Winter Collection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Carole

Sir Theo was the first to reach Isabel when the sideboards had been cleared from the floor and the first carole was announced. Isabel had been careful to don the ring behind the drapery of the tablecloth so that none, not even the man who sent it, would see it on her finger before she wished him to. She knew that by accepting the gift, she had as good as plighted her troth to the giver. Some women might be avaricious enough to encourage men to shower them with expensive trinkets, but Isabel was not one of them. She had seen such behavior raise expectations in men’s minds, which often led to slanderous rumors, even if one remained as virtuous as a nun. No, once Isabel stopped hiding her hand in the flowing folds of her crimson skirt, there would be no turning away the man who claimed the prize on her finger.

“Shall you dance with me, my lady?” Sir Theo asked.

She wondered if the blush on his fair cheeks betokened his usual bashfulness or a hopeful anticipation that she had found and accepted his ring and all that it implied. His sandy hair fell over his eyes as he bowed, and then he shook his head like a shaggy hound to clear his sight when he straightened.

I shall clip his hair into order when I am his wife, she thought—assuming, of course, that he had sent her the ring.

She swept him one of her graceful curtsies. “’Twill be my honor, Sir Theo.”

She knew her words might carry a double meaning. Tension jittered through her in spite of her determination to surrender meekly to fate’s decision. One man is very like another, she had told Agnes with a philosophical shrug when Agnes had protested Isabel’s uncharacteristic rashness. Certainly none of them could be as obnoxious as Lucian de Warrene.

It could not possibly matter if none of them kissed as well as Lucian either.

She banished the thought and drew her right hand out of her skirt’s folds. Her wide sleeve with its gold embroidered cuff belled out from her elbow, sweeping just short of the rushes on the floor. She disdained the extreme of fashion Ronwen followed, with sleeves so long they must be knotted to avoid treading on them. She extended her hand so that Sir Theo might kiss it and hence see the ring. She had placed it on her third finger... time enough to change hands once she had confirmed its owner... but he startled her by reaching his left hand across to catch her left fingers instead. He blushed, as though realizing some mistake, and shifted her hand into his right as he pulled her to the head of the circle.

She had forgotten that he was left-handed, and having never danced a carole before, he apparently expected the circle to turn to his left. Isabel had watched the serfs dance enough times on the village green to know his mistake. The other couples had seemed to instinctively reach the same conclusion as the serfs.

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