Isabel: A Regency Romance (Families of Dorset Book 2)

by Martha Keyes

  She tossed her head. "Surely you can’t blame me for preferring the company of Mr. Farrow or Lord Nolan. You've become so preachy and dull of late that it is little wonder, I’m sure."

  He pressed a fist to his lip, his knuckles white.

  No, he couldn't marry Cecilia Cosgrove. He'd never be rid of Julia's face; of the reminder of what he had lost.

  Besides, he didn't want a look-alike. He wanted Julia.

  But she had made it plain that she preferred Robert Farrow, that Charles had become nothing but a bother and burden. And that was something his pride—and his heart—couldn’t countenance. To go from stolen moments and fervent promises to an inconvenient afterthought? No. He couldn’t bear it.

  The best chance of driving Julia out of his own mind and heart was to replace her with someone who was nothing like her. The more different the better. If he couldn't have Julia, what did it matter whom he married? He wasn't fool enough to believe he would find anyone who could compare to her. Or to his feelings for her, for that matter. He cringed as he remembered the impulse he’d had to beg her.

  But he wouldn't let her reject him twice. Nor would he endure watching her leave him in the dust for another man. No, he would show her that she'd made the biggest mistake of her life; that she'd lost him. Irretrievably.

  There were plenty of ladies who would be more than happy to take Julia’s place at his side. He had danced with any number of them over the past few weeks. But he would rather have someone who hadn’t already made an attempt to lure him.

  He looked at Cosgrove's daughters. Two looked to be schoolroom misses—too young for the purpose—and another to be about seventeen. Still too young. Only Cecilia and one other daughter remained.

  Next to Cecilia's fair perfection, the last of the five daughters looked plain, as if her purpose was to enhance Cecilia's exquisiteness by contrast. He had almost not noticed her. Her hair was a noncommittal shade between blonde and brown, and her nose looked too long next to Cecilia's proportional button nose. Where Cecilia's eyes hinted at flirtation and mystery, her sister's gaze was clear and direct.

  "What of her?" He pointed to the plain one.

  Cosgrove peered through squinted eyes. "What, Isabel?" He laughed heartily. "No, no, no, dear boy! Ought to have warned you about that particular bottle of brandy. Quite potent. No, you're looking at the wrong one. Look just here. This—" he pointed exaggeratedly and lost his footing for a moment "—is Cecilia."

  "No," Charles said flatly, turning from the portrait. "We play for Isabel's hand or not at all."

  Cosgrove's jaw hung limp as he looked at Charles and again at the portrait. He met Charles's bloodshot and unyielding gaze and shut his jaw, shrugging his shoulders.

  "Never look a gift horse in the mouth, they say." He rubbed his hands together and walked back toward the table.

  "What of the stakes?" Charles said, seating himself and taking the cards in hand. "If I lose, you regain your IOUs; if you lose, I gain a wife?"

  Cosgrove nodded slowly, the skin under his chin folding and unfolding, his eyes wide.

  A servant was summoned to replenish the empty decanters. Cosgrove drank freely, becoming louder and jollier with each drink, and just as he had predicted, his luck seemed to turn.

  Charles sighed. He would have to give Cosgrove back all the vowels he possessed. His father would naturally not be pleased to hear how much Charles had lost. Surely it was better than making an enemy of Cosgrove, though? Charles’s father had explained in no uncertain terms that the investment scheme was vital.

  Either way, it couldn’t be helped. An agreement was an agreement.

  Very near the end of the hand, though, Cosgrove's eyes glazed over for a moment as he stared into the distance.

  "What is it?" Charles said.

  There was no indication that he had been heard. "Cosgrove!" Why had he let himself come? The man was a fool.

  Cosgrove shook himself out of his stupor. "Nothing, nothing." He rearranged a couple of cards in his hands, an almost frenzied glint appearing in his eyes.

  Cosgrove's run of luck was short-lived, and the hand ended decidedly in Charles's favor.

  "Ah!" Cosgrove snapped his fingers. "Fleeced again!"

