novelxo A Spinster for the Earl: Chapter 16
“Can you imagine?” Kitty swooned, staring at the horses, each lined up at their gates. They were each being groomed and cared for in preparation for the race. She placed a hand over her heart and breathed in deeply. “To ride one of them all the way to the finish line. To feel the wind racing past you. To feel so in tune with such a majestic creature. Jockeys have such unbelievable lives, wouldn’t you say?”
“I don’t know about majestic,” Isaac said absentmindedly, watching as one of the jockeys presumably brushed off his horse, but through the massive dust cloud, it was certainly hard to tell. “It is dirty work, that is for certain.”
He shifted on the stands, making sure he and Kitty had enough distance between them. The old Isaac would have jumped at the idea of being close to a pretty woman, but as of late, he seemed to be broken. The only person he wanted to be close to was Lucy.
“So what?” Kitty asked. “You know, I get so tired of having to be so perfectly put together all the time. I would not mind a little dirt if it meant I was able to have my own horse. My father will not let me ride one. He is so afraid I would get hurt.”
Isaac looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t say that she hadn’t surprised him. She was perfect. She had arrived for the races in a gorgeous peach-pink dress with a low neckline. Her blonde hair was in a chic updo, her skin was flawless, and she did radiate grace and beauty.
But even she felt the pressure. Living in the shadow of so many beautiful, strong, intelligent, and dignified people had proven overwhelming, even for those who appeared to play the game so well.
“Would you want horses of your own someday?” he asked.
Kitty laughed before her smile faded into a confused grimace. “Would you buy your wife a horse?”
“If she wanted one.”
“Really?” she asked. Her cheek sunk, as if she was biting it. “I knew you were a generous man. My mother is always so right.”
Isaac shook his head, not because he disagreed, but mostly because compliments felt uncomfortable, especially when they were coming from her.
The sun beat down, warming his cheeks. It felt good, especially after such a long winter. He had missed visiting the racetracks. He used to accompany his father here all the time when he had been younger. They would often make a day out of it, even though his father had been such a busy man. Those were great memories.
“Who do you have hopes for today?” Isaac asked, changing the topic. “My bet is on Big Peanut. She’s been doing great this season, and the track conditions are in her favor.”
“I like West Wind.”
“He hasn’t been much of a winner this season.”
“But he’s pretty,” Kitty said. There was a short pause while she admired the horses. Suddenly, she turned her head, her eyebrows raised. “Oh! I trust you’ll be around tomorrow morning?”
“Uhm…” He opened his mouth, worried he had forgotten about the plans he had made.
“You know that Lady Ramsbury invited my mother and me to your estate tomorrow morning for tea, right?”
“It must have slipped my mind,” Isaac quickly said, the annoyance bubbling in his chest.
Just when he thought things were getting better, his mother was already committing him to things he’d not agreed to at all.
At least she was making social plans, but just like everyone else, she was meddling yet again. He wondered if she would die trying to get him to fall in love with Kitty. Maybe one day, he could learn to love her, but it wouldn’t happen over tea. That he was certain of.
“I look forward to it,” he muttered.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed Adam walking on the outer rim of the track with two women. He raised his hand to wave his friend over, but as soon as his hand went up, he froze. Of course, Lucy and Rose had chosen today to come to the races. This could have been a wonderful surprise on any other day, but when he had Kitty here, it was the most disastrous turn of events possible.
“Oh my God,” Isaac whispered.
“What is it?” Kitty tilted her head in concern. Then, she saw Adam, and her hand shot up. She waved the group over. “It is Lord Weston! He is always smiling all the time. Isn’t he charming?” She waved her hand higher.
Adam was the first to notice. He waved back, placing his hands on Rose’s and Lucy’s shoulders and ushering them up into the stands. When he locked eyes with Isaac, he grimaced lightly. Isaac had a feeling that he was moments away from yelling at his friend. The look on his face showed that this was all his fault.
“What a surprise,” Isaac said. He smiled at Lucy, but she gave him no indication of how she was feeling. If his imagination was of any help, then she probably was not very happy to see him with Kitty Barrington.
“So good to see you two!” Kitty beamed. She stood up and gave Rose and Lucy a hug before talking excitedly about her favorite horses. Lucy and Rose were just as excited to see her.
Isaac had never known Kitty to be very close to the two ladies. She was from a different social circle, but that didn’t stop them from immediately starting a conversation.
“Can I have a word?” Isaac asked Adam.
“Oh God,” Adam breathed, stepping off the stands, just far enough away so that they wouldn’t be heard.
