Chapter 21 #2
“I decided that control was safer than vulnerability.” Edmund met her gaze. “That walls kept out pain as effectively as they kept out connection.”
“You hide behind that scar as if it defines you,” she said softly. “As though one tragic morning negates thirty years of living. As though you’re nothing more than the Dangerous Duke society whispers about.”
Her hand lifted, slowly, giving him time to retreat.
Edmund didn’t move.
Her fingertips brushed along his jaw. Traced the scar with the same gentleness she’d shown in the library. This time, he didn’t pull away. Couldn’t. Every nerve ending had caught fire from that simple contact, every carefully constructed defense crumbling under her touch.
“You have no idea what you’re doing to me, Isadora,” he said. The words emerged raw. Honest in a way he hadn’t allowed himself to be since James’s death.
“Then show me,” she whispered.
Later—much later—Edmund would wonder at what point he’d lost the battle with his own restraint. Whether it was the challenge in her eyes or the warmth of her touch or simply the accumulated weight of three days spent watching her from across rooms.
Perhaps it didn’t matter.
His hand came up to cover hers, pressing her palm more firmly against his scarred jaw. Their eyes locked. He could see his own desire reflected in her face, could feel the way her breath had quickened.
“If I show you,” he said quietly, “there’s no taking it back. No pretending this is merely a practical arrangement.”
“Then stop pretending.” Her free hand settled on his chest. “Stop hiding behind walls and duty and the fear that caring about me might somehow betray your friend’s memory.”
The mention of James should have broken the spell. It should have reminded Edmund of all the reasons this was dangerous.
Instead it felt like permission.
He pulled her closer. Not gently—there was nothing gentle about the need that had been building for days. His hands framed her waist, fingers spreading across silk and the warmth beneath. She fit against him perfectly, curves aligning in ways that made coherent thought difficult.
“Isadora.” Her name emerged as something between prayer and curse.
She rose onto her toes, closing the remaining distance. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him down to meet her.
Their lips met in a kiss that tasted of inevitability and desire finally unleashed.
Edmund had kissed women before. Perfunctory encounters during his youth, carefully controlled passion that never threatened his walls. This was nothing like those calculated exchanges.
This was fire and hunger and ten years of denying himself anything resembling human connection finally shattering under the force of want.
He kissed her like a man starving. Like she was air and he’d been drowning. His hands tightened at her waist, drawing her flush against him while her fingers tightened in his hair with enough force to sting pleasantly.
She made a small sound—surprise or pleasure or both—and Edmund swallowed it. Deepened the kiss until the world narrowed to just this. The warmth of her mouth, the racing of her heart against his chest, the way she yielded and challenged in the same breath.
When they finally broke apart—lungs burning, both gasping for air—Edmund pressed his forehead to hers, trying to gather thoughts that had scattered like leaves in a storm.
“Edmund,” she breathed. His name on her lips undid something fundamental in his chest.
Reality crashed back.
What had he done?
He’d promised her a practical arrangement. He had been explicit about the boundaries of their marriage. And now he’d kissed her like a man who’d lost all control—which he supposed he had.
Edmund stepped back. Put necessary distance between them before he forgot every promise and vow and carefully reasoned argument about why this was impossible.
“I apologize, Your Grace.” The formality tasted wrong after the intimacy they’d just shared, but he wielded it like a weapon anyway. “This cannot happen.”
Confusion flickered across her face. Then hurt. Then something that looked uncomfortably like anger.
She lifted her chin defiantly. “Can it not? Or do you simply refuse to let it happen?”
“Both.” Edmund forced himself to meet her eyes. To let her see the truth even as he pushed her away. “I cannot offer you what this would require. Cannot be the man you deserve. Cannot—”
“Cannot trust yourself to feel anything?” She stepped closer, eyes blazing. “Because from where I’m standing, the only thing preventing this is your stubborn refusal to believe you deserve happiness.”
“You don’t understand—”
“Then make me understand.” Challenge in every syllable. “Because all I see is a man who kisses me like I’m the air he breathes, then retreats behind walls the moment things become real.”
Edmund wanted to explain. Wanted to tell her about the fear that caring for her meant betraying James’s memory, about the terror that if he allowed himself to love her he’d become his father—destroyed by grief when loss inevitably came.
But the words lodged in his throat. Tangled with desire and fear and the ghosts of ten years’ worth of careful isolation.
“Forgive me,” he said instead. “This was a mistake.”
The lie tasted like poison.
He turned and left her standing alone among the portraits of dead duchesses. Fled like the coward he’d apparently become.
Behind him, he heard no footsteps. No pursuit.
Just silence that felt like condemnation.
Edmund didn’t stop until he reached his chambers. Closed the door and locked it against temptation and his own traitorous desires. Then he stood there in darkness, fists clenched, and tried to convince himself he’d made the right choice.
Tried. Failed.
Because the truth was he could still taste her on his lips. Could still feel the warmth of her body against his, the way she’d responded to his touch without hesitation or fear.
He’d told her it was a mistake.
The real mistake was walking away.
But admitting that would require courage Edmund wasn’t certain he possessed. It would require tearing down every wall he’d spent a decade constructing. It would require believing he deserved the happiness she offered.
And that was a leap of faith too terrifying to contemplate.
So instead he stood alone in his locked chambers, separated from his wife by mere corridors that felt like chasms, and wondered at what point protecting his heart had become indistinguishable from destroying it.