CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“No, no—if you stack them like that, they’ll topple the moment you move.”
Isadora’s voice carried across the library with gentle amusement, drawing her attention from the botanical treatise she’d been pretending to read.
She looked up to find Lillian attempting to navigate between towering shelves with an armload of volumes that threatened to exceed the girl’s slight frame entirely.
“I can manage,” Lillian insisted, though the wobble in her voice suggested otherwise. Another book slipped, and she made a desperate grab that only succeeded in destabilizing the entire pile.
Isadora was on her feet before conscious thought, crossing polished floors with silk skirts rustling to intercept the impending catastrophe. She caught the falling volumes almost miraculously.
“Let me help,” she said, relieving Lillian of half the burden before the girl could protest. “What on earth are you studying that requires this many texts?”
The library was Isadora’s favorite room in Rothwell Abbey—perhaps the only space that felt genuinely alive despite the household’s general atmosphere of careful preservation.
Morning light streamed through tall windows, illuminating dust motes that danced like tiny spirits above floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Someone—Edmund’s mother, judging by the dates inscribed in many volumes—had collected books with the passion of a true scholar rather than mere decoration.
Christmas garlands had been wound through the upper shelves, their evergreen scent mixing with old leather and paper to create something approaching warmth.
A fire crackled in the massive hearth, and someone had arranged chairs and tables near its light—invitation to actual use rather than mere admiration.
Lillian’s cheeks flushed pink. “Mrs. Hale assigned me an essay about the proper comportment of young ladies in society. But her recommended sources were all those dreadful moral tales, and I thought...” She trailed off, uncertainty creeping into her voice.
“I thought I might find more substantial material if I looked at what actual accomplished women wrote about their experiences.”
Isadora glanced at the titles she’d rescued: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Hannah More’s essays on education, even a volume of letters from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu describing her travels through the Ottoman Empire.
“These are excellent choices,” she said, genuine approval warming her voice. “Though I suspect Mrs. Hale won’t appreciate your interpretation of ‘proper sources’.”
“She doesn’t need to know.” Lillian’s chin lifted defiantly, and in that moment Isadora felt as though she finally knew James Gray.
His daughter had that same stubborn determination to pursue truth regardless of whether it aligned with approved thinking she had heard of.
“I’ll reference the moral tales in my essay while actually learning something useful from these. ”
“Clever girl.” Isadora led the way to one of the reading tables positioned to catch maximum winter light.
She set down her burden and began organizing the volumes according to topic.
“Though you might consider being slightly less subtle in your rebellion. Mrs. Hale strikes me as the sort who’d benefit from having her assumptions challenged occasionally. ”
They settled together at the table, and Isadora found herself drawn into the work of guiding Lillian through her research with a gentleness that came naturally.
She asked questions rather than lecturing, drew out the girl’s own observations, encouraged her to think critically about what she read rather than simply accepting printed words as gospel.
“But Wollstonecraft argues that women’s education should emphasize reason over mere accomplishment,” Lillian said, bent over the text with an intensity that transformed her entire bearing.
“She claims that teaching girls only to be pleasing to men makes them weak and dependent rather than capable of genuine virtue.”
“And what do you think of that argument?”
Lillian looked up, surprise flickering across her features as though she’d never been asked to form her own opinion before.
“I think... I think she’s right. Mrs. Hale’s lessons focus entirely on making me marriageable—how to sit, how to speak, what subjects to avoid in conversation.
But none of it teaches me how to think, or how to be a person worth knowing beyond my ability to please some future husband. ”
“Then perhaps,” Isadora suggested carefully, “your essay might explore the difference between education designed to make young ladies ornamental versus education meant to develop their actual capabilities.”
“Mrs. Hale would have an apoplexy.” But Lillian’s eyes sparkled with something approaching joy. “She’d probably report me to Uncle Edmund for harboring revolutionary sentiments.”
“Then we’ll ensure your arguments are so well-reasoned she can’t dismiss them as mere youthful rebellion.