  Despite his loss, his eyes looked energetic and victorious.

  Charles frowned. “I could have sworn you had that hand.”

  Cosgrove shook his head and said, “Unaccountable. You know how terrible my luck is. Well, there's that, then. Isabel!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He smirked and then called the name again, this time singing it at the top of his lungs. "Isabeeeel! Ha! Perhaps I should have pursued a career in the opera."

  Charles leaned back in his chair. His arm hung limply over the chair, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. Whatever energy Cosgrove had gained, Charles seemed to have lost. His eyes were veiled by slow-blinking lids, masking the dangerous, devil-may-care glint which appeared only on the rare occasion when he had been drinking heavily. Unlike his host, he was not a gregarious drunk, and only those who knew him best would have been able to recognize how deeply he had been dipping.

  He dispassionately considered his future. So, he would be married then, would he? So much the better. He would have to marry at some point, and it wouldn't be Julia. So why not sooner rather than later?

  His father, for one, would be elated to hear of the alliance. And Cosgrove’s daughter didn’t look like the type who was turning down suitors left and right. Many a more striking young woman would have jumped at the chance to marry Charles, so why not Miss Cosgrove?

  3

  Isabel sat up in bed, resting her weight on one arm as she listened with a frown. The muffled sound of her name being shouted in unpleasant and exaggerated vibrato rang out again.

  She flipped the bedcovers over, slid out of bed, and opened the bedroom door. When she peered out, she saw her younger sister Cecilia's golden head peeking out of the neighboring bedroom.

  "What in the world?" Cecilia said.

  Paxton the footman appeared in the corridor and stopped next to Isabel's door. He kept his eyes trained on the far wall, a gesture Isabel was grateful for. She felt very aware of her state of déshabillement.

  "Miss Cosgrove, your presence is requested—" he cleared his throat as her father's voice rang out, cracking mid-note "—in the drawing room."

  She winced at the sound of her father's singing. "Might you not tell him I'm asleep?" she implored.

  Paxton shook his head. "I'm afraid it wouldn't serve, Miss. Your father has informed me that I am to use whatever means necessary to ensure your immediate presence."

  Isabel's eyes widened in horror, and Cecilia covered a giggle.

  "Good heavens," Isabel sighed. "I suppose I must go, then. I won't be but a moment." She began closing her bedroom door.

  "Miss Cosgrove?" said Paxton.

  She looked a question at him.

  He hesitated. "I should perhaps warn you that your father is not alone. He is with a gentleman."

  Isabel frowned. "Thank you, Paxton."

  She closed the door and stared blankly at the floor for a moment. There was no time to do anything more than slip on her dressing gown and slippers. She knew her father's drunken erraticism better than to take more time. If she delayed, she risked the mortifying prospect of being carried downstairs by one of the servants. And apparently it would all be witnessed by a guest.

  She took a quick glance at her reflection in a handheld mirror, blowing out a resigned puff of air as she tucked away a strand of hair which had come loose from her braid.

  She paused briefly at the doorway of the drawing room, listening to her father's jovial laughter, wondering what reason he could possibly have for summoning her in the middle of the night. Reason, though, seemed to play no part at all in his drinking habits, so anyone's guess was as good as hers. She took a little consolation in knowing that, if her father's guest had been drinking as much as he had been, neither was likely to remember the
night's work. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  Her father was standing with his back toward her, humming with both arms up and moving in synchronicity, as if conducting an unseen orchestra.

  His guest lounged idly in a chair which faced away from Isabel. Only a loosely hanging arm, the lower half of his outstretched legs, and the top of his head were visible from behind. The locks were not, as Isabel had assumed they would be, dusted with grey like her father's. They were nearly black.

  Her father turned around as the door closed.

  "Ah, is that you, Izzy?" He stumbled toward her and squinted at her dressing gown. "Not the dress I should have chosen for such an occasion, but oh well. I tried to tell him Cecy would suit better, but he'd have none of it."

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the chair occupied by his guest. With his other hand, he made a presentation gesture fit for the King's court and pulled Isabel around to face the gentleman.

