THE HEIRESS
EPISODE 10
From U.S Bah ❤ ✌?
The afternoon dragged on until, finally, the
queen released them all to prepare for dinner.
Bidding Violet farewell, Isabelle didn’t bother to
wait for her ladies-in-waiting, especially now
that she knew the truth about Alicia.
She
pondered whether she should confront the
brunette for her utter lack of decency, but she
couldn’t shake the feeling that there was
something more to the situation.
Thankfully, the queen’s efforts to starve her
seemed to have abated, as she was not barred
from filling her plate with sandwiches at
luncheon and scones at teatime.
Already
thinking ahead to dinner, Isabelle could hardly
wait for Lissa to loosen her corset strings.
Isabelle was sitting at her vanity table,
choosing between the three pairs of earrings
Lissa had set out for her when Alicia sli-pped
into her bedroom.
“Forgive me, Isabelle, but you should have
been sitting with us today in the queen’s
drawing room,” she said, her eyes running over
the room before landing on Isabelle. “It is the
proper thing to do, you know.”
“You have quite the nerve, barging in here
without knocking and addressing me so
informally,” Isabelle said, standing.
In her
heeled sli-ppers, she stood a good three inches
taller than the brunette, drawing herself up to
her full height.
“I think it only fair after we all missed
breakfast,” Alicia shot back, her smiling facade
still in place.
“Fair? You precious thing, since when is courtly
life fair?” Isabelle laughed. Her words soured
Alicia’s expression and Isabelle made a mental
note to ponder on that later.
“You ought to treat us with more respect,”
Alicia managed, her cheeks heating. “We could
be of great a-ssistance to you, you know.”
“I highly doubt that, especially considering the
a-ssistance you offered the prince last night,”
Isabelle said, unable to resist the barb. But
rather than embarra-ssing Alicia,
Isabelle’s
words seemed to embolden her.
“He and I are close friends,” Alicia said
haughtily. “You ought to keep that in mind, my
lady .”
Isabelle fought to keep her smile in place
despite the hatred in her eyes as Alicia
dropped a sarcastically low curtsey, sweeping
from the room in a huff.
“I caught her sneaking around in here,” Lissa
said, emerging from the closet with a nasty
glare towards the sitting room.
“What? When?” Isabelle asked.
“When you were at breakfast.
She was poking
around the escritoire,” Lissa said, nodding
towards the writing desk. “But nothing is
missing, I checked.”
“Tell me if you ever find her in here again,”
Isabelle said, inhaling to shake her annoyance.
“Perhaps we should start locking the door
when I’m out.”
“I’ll look into obtaining the keys, but with a sly
one like her, I doubt that would keep her out
for long,” Lissa said. Isabelle scowled, bidding
her maid farewell as she for-ced the thought of
nosy Alicia poking throu-ghher things to the
back of her mind.
She stopped at Violet’s door, waiting for her
friend before the pair of them made their way
down to dinner. Cora was ahead of them, arm-
in-arm with Henrietta Barclay, the two of them
giggling and gossiping together.
Isabelle
sighed inwardly, wondering whether Cora was
worth the all the trouble it would be to win her
back.
“I completely forgot to ask earlier, but are there
any eligible gentleman you were hoping we’d
sit with tonight?” Isabelle asked coyly, linking
her arm with Violet’s. Her friend blus-hed
furiously, dimpling with a shy grin.
“You never warned me how unbearably
handsome Lord Winters’ son is,” Violet said,
giggling as Isabelle grinned at her.
“I have yet to even properly say hello to him,”
Isabelle said, “But I’d be more than happy to
introduce you two.”
Violet flushed with ple
asure as they
approached the dining room, the rest of the
debutantes milling in the hallway as the doors
were still closed.
“As a matter of fact, there he is now,” Isabelle
said, rising onto her tip-toes to see over the
heads of the other women. “Let’s go see him.”
Violet giggled, shyly following as Isabelle
barged throu-ghthe rest of the debutantes,
towards where the inductees were chatting at
the opposite end of the hallway.
“Well, well, if it isn’t my favourite little rebel,”
Sam Winters said, interrupting his conversation
with Byron Fletcher, the heir to the Fletcher
shipping fortune, and a man Isabelle didn’t
recognize, so he could bow before her. She
couldn’t help but smile at his highland accent,
something no amount of schooling had ever
been able to expunge.
A friend since childhood, Sam Winters had
grown from a gangly, freckled youth into a tall,
broad-shouldered man. Try as she might,
however, it was ha-rd to think of Sam as
anything but the brother she had never had.
The pair of them had kept up a steady
correspondence while she was at finishing
school, much to Leopold’s annoyance. In his
mind, it was improper for his future bride to be
friendly with another eligible bachelor, but to
Isabelle, Sam would always be a friend and
ally, especially as he was the future lord to
lands neighbouring Kentshire. She even noted
with satisfaction that Sam now sported an
ascot pin featuring the Winters family tartan.
“Aren’t we just as dashing as ever,” Isabelle
said, curtseying. “I was hoping to present my
friend, Violet-”
“Just the woman I was looking for.”
Prince Graham brushed past Sam Winters to
seize Isabelle’s hand, kis-sing it brusquely in
greeting before tucking it into his elbow and
pulling her away.
“I beg your pardon, but I was in the middle of-”
Isabelle started, throwing a look back at Violet
and Sam, the pair of them stunned into silence
as she was dragged away.