” Isadora pulled another volume closer—Hannah More’s Strictures on Female Education.
“More is conservative enough that citing her alongside Wollstonecraft might provide balance. She argues for serious education while maintaining more traditional views about women’s roles. ”
They bent together over the texts, and Isadora felt something shift in her chest. This was purpose.
This was the reason she’d married Edmund despite knowing he offered nothing beyond practical arrangement—to help this brilliant girl develop into the woman she was meant to become rather than being crushed into society’s narrow mold.
Lillian’s laughter rang soft and bright when they discovered a particularly pointed passage in Lady Montagu’s letters.
The sound transformed the library entirely, making ancient stone walls feel warm despite Yorkshire’s December chill.
For one brief moment, Rothwell Abbey felt almost like a home rather than a museum dedicated to preserving the past.
Isadora was so absorbed in their work that she didn’t notice Edmund’s presence until Lillian’s attention shifted toward the doorway. She looked up to find him standing in shadows beyond the firelight’s reach, perfectly still except for the slight rise and fall of his chest.
How long had he been watching?
Their eyes met across the library’s expanse, and Isadora felt her pulse stutter despite her determination to maintain distance after last night’s brutal dismissal.
He looked tired—shadows beneath his eyes suggested he’d slept as poorly as she had.
His dark hair was slightly disheveled, his cravat tied with less precision than usual, and something about the overall effect made him appear more human than the cold duke she’d grown accustomed to.
She broke the silence first, refusing to let the weight of his attention reduce her to stammering uncertainty. “Lillian has a sharp mind,” she said, pitching her voice to carry across the room without shouting. “She only needs patience and encouragement to thrive.”
Edmund’s expression shifted—surprise giving way to something she couldn’t decipher. He stepped into the light, and she saw genuine wonder flickering in his green eyes as he looked at his ward bent over books with an enthusiasm that had been entirely absent during her previous lessons.
“I can see that,” he said quietly.
For a heartbeat, warmth bloomed in Isadora’s chest. Perhaps their disaster of an evening hadn’t destroyed every possibility of connection. Perhaps he was finally beginning to understand what Lillian required—
Then memory crashed over her like winter flood. Not a real wife. His voice echoed in her mind, flat and final, destroying whatever foolish hopes she’d been harboring about their marriage becoming something more than practical arrangement.
The warmth in her chest froze solid.
She rose from the table with movements sharp enough to betray her agitation, smoothing burgundy silk that didn’t require smoothing.
“But forgive me, Your Grace,” she said, her tone cooling to match the ice spreading through her veins.
“You may do whatever you think best. That is what you require, after all—control.”
The words emerged as precise as surgical cuts, designed to wound exactly as she had been wounded. She executed a curtsy that was technically perfect and somehow insulting in its formality, then turned toward the doorway with her spine rigid enough to snap.
“Isadora—”
Edmund’s voice cracked across the library like a whip, sharp with something that might have been desperation. She heard his boots on marble as he strode after her, his longer stride eating the distance between them with alarming speed.
She didn’t slow. Couldn’t bear to face him again, to see that careful neutrality that had replaced whatever genuine feeling he’d displayed at the Fairfax dinner. Better to maintain her dignity through retreat than risk more of his brutal honesty about the nature of their arrangement.
The corridor beyond was cold despite Christmas candles burning in wall sconces.
Evergreen garlands wound along the wainscoting released sharp scent that mingled with beeswax and the perpetual dampness of ancient stone.
Isadora’s slippers were silent against marble that had witnessed centuries of Ravensleigh dramas, and she was halfway to the staircase when Edmund’s hand closed around her elbow.
“I did not mean—” He stopped, the words dying on his lips as she whirled to face him.
This close, she could see the exhaustion etched into his features, could catch the faint scent of sandalwood beneath sharper notes of wool and winter air. His hand remained on her arm, gentle despite the urgency that had driven him to pursue her through his own house.