The Duke of Westvale had not acknowledged her presence in three long days until he had delivered the most upsetting message she had ever received. He named her, noted the betrothal would become formal soon enough once he decided, and told her to expect an invitation to Lady Langdon’s upcoming ball where he meant for them to meet. Then he signed his name with his title.
A stranger. That’s what he is. An overbearing stranger who is a peer and too tall and too strange.
“I can’t go,” Isla started to tell her family.
“Oh, you’re definitely going,” Margaret countered with a smirk.
“Can I go?” Lacey asked as she came around the corner, hand against the wall with Hector in the other. “Where are we going, Isla?”
She shook her head even though her sister wouldn’t be able to see. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“But you are,” her mother told Isla at once, darting back around. “You are going to that ball and I shall accompany you. The invitation should surely arrive today or tomorrow. We’ll need it to attend the ball. Lady Langdon’s ball! Oh, what an achievement. If we attend this year, surely we shall be invited back next year. Margaret, you’ll attend then. You’ll find your husband there. Gad, how exciting! How wonderful. I could weep!”
“Do you need a handkerchief, Mother?” Lacey offered.
“Yes, yes, thank you! Isla, your dresses! Oh what will we do? We must mend your green one at once. We’ll remove the beading off your yellow, I think, and see if we can find some thread to match.”
Isla frowned. “No, we don’t need to….”
A long-suffering sigh escaped her youngest sister. “She’s already gone, isn’t she?”
“Afraid so,” Margaret said before turning back to Isla. “There’s no turning back now. Still, don’t look so ill, I’m certain it will be a lively evening.”
“Perhaps I can convince Mother to take you instead.”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “I’m not the one who managed to get herself betrothed to a duke. That’s your problem. Your ball.”
“But you know I…” Isla trailed off as they considered Lacey. Their sister had set down the cat to fish out the handkerchief for their mother, and was now searching for the cat.
Before she could run into a table, Margaret took her hand. “Hector already left, I’m afraid.”
“Did he? What a rude little thing. Which way did he go?”
“Up the stairs, but I don’t think he wants company.”
Already Lacey was turning for the stairs. “Nonsense. Cats don’t know what they want. They must be told! I need him to help me find the golden thread that leads to the faerie portal.”
When Margaret and Isla exchanged questioning glances, neither of them knowing what sort of whimsical lore their sister was playing into now, they finally shrugged the matter aside.
The letter from the duke went into Isla’s room where she found her mother already at work on the dresses. It took them two days to finish resewing beading onto her nicest gown, and by then the official invitation had arrived for her and her mother. The woman couldn’t stop talking about it, especially on the evening that it was to take place.
Isla tried to sit still. She did her best, not wiggling too awfully when she was put into the dress. But then being seated was another matter. She couldn’t help it.
“I’ll never finish your hair if you don’t sit still,” her mother scolded, her mouth filled with pins. “Do stop.”
“Sorry,” Isla muttered for the hundredth time. She glanced up at her reflection in the mirror then to her mother. The woman had twice the energy she had, flitting around so much. It only served to make Isla dizzy. “Mother, is this really necessary?”
“Of course it is! We must have you fashionable. I saw this in the gazette just yesterday morning. You’ll be one of the finest ladies in all of London tonight. Oh, what if someday there are pieces of you in the paper, setting the fashions?” Her mother beamed. “How lovely it would be. See? Look at these flowers in your hair. You’ll make a very fine duchess. That used to be our family, you know. Back in Scotland nearly a hundred years ago. Why, I remember hearing the stories at my father’s feet. We all…”
I’m going to faint. I’m going to throw up our soup from luncheon and faint. The dress is too green and my hair is too tight against my scalp and I think my nose is twitching. I should have slept more last night. Oh, this is all going to go so terribly wrong.
Somehow she didn’t toss up the contents of her stomach or faint as her mother finished preparing her for the ball.
Before Isla knew it, she was stepping inside of Lady Langdon’s grand house that was decorated in ivory and gold. Something about Roman art, she thought.
Her name was announced as she entered the main room after greeting Lady Langdon with her mother. The woman had been polite and curious, but wary. And now, everyone turned to eye her there.
Did someone sniff? Isla turned back through the crowd to look for the movement, frowning.
