Isabelle and Alexander by Rebecca Anderson (new books to read TXT) 📗

to be ashamed. She hoped Mr. Alexander Osgood would feel the same.

A quiet knock pulled her attention from the mirror. She turned with forced calm toward the parlor door where her cousin Edwin, a year her junior and dear friend of her heart, poked his head into the room.

“Are you decent?”

She looked at him archly. “And if I weren’t?” she said.

“Too late, I guess. Corruption. Scandal. Complete loss of position.”

She pushed an errant curl behind her ear. “You’re fairly casual with your social standing.”

He looked apologetic. “Oh, no. You misunderstand me. I meant to be casual with yours.”

She laughed and perched on the edge of the couch. “Come. Sit with me.” She pushed a cushion out of the way. He sat and turned to look at her.

His familiar grin overspread his face. “Gracious, Belle. You’re a vision.”

Isabelle’s smile was proper if not sincere. “And that’s what matters. I look the part of beautiful bride. The women out there see that the man of the hour has a respectably handsome wife. Mother gets the notices in the papers. Father gets a share in the Osgood Mills.”

“And you?” Edwin asked. “What do you get?”

His voice verged too much on the tender. She changed tone immediately by ticking off items on her fingers. “I? A house in the city and a place in the country. A husband to keep me in dresses and pin money. A new name. A new start.” She threw him a grin. “A new life.”

He wrapped his fingers around hers. “And what was so wrong with the old life?”

Oh, if he knew how she wished she could simply stay young and free and home at the Lakes with him forever. But to Edwin, every day was a giddy adventure, with little thought for what the next week or year ought to hold.

Heart heavy, but voice light, she put her head on his shoulder so he could not see her face. “Not a thing is wrong with this life. But it’s time.” She hoped he couldn’t hear the ragged edge in her breath. “We all have to grow up sooner or later, Ed.”

Edwin made a sound that might have been assent. Or perhaps not. Edwin had been less delighted with Mr. Osgood than had the young ladies. He thought Alexander rather “chilly.” Isabelle could not exactly argue with that assessment from any personal interactions, but she lent it small credence as Edwin was the warmest, most ebullient of young men. Beside Edwin, everyone else must appear a bit cold and dull.

In addition, Edwin had hinted at his disappointment in Mr. Osgood’s family history. A successful business owner who had come up from practically nothing, a possibility that would have been unthinkable only two generations ago. Isabelle shrugged off Edwin’s concerns. No one cared about such things in these modern times.

“He does not deserve you,” Edwin said.

“Perhaps it is I who do not deserve him,” Isabelle countered.

He pulled her closer. “You deserve everything wonderful.”

She whispered into his vest, “You’re not required to like him. Only to continue to adore me forever as your favorite.”

He placed a kiss on her hair in response. “Forever,” he said. “But, oh, how I’ll miss you when you’ve gone.”

She knew. They’d been inseparable playmates for nearly all their lives, romping through the halls of her home or his, stealing from the cooks, running off with the horses to explore the woods and meadows. Their mothers were sisters, alike in age and temperament, who married favorably: gentlemen who supplied them far beyond the basic needs and had no objections to purchasing neighboring properties.

They’d acted as children so much like brother and sister that they were treated as such—scolded by each other’s governesses and by each other’s mothers, as well as loved beyond measure by mother and aunt alike.

Isabelle wondered occasionally if her mother didn’t prefer Ed. Who wouldn’t rather have a son? But Edwin had confessed that he feared the same—that his mother would have rather had a daughter for her own. In the end, each determined that their lot—adoration by mother and aunt—was better than most people ever received, and agreed to be ­grateful.

Until Edwin grew taller than Isabelle, she’d been the unquestioned leader of their mob of two. All capers were her suggestion. When he reached the age of fourteen, he suddenly sprung ahead of her in height, in bravado, and in mischief. The Chicken Incident, the unfortunate experience with the neighbor’s stone wall, and most recently, the fox hunt gone awry, could all be chalked up to Edwin’s increasing mastery of the indirectly forbidden.

“I should not ask you one more time if you’re sure.” Edwin tightened his hold around Isabelle’s shoulder.

“No, you should not.” She sat up and smiled at him. “But I’ll tell you in any case. I am. Certain. This is the proper next step. I shall marry Alexander Osgood today.” And, she thought, I shall hope neither of us regrets it very soon.

Now why, she wondered, had she thought that? Of course Mr. Osgood would warm to her—if not immediately, at least presently. She would be the one to melt the frost upon his personality. It was one of the responsibilities of a good wife.

Another knock at the parlor door brought her up off the settee. Her mother slipped inside and leaned against the door behind her. “It’s going beautifully already.”

She motioned for Isabelle to turn and inspected her gown, a frilled and flounced confection worthy of the status of their family.

“Now, Isabelle, in addition to what we spoke of last evening,” she began.

Isabelle flushed and glanced toward Edwin, who chose not to hear, or if he heard, wisely did not meet Isabelle’s eyes.

Her mother continued. “Mr. Osgood is on the same path on which your father travels upward through society, but you must remember that even if he cannot yet provide you the connections and the comforts you’ve enjoyed in this home, all those things will come.”

She tucked a flower more tightly into her daughter’s hair as Isabelle nodded her