His fingers opened stiffly, letting go of hers one by one. “Goodbye.”
As the front door closed behind her, Lucy pushed the perambulator in the direction of Seven Dover Street. Isabel hummed inside. If his farewell handshake was an indication of the way he felt toward her, then she would see him again. Soon.
Chapter Six
Isabel lay smiling beneath her white, lacey canopy, absentmindedly running her fingertips over her lips. Ashby had kissed her. She still couldn’t believe it, even after sniffing his masculine scent on her morning gown’s collar. The possibility that he merely gave in to his pent-up lust was inconceivable. He kissed her as though the world would come to an end if he didn’t.
Feelings were definitely involved or he would have turned to someone more experienced—and less “proper” than herself—to…accommodate him. One did not grow up in a household with two older brothers and not know that there were fancy women out there on the lookout for rich benefactors. Although, in retrospect, perhaps she was not as “proper” as she’d imagined herself to be. Why, if Danielli hadn’t interrupted them, who knows how far her naughtiness would have carried them? It was simply beyond her to preserve any semblance of propriety in this man’s presence. She stretched out on her bed, smiling dreamily. There was only one thing left to do—marry Ashby. The thought sent a jolt of excitement and anticipation through her. After flouting her family’s matchmaking attempts for four years, giving them nothing but excuses and grief, she was practically drooling over the notion of marriage. Marriage to Ashby.
Her bedchamber door slammed open, and her fifteen-year-old twin sisters pranced inside. “Izzy, come quick!” Freddy exclaimed. “You’ll never guess—”
“What?” Isabel scrambled off the bed, her heart beating a fast tattoo. Was he here? Had he come already? She checked her image in the dressing mirror and flounced after her sisters all the way down to the downstairs hallway, where Norris huddled with the servants around a table.
“Look!” Teddy pointed at a flower vase bursting with pink roses wrapped with matching curled ribbons. “This has just arrived for you! And there’s a card, but it’s sealed, dash it all.”
It was just like her rascally sisters to try reading her private correspondence. “That’ll be all, Norris.” Isabel dismissed the hive of speculating servants. She drew a steadying breath and took the card. The hand was unfamiliar. “My lovely Isabel,” it read, “I look forward to dancing with you this evening. Twice. Fondly, JH.” Oh. Her smile collapsed.
“Well?” Freddy nudged closer and read the note. “Who is it from? Who’s JH?”
“Lord John Hanson.” Isabel let out a sigh of disappointment. Her sisters, however, yelped with delight and leaped into song and dance. She reread the card. Fondly. That was interesting. “Fondly” was the term most gentlemen used. Ashby signed his “yours.” She hadn’t dared read too much into it before. Now, though, it seemed significant. “Mine.” She closed her eyes and smiled.
“Lord John Hansome.” Freddy let out a heartfelt sigh, covetously eyeing Isabel’s bouquet. “Isn’t he dreamy? His hair is spun gold. His eyes are as clear as blue water. His…”
“Water is colorless, you nitwit,” Teddy mocked her twin.
Freddy paid her no heed. “I wish I were old enough to waltz with Lord John Handsome!”
Teddy sent Isabel a petulant look. “It’s not fair that you, who balk at the idea of marriage, should have two dances with him in one evening while we don’t even get to wear long skirts.”
“You will, in three years,” Isabel returned.
“But it’ll be too late!” Teddy stomped her foot and snatched one of the pink roses for herself. “He’ll be old and married by the time we have our debuts!”
“How old do you suppose LJ is?” Freddy asked Isabel.
“LJ?” Isabel echoed. “Who’s that?”
“Lord John,” Teddy clarified. “It’s our pet name for the Golden Angel.”
“Oh. We have a pet name for him already?” Isabel chaffed. “Well, I believe he is eight and twenty. Thirteen years your senior. By the time you are my age, he’ll be five and thirty.”
“Oh, no!” Teddy cried. “He’ll be perfectly infirm by then!”
Blushing profusely, Isabel bit back a smile. “Not where it matters,” she said, sphinx-like.
Freddy creased her brow. “Perhaps if I…told him how I felt, he would…wait for me until I was full-grown.”
Isabel choked down laughter. Her sisters were as awful as she was. “Perhaps. Who knows? Stranger things have happened…” Indeed.
“We intend to share him,” Teddy declared.
“What?” Isabel squeaked. She was wrong. Her sisters were much worse.
“He’ll never be able to tell,” Freddy explained with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“He will, when he knows you as well as I do,” Isabel muttered. “How will you share the man you love if you can’t share ribbons?” The very idea of having to share Ashby with another woman was enough to get her dander up. He was hers and hers alone. She’d waited seven years for him. She was not about to relinquish him—or any piece of him—to some grasping female.
“Izzy!” Teddy took her hand. “Which gown will you wear tonight? Not the dowdy things you’ve been putting on lately to discourage suitors.” She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “LJ will think we all have God-awful taste in clothes. You must make a very good impression.”
Isabel frowned. “I haven’t given thought to what I should wear.” But perhaps she should. Lancaster House shared a garden wall with the Barringtons’ town house. If she could slip out of the ball and…“Very well. We’ll head off to Madam Bonnier’s right away. Perhaps the gown I ordered for the Devonshire ball will be ready. Get your wraps.”
Her sisters cheered and dashed up the stairs. “And we need new ribbons!” Freddy shouted over her shoulder. “Mrs. Tiddles’s shop is right around the corner from Madam Bonnier’s!”
An hour later, Isabel’s mind was spinning with stealth tactics for a nocturnal visit to Ashby while her sisters were methodically transforming the elegant millinery shop on Bond Street into a Turkish bazaar. Her pulse accelerated each time she shut her eyes to imagine their get-together kiss—would it be achingly sweet or hard and needful, as his last kisses had been? He certainly mastered an impressive variety of kisses. Would he be as good a lover, she wondered. Lord, she was a shameless wanton! And what if she were? Ashby didn’t seem to mind. He liked her.
“Oh, dear! Where did I put the new French organdie?” Mrs. Tiddles, the elderly milliner, fussed behind the counter, pulling ribbons and filmy fichus out of boxes and drawers and piling them high in a rainbow heap. Teddy and Freddy were giving the poor woman a devil of a time.
“Do I look like a gypsy?” Freddy posed before the mirror with a rich, cobalt blue scarf.
“You look like a ninny,” Teddy retorted. “Gypsies don’t have blond curls and blue eyes.”
As she distractedly observed her sister using the scarf as a veil over her pretty face, Isabel thought of Ashby’s insistence on wearing a mask in her presence, even when he kissed her. How would he wed her if he didn’t allow her a glimpse of his face? Perhaps if she unmasked him, he would see that she didn’t recoil in disgust, that she wanted him despite his disfiguration. There was no doubt in her mind that she would, even if he looked like a hideous gargoyle. His wounds marked him as a hero, as one of the brave