Clouds of dust puffed up into the air as excited patrons walked by the dusty outer ring to find their own seats.
“What is Miss Lucy doing here?”
Adam put his hands up defensively. “I really thought you were coming here for business. If I had known you were bringing Miss Barrington, I would have never invited her!”
Isaac ground his teeth and looked back up at the three ladies. Lucy looked so pretty, wearing yet another white dress that made her stand out from the sea of pinks and blues.
“You insist on meddling.”
“And? Isn’t it a little welcome?”
“No!”
“No?” Adam frowned. “Listen, I know you care about her, all right? You both care about each other. If someone told me five months ago that Miss Lucy Hale would be spending her free time with a man, I would have laughed in their face. And yet here she is, doing the impossible. Why?”
Isaac closed his eyes, trying not to let those words get the better of him. He was thrilled at being the first man that Lucy had ever taken an interest in, but it didn’t change anything.
“Even if I did have feelings for her, which I don’t, she will not marry me,” he said. “It is useless, Adam.”
Adam scratched the back of his head. Now, it was his turn to look at the ladies. He deflated a little. “Miss Barrington is gorgeous. I can see why you brought her.”
Isaac sighed. He was tempted to just swear off women completely and incur his mother’s wrath for the rest of her life.
Adam was right, Isaac had this beautiful woman who had wanted to come to the track with him, but she was still no match for Lucy. As wonderful as Kitty was, she didn’t have the same passion, intelligence, and empathy that he had come to admire about Lucy. That didn’t make Kitty a bad person at all, she just wasn’t the woman he wanted, through no fault of her own.
“She is gorgeous,” Isaac muttered.
“So gorgeous,” Adam said. “And she even agreed to come to the races with you, just to make you happy.”
“Actually,” Isaac said, “I came for her. She loves horses.”
“Really?” Adam asked, his eyes fixed on the stands. “And you’re still thinking about Miss Lucy?”
Isaac frowned. “Do you want to marry Miss Barrington?”
“No, no,” Adam said, putting his hands up, and yet he still glanced up at the stands. “I am not marrying. I am, you know, the eternal bachelor. That’s why I am such good friends with the unattainable spinster.”
Isaac would have expected to feel his lips press into a flat line and his fists clench. He would have never considered himself a jealous person, but if he was courting someone, he would have wanted them to be invested in him too. Despite what Adam truly felt, it had started to occur to Isaac that Kitty would have been much more interested in Adam if he was willing to settle down. In fact, she had been bringing him up ever since she had met him.
But for some reason, Isaac didn’t care. Perhaps his mother would let her dream go if Adam and Kitty ended up together. And, for some reason, Isaac was more charmed by the idea of Adam and Kitty than he was by the idea of Kitty with him.
“I think she is interested in you,” he noted.
Adam’s lip drew back in disgust. “Miss Lucy? You are joking.”
“No, no, I meant Miss Barrington. She called you funny and chivalrous…” Isaac paused. “And charming, actually.”
Adam had never been so generously showered with compliments in his life. That had to mean something.
“She did?” Adam looked back up at the stands, his eyebrows turning up as if he was looking at a Chelsea Bun that was strictly off-limits. “And she likes horses? Oh my God.” He paused, looking back at Isaac and shaking the look off his face. “Why would you tell me that?”
Isaac shrugged. “I can be meddlesome too. Isn’t that a little welcome?”
Adam looked dumbfounded. If Isaac thought he could have imagined Adam’s interest in Kitty before, then he was certain now. If he couldn’t have his happy ending, then maybe Adam and Kitty could have theirs.
“Come on,” he said, “let us get back to our seats. We mustn’t leave them waiting.”
Isaac made his way back, tipping his hat at familiar faces as he passed by. He and Adam took long steps up and slid down onto the stands. Kitty waved at Adam, and he took the seat beside her, leaving her sandwiched in between him and Rose. She looked apologetically at Isaac for a moment, but he smiled and shook his head in an effort to tell her not to worry. She looked much happier, and Isaac was just as pleased now that he took his seat beside Lucy.
Lucy looked up at him, but it wasn’t long before she scoffed quietly, “Your beloved has been commandeered.”
“Do not rub it in.”
“Would it be wrong of me to assume that this is what the discussion was about? Because I refuse to believe that Lord Weston has that little regard for you,” she said, scanning the horses as they seemingly prepared themselves at their gates.
Lucy was playing disinterested, but if Isaac knew her as well as he thought he did, then it was safe to say that it was all a ruse.
