The Rakehell of Roth (Everleigh Sisters #2) - Amalie Howard Page 0,61
you loathed the very air he breathed.” To Isobel’s stunned surprise, her friend went beet-red, which suggested she might be partaking of the same air of her former enemy. “Clarissa Gwendolyn Bell, what have you done?”
“Not here,” she hissed, practically using her mask as a shield.
Isobel grinned and repeated her friend’s words. “No one is paying any mind to us. Spill the beans before I’m forced to take drastic measures and find a drool-worthy shelf of muscles for you to climb, and I’m not talking about your crush on Lord Tight-Arse.”
“Izzy!”
“Doesn’t feel good now that the shoe is on the other foot, does it?” Isobel teased as Clarissa went from rosy-cheeked to flaming at the ears. “So, tell me, Clarissa dear, have you kissed him yet?”
“Kissed whom?” a deep voice interrupted.
Isobel nearly leaped out of her satin dress, her hands flying to her throat, only to see Oliver standing there with two refreshed glasses of punch, wearing an off-putting long-beaked plague mask. “Good God, don’t do that! You nearly gave me heart failure.”
“Kissed whom?” he repeated, his blue gaze tumbling to Clarissa, who was now attempting to impersonate a pickled beet.
For a second, his expression reminded her so much of Winter that Isobel nearly started. And even more curious, his cheeks were darkening with an embarrassed flush, too, though she suspected it might be jealousy. In hindsight, the tension between Clarissa and Oliver in the carriage on the way to the ball had been rather heightened—she’d been too busy mooning about Winter to pay them any mind.
“We were simply gossiping about future matches,” Isobel fabricated quickly since neither of them seemed capable of speech. “See over there, Lady Sarah Truebow is dancing with Lord Henley even though she’s been promised to another by her father. She secretly fancies him. But Lord Henley has been enamored with Lady Arabella for ages. Rumor is they’ve kissed in secret.” She pointed discreetly to a young woman dressed in yellow with a feathery mask. “She, however, despite her daring, doesn’t fancy marriage at all. It’s all very dramatic. Our very own blue-blooded, highborn theater production.”
Oliver’s confused gaze met hers. “How do you know this?”
“Keen powers of observation, my lord.”
“Where’s Roth?”
Her humor evaporated. “How should I know? I don’t have chains on the man.”
“Someone should,” he retorted.
The strains of the next set sounded and Isobel reached to take the glasses of punch from her brother-in-law. “Why don’t you and Clarissa take a turn for the next dance? I’ll be fine here for the moment.”
Unlike the last time they were at a dance together, they both nodded shyly. Clarissa and Oliver. It boggled the mind. The two were like oil and water. Clarissa was bubbly and bright, and Oliver was sour and sullen. Stranger things had happened, Isobel remarked to herself as she watched her best friend blush prettily up at the man she’d apparently secretly pined for and also wanted to murder in the bloodiest of ways.
It made Isobel’s heart squeeze.
If two people who were such opposites could find each other and meet in the middle, why couldn’t she and Winter gain common ground? Then again, they weren’t like oil and water—they were flint and tinder. Explosive and lethal. And he’d told her to leave in no uncertain terms, that he didn’t want her here. Not that she’d expected to see him tonight, or the three previous functions since. He’d been avoiding everyone. Her, particularly, for whatever reason. Simmons had reported from Ludlow that Lord Roth wasn’t unwell or under the weather.
Typical man. Burying his feelings deep.
And they went deep, as she’d realized. She’d asked Clarissa to confirm what Winter had confided about the mysterious Vance sister, and even her friend’s face had gone tight.
“We’re not supposed to know or talk about it,” she’d said. “Prudence died from a self-administered dose of opium tincture.”
Isobel had gasped. “Self-administered?”
“That was the gossip. She was ruined by a fortune hunter and fled to Seven Dials. When they found her, it was too late to save her. The family was never the same after her death.”
The loss had shattered the only thing holding them together. And from what Isobel was able to gather, Winter had blamed the duke. It explained so much, but terrified her at the same time. A man who cut himself off from his family as Winter had done would be impossible to reach. It was no wonder he didn’t want children.
“A beautiful woman shouldn’t have to hold up pillars alone,” a deep male voice drawled.