James had been feeling restless from the time the first strains of music had trickled down to the servants’ quarters. George was reading his new book when the whisper of piano keys and violin strings had stolen James’s attention, singing doubts into his ears and filling his mind with images of Isobel dancing with men that were not him. He knew that Isobel hadn’t been looking forward to the ball, that she held no interest in the Lycan men that she would be expected to mingle with, but that did not stop James from going out of his mind as he pictured hands that weren’t his lingering on the curves of her waist and her body pressed against the chest of some finely-dressed snob.
Thankfully, George did not seem to notice that his mind was preoccupied, and after reading a few more pages, his br
