Chapter 12 #2
The restrictive space meant that Isla and Edward ended up hip to hip on a small bench, shoulders brushing, legs touching from knee to thigh. Heat pooled in the contact. Edward tried to pretend he didn’t feel it. He failed. She folded her hands in her lap, breath easing.
“I grew up riding across the moors,” she said quietly. “Nothing feels more like … breathing.”
“You’ll forgive me,” he said, “for not wishing to see my duchess hauled before every gossip in London.”
She snorted. “I was hauled into this marriage. You may bear a little consequence.”
He almost laughed. Almost.
She went on, softer. “In Scotland … horses were simple. They never judged. Never asked me to be smaller. Or quieter.”
He listened. He found he wanted to. When she paused, he told her of the storms he had fared with the Argus. Of the night in the South Atlantic that he had dangled from a piece of broken rigging, clinging to a sailor who would otherwise have gone over the side.
A night I discovered that fear of death was nowhere near the fear of my father.
“What made you choose such a life?” Isla asked.
“It was an escape. My father never forgave it.”
She considered him. He felt her head turn, felt her breath against his cheek. He wanted to turn and look at her but knew it would bring their faces to within inches of each other. He doubted his self control in that scenario.
We are married for the sake of convenience. Anything more is a complication that neither of us needs. Or wants.
Outside, rain softened into a patter. The horses shook and settled.
Edward exhaled, long and low. “We will sleep in separate rooms,” he said. “We have not discussed it before but it should be spoken. Needless to say I will not compel … anything.”
He felt the relief in her. Her shoulders dropped. She shifted as though relaxing muscles that had been tight.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
A small, strange ache bloomed in him at that gratitude. He shifted slightly, their hips still pressed, arms brushing. The storm quieted. Neither moved away.
“We should return,” she said at last.
“Yes,” he agreed, though part of him wanted to stay in the small hut forever where the rules of rank and reputation could not reach them. They stood, almost in unison and for one breath neither moved toward the door. Then Isla reached for her reins.
“Come then,” she said lightly. “Race me back. Properly. No more foolish leaps.”
He found himself smiling, real and unguarded. “We’ll see.”
They rode back together.
Chapter 12
The valet fussed with his cuffs as if the fate of Wexford depended upon an even inch of linen. Edward bore it because habit made bearing easier than protest. The mirror reflected a man properly dressed for an evening he did not particularly want.
Black coat, starched shirt, fresh cravat, the small silver pin his mother insisted he wear. A duke hosting a ball in his own house after a decorous interval of marriage. All as it should be. Inside, nothing felt as it should.
“A fraction tighter, Your Grace?” the valet asked, fingers hovering at his throat.
“No.” Edward stilled his hand. “I mean to breathe at least once this evening.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The man retreated with a small bow.
Edward picked up his signet ring from the tray and slid it onto his finger, turning it once to seat the habit. A week. Seven days measured out in ledgers and appointments and the Dowager’s precise complaints.
He had kept to his own routine with almost military zeal. Mornings with the steward, afternoons at his desk, evening hours spent where duty dictated. Isla had moved through the house like a new star in an old constellation. She was visible but studiously ignored.
Let neglect cool things. Let her think negatively of me and that will help keep distance between us.
He knew roughly where she had been at any given time because the servants’ reports reached him whether he wanted them or not.
“Her Grace said the lower passage wants more lamps.”
“Her Grace asked if the kitchen might send broth to the tenant’s boy with the fever.”
“Her Grace wondered if the unused east rooms might be opened to air.”
Every question, every suggestion, had been filtered through his mother’s mouth with a vinaigrette of displeasure.
“Your wife has opinions on the ordering of this house,” the Dowager had said that very morning over breakfast, slicing bread as if it had personally offended her.
“She moves servants like counters on a board. She asked Mrs. Hargrave why the maids eat where they do. She sent your stable master’s daughter to the stillroom with instructions. ”
“She is trying to be useful,” Edward had answered, keeping his voice even. “Better that than vapid.”
“There is a middle ground,” Lady Eleanor had said. “It is called knowing one’s place.”