“Something that can wait until we’re seated,”
Graham finished for her, “Because tonight, you
have been granted the distinct honour of sitting
with me.”
Isabelle scoffed, attempting to pull her arm
away from him as the footmen opened the
dining room doors before them.
“Are there really no other women here that you
can torment in my stead?” Isabelle demanded
as Graham led her towards a table at the
center of the room, set for six.
“Yes, but they’re all too well-behaved and polite
to spar with me,” Graham grinned,
pulling out a
chair for her. “Irritating you is far more
enjoyable than teasing them until they burst
into tears.”
Isabelle made a face as she sat, cursing
herself for not acting more like her pretty,
polite friend Violet.
If she’d simply blus-hed and
held her tongue when Graham had slung
insults at her the night before, perhaps he’d
have tired of her, but now that he knew she
wouldn’t endure his torture without a fight, he
was like a dog with a bone.
A juicy, delectable bone that he was not about
to give up.
“You’ll be even happier to know that I’ve invited
some of your friends to join us,” Graham said,
hovering behind the chair beside her as he
gestured to the footmen by the door.
Isabelle
swivelled around in her seat, letting out a
distinctly unladylike groa-n upon noticing the
couple headed their way.
Cora Neasmith and Byron Fletcher were shown
to the seats across from them, Cora wedged
between the prince and the swarthy shipping
heir. Isabelle knew the fire in Cora’s eyes did
not portend a pleasant evening, though Cora
was clearly doing her best to smile
coquettishly as she took the seat next to
Graham.
“Miss de Haviland, I believe you and Miss
Neasmith are already acquainted,” Graham
said, his green eyes dancing as he for-ced the
pair of debutantes to acknowledge one
another.
“Yes, quite well,” Isabelle said warily. Cora had
flatly refused to look at her since she had
taken her seat, instead choosing to bat her
eyelashes up at Graham.
“What a lovely surprise to be seated next to
you, your Highness,” she said, dimpling
prettily. Isabelle had to fight not to snort in
derision, which only earned an amused look
from Graham.
“Pardon me, but were you saying something,
Miss de Haviland?” he asked. Isabelle sighed
as Cora fixed her with a glare.
“Nothing at all,” Isabelle said frostily, returning
Cora’s glare.
“Good,” Cora said, looking back up at Graham.
Isabelle watched the pair of them converse
quietly while Byron Fletcher looked on as well,
clearly unimpressed that he was being so
thorou-ghly ignored.
“You can’t be rid of me that easily.”
The voice startled her, Sam Winters’ laugh
rumbling from his che-st as he pa-ssed behind
her, Henrietta Barclay on his arm. The
redheaded debutante ignored Isabelle as well,
chirping her greetings to Cora and allowing
Byron Fletcher to take her hand and kis-s it.
“Well at least there’s one friendly face at the
table,” Isabelle muttered, as Sam hovered
behind the chair beside her. He and Byron
waited for Graham to seat himself, the prince’s
chair nudging closer than was necessary to
Isabelle’s. In response, she scooted her chair
towards Sam, accidentally kicking him and
earning a quirked eyebrow in response.
“Aye, let’s not get too friendly before we’ve
even had our soup,” Sam said, waggling his
eyebrows at her. Isabelle made a face at him
before Graham cleared his throat.
“Well then, it appears the two of you have
already met,” Graham said, his keen green
eyes taking in Isabelle’s familiarity with the
northern lord’s son. “But I don’t believe you’ve
met Cora Neasmith yet, Sam.”
Isabelle groa-ned inwardly as Sam turned his
eyes towards Cora, who reluctantly to-re her
eyes from the prince beside her. Sam sat ever
so slightly straighter in his chair as he
exchanged a polite how-do-you-do with Cora,
who was clearly just as flustered to be faced
with the ruggedly handsome lord’s son across
the table from her.
“And I’m Byron Fletcher, though you all clearly
know that,” Byron put in, edging closer to Cora
as he shot a glare Sam’s way. Isabelle
dropped her gaze to keep from laughing aloud
at the farce of a table she’d been invited to.
Here she was, seated next to the prince of
Pretania while two of her oldest, previously
unacquainted friends made eyes at each other
over the table, all while the riche-st man in the
room attempted to stake his claim on the
prettiest girl at the table. And as if that wasn’t
amusing enough, the oblivious Henrietta
Barclay was there too.
Isabelle would have paid her weight in gold to
rest her chin in her hand and watch the whole
thing unfold from afar, but seated in the middle
of it as she was, she had no choice but to
stifle her laughter and for-ce a pleasant smile
onto her face.
“Of course we do,” Henrietta Barclay said,
replying to Byron as she co-cked her head
prettily at him. But she, like Cora, was not
about to let her time with the prince go to
waste, turning her glowing smile towards the
future monarch. “I must say, your Highness,
you certainly have arranged for the most
interesting table tonight.”
“Let the games begin,” Graham said, lifting his
wine gla-ss to toast the lot of them.
Isabelle reluctantly raised her gla-ss to toast
with the rest of them, wishing they’d all just get
on with their conversations so she could have
a proper talk with Sam. As their gla-sses
clinked, however, she caught a pair of brown
eyes from across the room.
Seated at a table of men and women Isabelle
didn’t recognize, the hurt and loneliness on
Violet’s face was enough to twist a dagger into
Isabelle’s heart.
To be continued…..