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Taking her box to the room she knocked and entered with a greeting on her lips—to see the room empty. There were no books open on the desk orquill pen drying on the blotter, which told her that Isaac had not been there at all.
Her smile dropped and she swallowed over her disappointment but had to do her job. Methodically, she dusted and wiped all the surfaces before packing up and leaving for the ground floor. As she descended the servant staircase, she halted on her way to the nearby storage closet.
Isaac was in a dark suit and was fixing his cravat just so, while a footman came forward with his coat. She stood back in the shadows of the corridor while he donned the coat and left the foyer. Louisa deposited the box in the closet and then went off to the servants’dining hall for her supper.
“Lord Ashford coaxed him into a attending a ball in Mayfair,” one of the maids, Lucy,said from down the end of the table while she chatted with another. “I overheard him say that the newest debutantsthere, even a Duke’s daughter.”
“It’s about time he got married,” Miriam, another maidsaid. “A handsome man like him needs a lovely wife. T’would be best for him to marry a sophisticated lady, who can turn this drab home into something more well, softer. There is such a somber mood around here.”
“And I hope she dresses gorgeously, all silks and satins and French attire,” Lucy swooned.
“You’re just saying that in hopes of becoming her maid and be first in line to gether cast-off dresses,” Miriam accused Lucy.
“Eh, no harm in trying.” Lucy smiled with a shrug.
“I’m certain it will be the wedding of the decade,” Lucy said to one of the other maids, Miriam. “A match like that is sure to end up in all the newspapers.”
“Speaking about that, do you know about the last lady he courted?Miss Follet? Well,I heard that she demands that suitors take out a full-page announcement in the Times if she agrees to marry them,” Miriam laughed. “She wants nothing less than that—to make all her suitors green with envy. And have a wedding to rival Queen Marie-Antoinette.”
Every nerve in Louisa’s body snapped tight and her heart felt as if it had stopped beating. She did her best to casually sip her drink, but it suddenly seemed difficult to breathe, let alone swallow.
“Ten bets to one that he comes back with a love-interest in mind.”Lucy waggled her brows. “And it is going to be the Duke’s daughter.”
“I am not wagering anything,” Miriam laughed. “I have money to send back home, thank you.”
Louisa found herself asking, “Pardon me, I apologize for listening in, but did you say a Duke’s daughter?”
“Yes,Miss Celeste Darlington, and doesn’t that name sound so lovely?” Lucy sighed. “The daughter or Duke Hammondville. It’s said she is as beautiful as an angel with long flaxen hair and the clearest blue eyes. Can you just imagine their children? Utterly handsome, I would think.”
“A smart match that,” Miriam noted.
“T’would be one indeed,” Louisa forced herself to say. She looked down on her plate and felt it prudent to excuse herself. Standing, she took it up. “Pardon me.”
Hurrying off to the kitchen, she quickly cleansed her dishand left to her rooms. She had known that something like this would eventually come about, Isaac was prominent man after all, but even then, she hadto hold onto Isaac’s promise that he wanted and had chosen her—and that as all she could do at that point.
***
“Would you stop scowling,” William said to Isaac, as he brushed a hand down his expertly tailored cobalt waistcoat that made the blue of his eyes stand out like beacons. “We are going to a ball, not to Tyburn Tree to see an execution. If you keep scowling like that, no sensible lady is going talk to you.”
The Duke lifted a browas the carriage turned into Mayfair Street,“And what is your point? Despite the factthat we not sentanyone to the Tyburn Jig in decades, do not all the sensible ladies know of my reputation?”
“Knowing is one thing, seeing it is another,” William said. “Cheerup, good man; this is going to be a capital event. Do not go to the Stuart Home with bad expectations.”
Isaac refrained from plucking the gold watch fob, shining against the grey of his waistcoat, up and checking the time. God knew he would prefer to be back at his home, in the library speaking about mundane topics with Louisa, instead of heading to a posh home and dance with ladies who might expect more from him that he could give.
The Stuart manor in Mayfair was as stately as all London homes went. It had been built barely fifteen years before and sat in place of an older, Georgian building. The new edifice held all the modern conveniences a man of suchmeans asLord Rutherford could desire.
After the carriage stopped at the gate, a footman opened the carriage’s doorand with only a look at the man’s livery—all dark purple and silver buttons—Isaac swallowed over a groan. He could bet that inside was going to be gold-filigreedportraitsand gold-damask walls, an ostentatious presentation of wealth that they did not need to show.
They deposited their coats with the footmen, then made their way into the ballroom. As he had expected, chandeliers were gilded, watered ivory dripped fromthe walls and the art that hung in the spacebetween were that of the best masters.
Jewel tone cushions rested on the plush couches that rested on the edges of the ballroom where a dance—the waltz—was in full swing. The orchestra, resting onthe podium,was playing sultry music and the titled and noblest men and women from London were swaying to it.
Isaac was not concerned about arriving late, as he gravitated to the refreshment room at the end of the room for a glass of water.
“Fancy seeing you here,” Lady Auclair’sjovial tease came from behind him. “Knowing how averse you are to these settings.”
“They do make me break out in hives.” Isaac turned to the gentlewoman with a smile and had to take a double-look when his eyes landed on her dress.
