Elise by Jackie Ivie Read Free Book Online

the heeled shoes Daisy had made certain she wore. She’d never felt anything like it. She didn’t think she liked it, either.
    “Everywhere I’ve been and everywhere I go, there you are. Are you following me?”
    Elise swallowed and turned to him. “Not because I want to,” she replied.
    It was his turn to gape, and she watched those brown eyes widen. She’d slighted him before. He was actually extremely handsome, once one got past the first impression of the man. It was a shame he was the one man who, not only would she never play any sort of game with, but whose clan had decreed her unfit for even the participation, just as they’d already branded her sister. Pariah. Jezebel. Unwed mother. Harlot. Sinner. Her pious sister, Evangeline, forever labeled a sinner?
    Elise’s lips tightened; she turned back to her sorbet and watched with a strange, detached sense of dread as Roald’s chair was pulled out for him and he dropped into it. She rather fancied he’d been drinking. When he opened his mouth and started speaking, she knew it.
    “Elise?” Roald pushed away the serving placed before him. She caught the motion out of the corner of her eye. She sighed and tipped her head toward him, because there wasn’t anything else she could do.
    “Yes, Roald?” she replied, excruciatingly aware of the male on the left side of her. She noticed Roald wasn’t using his right hand yet. In fact, he had it tucked beneath the table linens.
    “You can cease avoiding me. I’m contrite.”
    “Roald, I’ve been dining. You’ve been absent. That hardly constitutes avoidance on my part.”
    “You know what I mean.” His left hand snaked out for the wine goblet. Elise watched it.
    Beside her, she heard Colin chuckle, although the sound was barely discernible. “Something amuses you, Your Grace?” Elise turned her head back to him.
    “These society affairs can be amusing. Na’ what I’m used to. I believe I can understand your sentiment about them.”
    “I never said—” Elise stopped the words herself, and there was an awkward silence, for it seemed conversation stopped as those diners across the table from them listened, too.
    The servants were removing the sorbet, preparatory to serving the next course, which her nose alerted her was going to be a meat-filled pastry. Murmurs of appreciation accompanied the presentation of each plate, where an individual pie had been formed from paper-thin shells of pastry, and then baked into a small custard cup.
    “My only regret is that I can na’ linger much longer. I’m anxious to return to my home, Castle Gowan,” the duke said, from her left.
    “But you’ve not gained what you sought,” Roald said loudly, on her right. Then he looked sidelong at Elise. “Or have you?”
    Now Colin was looking steadily at her. Elise didn’t bother to check. Her heightened senses were telling her exactly what he was doing. Her stomach lurched queerly. She gulped. Then he was talking loudly enough for everyone to overhear, easily deflecting the attention from her. She listened to him do it and knew what he was doing without asking—he was rescuing her. Elise didn’t betray herself by so much as an eyelash flutter as she examined the rose centerpiece with minute detail.
    “That may seem a puzzle, Easton, but I find myself longing for the burn I used to fish in, a good round of golf, and the stables. My father improved the MacGowan stock some years back. I’m told we compare favorably with any in the South, something unheard of, if you ask the right Englishman. I’m nae slacker in the saddle, either, and I miss a good ride. That’ll most likely be the first thing I do when I return, although I’ve probably grown too soft for the clime, now.”
    The duke... soft? Elise contemplated his tight-fitting jacket, the cuffs at his hands, and from there to where the black trousers molded and defined his thighs. He didn’t look a bit soft. The instant she thought it, Elise had to move her glance