“Why would I do that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I would merely disagree with trading women. Seems wrong, My Lord.”
“I didn’t trade, Lucy,” Isaac argued. “They’re crazy about each other. Why should three people be relatively happy when at least two of them could be overjoyed? Look at them.”
Lucy leaned forward and looked down the bench to where Adam and Kitty were talking excitedly and laughing. “Oh my,” she mumbled. “Looks like the trade worked out.”
“It wasn’t a trade.”
“I guess not,” she said. “I was alone here, after all, and now I am with you.”
“Did you know I would be here?” Isaac asked.
Lucy shook her head. “Tricked by my friends yet again,” she said. “I have to assume that is why we’ve been running into each other so often. They seem to think…”
“I know.” Isaac nodded. He paused, fixing his eyes on the racetrack ahead.
Adam and Rose were so certain that he and Lucy loved each other. In fact, everyone was so certain. His mother, his grandmother, maybe even the Duchess of Radford.
What did they see that Isaac couldn’t? He had been waiting for love to hit him with the speed and precision of a bullet, but he hadn’t felt it. That was how everyone else described it—all at once because of a glance, or a word, or an accidental touch. Could it happen this slowly? So painstakingly as watching a seed take root in the ground, growing taller and stronger each day? And now, here he was in a jungle of emotions, and everything was too overgrown to find his way out?
Isaac’s breath rattled as he steeled himself. “Are we…”
“Are we… what?” Lucy asked, her warm brown eyes meeting his.
She was so gorgeous. With her this close, he found himself remembering the way her lips had felt on his and the way her fingers had tugged at his hair. He had been counting down the days until Saturday, when he could have her all to himself and worship her the way he’d been dying to do.
“Are we more than—” Isaac started as the sound of a gunshot made the entire group jump out of their seats instinctively.
The gates swung open, and without pause, the horses took off. Big Peanut’s hooves pounded against the ground. She was, ironically, a smaller horse but was much faster. Her coat was the color of her namesake. He had always liked her, just because she was very cute too, although he would never admit out loud that he favored her looks over her accolades. His colleagues were very serious about the races.
Lucy’s eyes darted back and forth as the mass of horses struggled to fight for the lead. Big Peanut fell behind. Everyone else was cheering and screaming. Adam whistled, and the lovely, demure Kitty was screaming, her gloved fist in the air. Isaac snorted, causing Lucy to look over and notice the pair as well. She turned back.
The crowd screamed and roared all around them, but Lucy and Isaac were only looking at each other, laughing at how obvious it was that Kitty and Adam were cut from the same cloth.
Then, Isaac stilled, his laughter ceasing as he looked at Lucy. It seemed like maybe she had remembered the question he was about to ask. He had never fully voiced it, and yet it seemed clear that she knew exactly what he was going to say.
That hurt all the more. If she knew how he felt about her, why wouldn’t she run away? That was a disaster for someone like her. He could picture her, some years in the future, living a full and happy life providing education to children, just like she dreamed, while he would lie awake in his bed, thinking of how different his life would be if she had agreed to marry him.
She looked back toward the race. Her chest rose and fell like she was struggling for breath but trying to hide it. Isaac gave up, checking to see if Big Peanut had pulled ahead. The horse was making up some ground, halfway around the track. It had always seemed funny just how exciting two minutes could seem to a group of people that so often believed that more was, indeed, more.
Isaac stiffened as he felt a hand brush against his. He imagined it must have been a mistake, until Lucy slipped her hand into his, entwining their fingers. It was brave, and yet at the same time, no one would know, with their eyes so focused on the race in front of them. Everyone was packed so tightly into the stands that it could have looked just like a mistake. But it wasn’t.
He didn’t know exactly what the word was, but he did know one thing: he didn’t hold hands or act vulnerable around women that he only wanted in his bed. It was about time that he admitted that whatever this was, he wasn’t just friends with Lucy.
Isaac blinked, coming back to the present as the horses crossed the finish line, with West Wing surprisingly pulling ahead at the very last minute. Kitty and Adam screamed louder, obviously having both been cheering him on.
Lucy let go of Isaac’s hand immediately, and he flexed his fingers now that they felt empty. He knew that this was the right time to end things between them. The sooner he did, the better he could avoid heartbreak. No matter how much she cared about him, they both had opposing goals. He wanted a wife, and she wanted to be anything but.
But the fear of falling was not enough to deter him from venturing out further onto the tightrope. He needed her, even if that was only for a few more weeks.