  "Allow me to introduce you."

  The gentleman brought his head up, and Isabel stiffened. The dark, unkempt locks, the deep brown eyes, the angular jawline—why were they so familiar when it had been years since she had seen him?

  He looked at her under heavy lids. There was a hint of curiosity and an unsettling glint in them.

  "Izzy, it is my great honor," said her father on the verge of laughter, putting a hand on his heart, "to present you to your affianced husband, Mr. Charles Galbraith." He succumbed to a fit of laughter which morphed into a cough.

  Feeling that she must be the butt of some inebriated joke and mortified for her father's behavior, Isabel went to his aid, helping him settle into a chair where he could more safely push through the coughing fit.

  As she poured a glass of ale, she felt Mr. Galbraith's eyes on her. She kept her eyes trained on her father as she said, "Please excuse my father, sir. He is prone to talking nonsense when he is—how do you gentlemen phrase it?—in his cups? Yes, I believe that's the expression." She glanced at him quickly as she heard him chuckle. He wore a half-smile.

  She offered her father more ale, but he waved it off in disgust.

  "I suspect," said Mr. Galbraith, "that you are right about that—his talking nonsense when he is—" he thought for a moment with the same half-smile, "—foxed. Another phrase for you. But in this one instance, it is not nonsense."

  Isabel's head came up, and she stared at him. There was no trace of teasing in his expression.

  "Well it is nonsense, my boy," said Cosgrove. "Izzy over Cecy?" He shook his finger at Mr. Galbraith. "But no turning back now, ay?"

  Isabel resisted an impulse to look down. Instead she met Mr. Galbraith's gaze, her cheeks warm. She was too accustomed to her father's insults to take affront. It was the audience which brought the blush to her cheeks this time.

  Life had been full of comparisons and comments on her sister's superiority. Isabel's intellect, though, was one area where no one doubted that she outshone Cecilia. It was a capacity which made her all too aware whenever someone was disparaging her, even unintentionally.

  Armed with such a sharp intellect, she was unaccustomed to finding situations beyond her comprehension. But this situation was taxing her understanding. Perhaps it was their idea of a practical joke. If so, it was cruel enough that only two drunk people could conceive such a prank.

  But what reaction had they expected to such a jest if a jest it was? And if it wasn't a jest, what was the meaning of it?

  She pulled her dressing gown tighter around her. "I'm afraid I must be very slow." She stared at Mr. Galbraith.

  "Slow?" Mr. Galbraith's brows snapped together. "I sincerely hope not." He surveyed her.

  "Oh no," Cosgrove interjected, having finished conducting an encore number. "Izzy's no slow top. In fact, she’s more likely to be called a dashed blue-stocking. You are trading beauty for brains, Galbraith." He shook his head disapprovingly and then made a sudden movement as though he would retch.

  Isabel grabbed for the nearest vase, reaching it under her father's mouth just in time to catch the majority of what was expelled.

  When it was clear that he was through being sick, Isabel set the vase down and helped him sit back in his chair. His face was pale, and the vivacity of a few minutes before was absent.

  She became aware that Mr. Galbraith stood next to her, looking at her father with the furrowed brow which he had worn the entire evening. He held a napkin in one hand and wiped the stray sick which had landed on Isabel's hand.

  She looked up at him, surprised by the gesture. He was looking at her father, though, with a poorly-suppressed half-smile.

  "Fool," he said. The humorous expression he wore took the sting out of the word. "In the end, it was not me who was sick on your floors, Cosgrove. You seem to be in good hands, so I'll leave you in peace. "

  Cosgrove let out a feeble laugh. "I feel sick as a cat! You must have a stomach of iron."

  Mr. Galbraith chuckled and then looked to Isabel. "Miss Cosgrove," he said.

  She glanced at him.

  He reached a hand out for hers, his expression unreadable. "I will wait on you soon."

  She debated whether to provide him with her hand. She felt a need for him to understand that she put no stock in the events of the night; that she expected no such gestures. In fact, she preferred he simply leave as though nothing unusual had happened.

