Read Online What Isabella Desires by Anne Mallory - Free Book Online

flutter going, I suppose. Perhaps with a dark-haired someone?”
    Isabella dropped the drapery and sat down on the bed, putting the pin on the bed stand and smoothing the linen of her chemise. “Isn’t every woman interested in something that makes her heart flutter?”
    “Usually the fluttering leads down a dark path. Or a baby eight months after the wedding. Sometimes it’s better to stay out of temptation’s grasp.”
    “So I’ve been told,” she muttered.
    Bertie crouched on the floor. “None of us wants to see you hurt, is all. The man you fancy included.”
    She looked at Bertie and couldn’t stop the sadness from showing. “I know. I never said he didn’t consider himself a friend or some sort of strange protector. I wasn’t alone two minutes in that room before Calliope came running in, looking confused and asking what trouble I was in—Marcus had to have immediately sent for her after leaving.”
    “As well he should have,” her maid said in her upright voice. “Widowed or not, you shouldn’t be alone with strange men.”
    “I wasn’t alone with any strange men!”
    “You might have been, had Lord Roth not rescued you. I’ve heard tales of Ellerby from other maids. Not to be trusted, that one.”
    “Oh, for goodness sakes, I don’t have a tendre for Ellerby. And I’ve been married, in case it escaped your attention all those years. I’m not a green goose. I know you care for me, but stop acting as if you need to protect me from the world. It’s appreciated in gesture, but not especially in actuality. I am twenty-eight years old. Quite old enough to handle myself.”
    Bertie looked chagrined, and Isabella couldn’t resist patting her hand to take the sting out.
    “I know my behavior has been a little addled these past few days. It’s just…I feel as if I’m letting something pass me by. I know it’s easier to stay calmly on course, but it’s as if I’ll lose something entirely too precious if I don’t take the chance,” she finished in a whisper, and looked at the lines on her palms, rubbing one thumb over the longest furrow.
    Bertie stayed silent for a long moment, then patted her knee, a serious look in her eye. “Then let’s fix you something to wear. It’s not as if you have to change. We’ll merely stretch you until he can’t do anything but be too tempted to grasp you in return.”
    A slow smile overtook Isabella’s face and she clasped Bertie’s hand between hers.
    “But don’t do anything too outrageous.” Bertie grimaced. “Or God have mercy, your mother’ll have my hide.”

    Marcus pushed through the doors and out to the terrace of the fourth gathering he’d been to that night. They had gone successively downhill. Not that much could have topped the Grenstridge masquerade three parties back for the sheer toll on his nerves. He had been trying to work out his pique ever since. Unfortunately, none of his regular haunts had done any good.
    There were few people out at this point. It was either too late in the night, or too early in the morning—the faint light of dawn peeking over the London houses. Only the true carousers were still up and moving.
    Isabella had assuredly been tucked safely into bed, covers drawn up to her chin, hours ago.
    He still couldn’t believe she had shown up at the Grenstridge masquerade. What had Calliope been thinking? He’d nearly wrung her neck when she’d given him a smug glance in answer to that question. Stephen and James had merely looked amused.
    Isabella didn’t belong at parties like that. Was he the only sane one in the bunch?
    Though with the way she had reacted to him in the library, all supple limbs and husky voice, one would never have known that she didn’t belong. He’d cursed himself blue afterward for what he had done to himself when trying to warn her away. Having her warm, curvy body pressed to his as he attempted to scare her had done nothing for his libido. It had taken a good thirty minutes, after a curt