once more, and she took it, sorry that the dance was over.“I am going to leave now, but I will call on you tomorrow.”
Reality tore the veil of her dream.“I’m going to Oxford tomorrow.”
He looked down at her as they made their way toward the dowager.“Are you still?”He sounded a bit…surprised?
She hadn’t thought about not going.Did this mean—?She had no idea what it meant, nor could she ask him to explain in the middle of Almack’s when they were a dozen steps from his grandmother.
“I think so,” she said, feeling utterly confused.What was happening here?
They’d arrived at the dowager’s sofa.He took her hand and kissed the back.“I’ll call on you tomorrow.Early.”
He said good night to his grandmother and left, cutting a swath through the people who gawked as he strode by.
“Now you may sit,” the dowager said, indicating the space next to her.Another woman sat at the other end of the sofa, but she was speaking with someone seated on the adjacent sofa.
Isabelle slowly sank down beside the dowager and allowed the dream to envelop her once more as she lost sight of Val’s departing back.
The dowager leaned toward her.“I know you don’t understand Society, so allow me to explain what has happened.The Duke of Eastleigh is an unmarried man in want of a wife.He came to Almack’s,thedefinitive Marriage Mart in London, a destination he never frequents, and danced the waltz with precisely one woman:you.Then he left.He spoke to no one, and barely reserved more than a handful of words for me.”
Isabelle’s pulse couldn’t seem to regain a normal pace at all since she’d arrived.“I see.”She didn’t really, but also didn’t want to aggravate the dowager.
“You will not be asked to dance again because it seems clear Eastleigh has singled you out, and because you are sitting with me.I frighten some people—those people are generally fools.People, and not just the fools, are now wondering if you will become the next Duchess of Eastleigh.Idiotic wagers may even be taking place.”
One visit to Almack’s and one dance, and she was precisely where she’d never wanted to be: at the heart of Society’s gossip.She shifted uncomfortably.“You’re saying the expectation is for me to marry him.But he hasn’t even asked me.”Only he had, and she’d refused him.And he was going to call on her tomorrow.
