Chapter 13
Thirteen
Are you well?” asked Mr. Dalrymple.
The most asinine question in the world. Of course, she was not. Isabel would not be clinging to his surprisingly firm form if pain were not shooting from her ankle. Her right foot had not turned with the rest of her and was facing the wrong way entirely. “My ankle. My boot. Stuck.”
He loosened his unintended embrace and held her by her shoulders.
She tried to right herself by placing her hand against the most solid part of his chest. To avoid screaming her distress, she fought to keep her mouth closed. She took a deep breath before speaking. “I am afraid I will fall if you let me go. Can you help me turn that way?”
She pointed with her chin since she wasn’t sure she dared let go of him.
Mr. Dalrymple stepped toward her and to his left to comply with her directions. The pain lessened as her leg strengthened.
Isabel adjusted her stance and grimaced again. “It seems my boot is stuck… Could you?”
He looked down at the skirt she had raised enough to show her heeled boot caught between the stones. “I can, but will you promise to tell your brother not to call me out? I am afraid that it could appear…”
“It can only appear that you are helping a lady in distress,” she said through gritted teeth. This was a time for chivalry, not propriety.
He knelt before her like a man being knighted or one proposing.
His eyes locked with hers, asking silent permission to touch her foot and leg.
She nodded and lifted her skirt an inch higher.
His fingers wrapped around the back of her boot.
Isabel looked for something to hold onto, sure she would collapse as soon as he got her boot out of the stones.
A rush of footsteps heralded the arrival of the maid and footman.
Isabel reached a hand to the maid. “My boot is stuck.”
The maid bobbed her head and stepped close enough for Isabel to place a hand on her shoulder.
Mr. Dalrymple wiggled her ankle, causing her to gasp. He leaned back. “I think I can get you out if I break the heel, or perhaps my maid can help you remove your footwear.”
Isabel bit her lip. The unfashionably high boot that only a few minutes ago had put her eye to eye with Mr. Dalrymple seemed a foolish extravagance. Breaking it was preferable to having him see her in her stocking feet. “Break it if you can.”
He returned to his work, and with another wave of pain that made her gasp and grip the maid too tightly, her foot was free. The relief through her knee, which she hadn’t realized also ached, was immediate.
Mr. Dalrymple stood. “I did not need to break it after all. Do you think you can walk?”
Isabel looked before lowering her right foot in the center of a stone. Though pained, her foot supported her weight. “It is no worse than I have had playing with my brothers in the ruins.”
“Are the ruins that dangerous?” He looked truly alarmed.
If she wanted him to keep the ruins for public use, that was the last thing to say.
“Any place where children run and play can be a place for the most innocent of mishaps. For girls who chase after their older brothers, even the most pristine of fields can become the site of a scrape. That said, I will require the use of your arm to support me back to the house.”
Mr. Dalrymple offered his arm. She did not merely lay her hand on it as was proper, but clutched it in a most embarrassing manner. He turned to her and examined her face. Isabel tried to smooth her features and mask her pain.
“This will not do.” He turned to the footman. “Have the housekeeper meet us in the library, the fainting couch will be best, I believe. Also, fetch Lady Katherine to the library.”
The footman hurried off.
“Before you protest, Miss Godderidge, I believe your brothers would be far more disappointed if I allowed you to walk back to the house.”
Isabel hardly had time to realize what he intended before she found herself scooped off her feet and in Mr. Dalrymple’s arms. She opened her mouth to protest, but Mr. Dalrymple was directing the maid to walk directly in front of them to make sure the path was clear of anything he might trip on. Which was an extremely sensible action.
He carried her as though she weighed no more than Sir Galahad. Which, thanks to her brother’s teasing, she knew not to be true. “It would help us to balance if you could hold on. Your arm around my shoulder, I think.”
She avoided looking at his face, which was much too close as she moved her arm. “You could have sent the footman for a cart or something.”
“I thought of sending for a horse, but we can reach the house in less time than it would take to saddle one and walk it here.”
His steps were sure, and his arms did not tremble with her in them.
Everything she thought about Mr. Dalrymple’s physique rearranged itself in her mind.
She had once thought him on the portly side, but now knew his chest was quite solid.
His chest rounded more like a barrel than her brothers’ chests did.
His face may be full of softer lines, but portly was not the correct definition.