He had not argued further. Arguing with his mother about Scotland, or women, or any subject where grief and pride braided was like shouting into a gale.
Instead he had buried himself more deeply in work, as if paper could protect him from the knot of doubt and desire that tightened whenever Isla entered a room. A week had not loosened it.
He took one last look at his reflection. The man in the mirror looked composed. His mind felt like a restless sea.
“Enough,” he told his own face, and left the room.
***
The main hall of Wexford Hall had been transformed.
Garlands looped from the gallery rail. Lamps wore shades that turned their light to honey and the polished floor in the ballroom beyond shone like a small lake.
Footmen stood in ordered ranks and music floated faintly.
He was halfway down the stairs when he saw Isla.
She stood near the base of the balustrade with Edith Godwin at her elbow. The house smelled of beeswax and roses but she smelled of something lighter. Soap made of citrus and spice. A hint of summer and heather. His head spun and he resisted the urge to breathe in deeply.
Her gown was simple compared with the architectural contrivances he had seen on other women. Soft green, clean lines, a neckline that flattered without shouting and sleeves that allowed movement.
Without the weight of excessive ornament she looked different. More herself, less a mannequin dressed by a modiste and required to stand still. Her hair was pinned in a way that said someone clever had helped and she had then undone two or three pins herself until it felt right.
She stood with Edith, arranging flowers and laughed at something Edith said, head tipped back slightly, teeth flashing white.
The maid was grinning, hands fluttering as if protesting some outrageous suggestion.
Isla reached to adjust the spray of flowers on a pedestal.
She shifted a stem, tilted a leaf. Edward stopped on the stair, unnoticed, and watched.
He had seen beauty in plenty of guises, polished, painted, carefully rehearsed.
This was something else. The ease in her posture, the unstudied light in her eyes, the way servants relaxed around her rather than stiffening, all of it struck him with more force than any jeweled gown she might ever wear.
Remember the nature of your marriage, Lieutenant. Do not let your guard down.
Henry’s warning about rumors had not yet been resolved.
Isla’s motives, and her brother’s, remained unproven.
His body, unhelpfully, recorded quite a different verdict.
Isla glanced up then, perhaps sensing the weight of his gaze.
Their eyes met across the space between stair and hall.
For a moment the noise of preparation faded and he heard only the small hitch of his own breath.
“Your Grace,” she said, with a neat little inclination, as if they were not, technically, sharing a name and a house.
“Your Grace,” he answered, reaching the bottom step, mirroring her formality.
“Do you approve?” She gestured to the flowers, the room, the visible evidence of her hand in his house.
“They are … satisfactory,” he said, and wanted to kick himself at once for the lukewarm idiocy of it.
Her brows lifted the smallest fraction. The corner of her mouth twitched. “Mrs. Hargrave,” she said, turning to the housekeeper who had come up behind, “His Grace is overwhelmed by joy. He can hardly form the words.”
Mrs. Hargrave, under the guise of adjusting her apron, hid a smile. “I shall note his condition in the household ledger, Your Grace.”
Edith snorted, then coughed to disguise it. “Beg pardon, Your Graces.”
Edward felt something in his chest wanting to laugh as well. He strangled it with a reminder.
“You should … finish dressing,” he said, though she clearly needed nothing more. “Guests will arrive shortly.”
“I am dressed,” she replied. “I merely refused to armor myself in whalebone for their entertainment. Mrs. Hargrave assures me I can sit and stand and breathe in this. I consider that a victory.”
“It is indeed, Your Grace,” the housekeeper said.
He inclined his head and moved on before he could say something foolish. The first carriages were already crunching on the gravel drive. Duty, blessedly impersonal, rose to meet him.
***
The ball began as they all did with a series of entrances, a flurry of names, an exercise in remembering faces. Edward performed as required, introducing Isla to those whose acquaintance she had not yet made.
Isla stood at his side for the receiving line, answering the endless “how do you do” with grace that looked unforced.
He kept to his resolution and did not linger near her once formalities were done.
Instead, he passed smoothly between groups, the way he had once moved between stations on a ship.
All predictable. All manageable. Until he noticed how the room had gathered around her.