  His hand lingered in the air, though, and, not wishing to snub him, she settled on giving him a hasty and aloof hand before taking it back to wipe her father's brow. Should she see him out, given her father's state and the lack of servants? She had no desire to draw out their time together, to interact with him more than was necessary.

  She remained kneeling as she replied, "There is no need to wait on me, sir, I assure you. Let us simply agree to forget the events of this night."

  His jaw tensed. "If only that were possible. I bid you both good night."

  Isabel continued tending to her father as Mr. Galbraith stalked out of the room, but once the door closed behind him, her hands slowed. Already Mr. Galbraith was regretting the night’s work. Well, he needn’t regret anything having to do with Isabel. She would assure him of that again and again, if needed.

  Isabel consigned her father to the care of his valet not long after Mr. Galbraith's departure and walked back to her room in deep thought. She sincerely hoped that Mr. Galbraith would wake with no memory of the night.

  She sighed.

  "Izzy!" Cecilia's urgent whisper broke through her thoughts. She motioned Isabel to come talk to her.

  Isabel hesitated a moment before walking over. She was in no humor to recount what had happened and even less so to hear Cecilia's take on it. It would likely be seen by her sister as a joke at Isabel's expense. She would pity Isabel and then tease that Mr. Galbraith had intended to pay his addresses to her, instead.

  "Well?" Cecilia said in impatience. "Who was there? Was it old Mr. Naughton?" She cringed. "The way he stares is so unsettling." She raised her brows expectantly. "What did Father want? "

  "Oh, nothing," Isabel said, convinced that she was being truthful. "Father became sick from too much drink. I think Mrs. Dorrell may have a conniption when she discovers that I let him be sick in the Sèvres vase."

  Cecilia covered her mouth with a hand. "You didn't!"

  Isabel gripped her lips together to keep from smiling and nodded.

  She recounted that part of the evening—leaving out Mr. Galbraith's part in it—and brought Cecilia to giggles.

  Isabel smiled and sighed. “Well, I am for bed.”

  “What did Father want, then?” Cecilia asked, yawning.

  Isabel laughed weakly. “It is too ridiculous to even bear recounting. Good night, Cecilia.”

  Isabel laid awake for quite some time after closing the door to her bedroom. She had hope that her father had drunk enough to forget everything by the time he woke in the morning—or early afternoon, more likely. It wouldn't be the first time he had no memory of his mortifyi
ng behavior.

  She struggled to unravel her feelings on the subject of Mr. Galbraith. She stared at the slit of moonlight the curtains let in, thinking how strange it was to have finally seen Mr. Galbraith at the Rodwell’s rout only to see him yet again in her own home later that same evening.

  Finding Mr. Galbraith in the drawing room and learning that she was to be the butt of a drunk prank had been even more painful than the situation merited. When her father had introduced her and referred to Mr. Galbraith as her future husband, there had been a split second when she had felt her heart pound with nerves.

  It was uncomfortably clear to her that such a thing couldn't be true; nor that she would have had any reason to feel excitement even if it had been. She hardly knew Mr. Galbraith. And at her father’s introduction, it was evident that the man looking at her was seeing her as if for the first time.

  Whatever strange and irrational reasons she had found for feeling a special interest in him were clearly not reciprocated.

  She sincerely hoped to be able to put it all behind her. Soon it would be no more than a distant, uncomfortable memory. For now, though, she would have to do what she could to avoid Mr. Galbraith. It shouldn’t be too difficult—after all, he had easily forgotten her.

  4

  When Charles woke, his head seemed to be gripped in a vice. He groaned as he tried to open his eyes, lying for a few minutes with eyes shut, recollections from the night before trickling in.

  He had no trouble recalling the disagreement with Julia. Heaven knew how he wished it had been a dream.

  And then there had been brandy. So much brandy. He hadn’t drunk that much in recent memory—if ever.

  He jolted upright and swore softly under his breath, throwing the covers off. There had been an introduction. An engagement.