As they approached the house, the maid directed them around a puddle. Mamma, accompanied by Mrs. Dalrymple and Lord Barlow, came out to meet them.
“Open the door to the library.”
Isabel couldn’t be sure who the intended recipient of the direction was, but the footman who had followed the mothers out rushed back inside.
Mr. Dalrymple carried her through the double glass doors and set her gently on a fainting couch.
A cloth lay over the cushions, his housekeeper must have expected her muddy boots.
At once everyone swarmed about her like flies on a summer day. Isabel wished to shoo them away. Questions flew out of every mouth; both to her and Mr. Dalrymple. Lord Barlow stood back and grinned as if the entire thing was a lark. Mrs. Dalrymple kept patting her shoulder.
“Lady Katherine, if you will stay with the housekeeper to attend to your daughter, the rest of us will go into the parlor.” Mr. Dalrymple took his mother by the arm and led her from the room. The housekeeper wordlessly signaled to the maid to stay. “Say the word, and I will call for the doctor.”
“I turned my ankle. It isn’t worth all this fuss. I will be well in a day or two.” The embarrassment pained Isabel as much as the throbbing joint.
Mamma frowned. “I would like to take your boot off to see for myself, but if we do, there will be no putting your boot back on.”
“I have wraps and cold water straight from the well to help with the swelling,” offered the housekeeper.
“I hate to put anyone to any trouble.” Isabel mostly wanted to be gone. It would have been better if Mr. Dalrymple had taken her straight to the carriage.
“Isabel, you know the longer you wait, the worse it will be.” Between her brothers and Isabel’s own scrapes, Mamma had more experience than many in such things.
Isabel sighed. “Take it off then.”
With a nod, the housekeeper directed the maid to do so. The poor maid, she had gone well beyond her duties that day. The boots were far from clean. Had she gotten mud on Mr. Dalrymple’s coat as well? Pain interrupted Isabel’s thought as the maid tried to pull off the boot.
“Just cut it off,” said Isabel through clenched teeth.
“Are you sure?” asked Mamma.
“Yes, I have decided never to wear high-heeled boots again.” There was no point, the inch or so it gave her did not matter in the least. She had no reason to intimidate the man who could carry her with such ease.
After settling his mother in the parlor, Victor hurried to his room to change his coat so his valet could care for it in a timely manner. Barlow followed.
As soon as his bedroom door was shut, Victor shot a glare at his friend. “Out with it, man. You have been snickering all the way up the stairs.”
Barlow sank into a chair. “As if you don’t know. I can’t imagine a single acquaintance we have believing for even a moment that you carried a woman, whom you are not courting, halfway across your estate—”
“You exaggerate. It was not but a couple hundred yards.”
“Four at least.”
“Three.”
Barlow laughed. “That you carried a woman three hundred yards with her arms wrapped around your neck.”
Victor’s valet offered him a fresh shirt, definitely needed after the exertion. “I found it necessary to make sure I had a firm grip. If I had slipped.”
“Are you saying you did not enjoy having Miss Godderidge in your arms? What is she, ten stone?”
“Not nearly. Eight at most.” Victor snapped before realizing Barlow was goading him.
“So you enjoyed caring for her?” Barlow hummed in speculative approval.
“I did what was necessary. I wasn’t thinking about it any other way.”
“But you are now, I assume. Wondering if you need to apologize for such liberties. Or if you should push for more, perhaps the right to use her first name?”
“Braxton Bernard!” Victor whirled so quickly he nearly unbalanced his valet. “Even if I were interested in Miss Godderidge, she has made her disdain for me clear.”
“Women change their minds all the time. You just need to convince her to change hers.”
“I doubt I am capable of such a feat.”
“My friend who can charm boardrooms into following his lead, not capable?” If there was mockery in Barlow’s voice, it was too subtle to be noticed.
“I can present facts to boardrooms. Use logic. Even you could not charm a woman with numbers.”
“You would not want a woman who could be. You have repeatedly shunned women who show an interest in only your fortune.” Barlow got out of his chair and walked into Victor’s line of sight. “You, my friend, need lessons on wooing a woman.”
“From you?”
“I am the master.”
“If, and I mean if, I wished to woo Miss Godderidge, I am not positive your advice would be that which I would seek. She is not the type of woman who falls for your charms.”
“You wound me. Did you forget both her brothers warned me off? If she were not subject to my charms, they would have had no need to threaten me.”