Chapter 13
Thirteen
Mrs. Peregrine laughed as she cleared away their empty plates. “I find it hard to believe that anyone could compare you to an angry goose.”
Isabelle grinned and nodded, cutting a quick glance at Windham before she continued the teasing. “It is true! I personally do not know how many times in his life he has angered a goose, but it must be a good many if he is inclined to compare me to one.”
Windham scowled, but there was a hint of humor playing around the corners of his mouth. “I do not make it a habit to fight animals.”
Isabelle smoothed her hands along the skirt of the borrowed dress as she stood and helped Mrs. Peregrine clear the table. “I have often thought of myself as more of a disgruntled badger.”
When the Duke burst out laughing, Isabelle smiled and ducked her head.
Her cheeks were warm as she set the dishes in the sink before Mrs. Peregrine waved her away.
She collected the glasses and put them on the counter.
Windham watched her with serious eyes. She wanted to ask him what she had done to warrant his penetrating stare.
Although she wouldn’t be surprised if she had erred, she had enjoyed not fighting with him today.
Not once had she considered how exhausting it was to constantly squabble until they had finally had an opportunity to spend an evening together in peaceful coexistence.
Once the dishes had been washed and put away, Mrs. Peregrine turned to them and announced, “You three shall take the two bedrooms tonight. It does not appear that the storm will let up anytime soon.”
Isabelle shook her head. “We cannot put you out of your rooms. We are perfectly fine on the couches. You have been more than kind to us already.”
Windham stood and nodded. “You shall keep your bedrooms. We are not yet tired. I suspect we will stay up for a while longer.”
Mrs. Peregrine looked at Mr. Peregrine with a fond smile. “Do you remember the early days of our marriage when we were young and could stay up until the sun broke over the horizon?”
He chuckled and took her by the hand, leading her down the dark hall. “It has been a long time since we were that young.”
A door shut, leaving Isabelle and the duke in silence while Evangeline slept on the couch. Isabelle spied a pack of cards on the corner of a small table near the couch and brought them back to the dining table.
Windham looked up at her with a raised brow. “What are you doing?”
“Neither of us are tired yet. I thought we might play a lively game of cards that is popular in America without suffering the British art of backhanded compliments.”
He cracked a small smile and nodded to the chair across from him. “Then sit and teach me how to play. We cannot have you becoming too civilized.”
She scoffed and shuffled the cards. “And there it is again, that British backhand. I must learn how to cloak my insults if I am to fit in.”
“You will be fine with your blunt personality and inability to hold back any thought that passes through your mind.”
“I have held back a great many thoughts every time I speak to you.” She gave him a sweet smile and put the cards face-up in front of her. “Poker is about betting, and since we are without money, I suggest that we bet with truths.”
“And how does one bet with truths?” Windham drummed his fingers on the worn table. His borrowed shirt hung too loose around his body, the neckline drooping low enough to show a hint of his muscled torso.
Isabelle kept her eyes trained anywhere other than his chest. “If I win a hand, you may ask me any question and I will tell you the truth.”
“And if you win the hand I will be expected to tell you the truth?”
The candle flickered between them as she nodded, her gaze connecting with his. It felt like butterflies were making their way through her stomach, beating their wings and making her lightheaded.
She cleared her throat and focused on spreading the cards to show him the faces. “We both get cards. There are several ways to win. Five of a kind is the best. You want to draw four of one card and a wild card.”
He nodded, studying her as she pointed to combinations that would constitute five of a kind. “All right. Four of one and a wild, or three of one and two wilds, and so on.”
She went through the rest of the possible hands he could have, and which was better before shuffling the cards once more. After dealing five cards to each of them, she nestled back in her chair.
“We each bet one truth to start. If I believe that my cards are better than yours I will bet you two truths, you can either call, raise, or fold.”
“Fine. One truth to start then.” He looked down at his cards, and though she tried to study the expression on his face, he gave nothing away.
Isabelle looked at her own cards. She had three of a kind and she knew she was likely to lose. She flipped a card from the stack, leaving it face up in the middle of the table. “Two truths.”
Windham sighed and checked his cards once more. “Three truths.”
She studied him for a moment, staring at the hard set of his jaw. It might have been the first time that she had ever seen mischief in his eyes as he looked into hers. She suspected that he had a better hand, but if she could bluff him into folding, then she would win.
“Four truths.” She turned over another card, smirking when the possibilities of him having four of a kind went down.
He scowled at her. “I fold.”
“You owe me three truths then, Your Grace,” she said his title with a teasing tone as she gathered the cards and set them to the side. “What shall I ask you?”
“You could ask whatever you like and if it is within my power, I will answer.”
Isabelle leaned closer to him from across the table. “How much trouble is the duchy in?”
He flinched at her question and stared at her for a few moments longer, his mouth opening and shutting several times. Finally, he took a deep breath and sighed.
“How much do you know?”
She shrugged and stared at the flickering candle, not wanting to meet the duke’s eyes and feel her heart take off again.
“I know that my father is offering you a lot of money to find me a husband. I know that he is going to continue payments to you for the first year after I am married, but that most of the sum is going to come at the start of my marriage.”
Windham cleared his throat. “Where did you learn of that?”
“And here I thought I was supposed to be the one asking the questions.” Isabelle traced the wood grain of the table, dodging his question.
While her father may have told her some of the truth, she had discovered the rest of it while eavesdropping on conversations with her parents.
The Duke sighed. “If I do not get the money your father has said he will pay me, then I will have to let go of half of my staff before winter. The other half will last until the following winter.”
“Your situation cannot be that dire if you are able to put forward the money for your sister to enter the season.”
He arched an eyebrow as she finally looked at him, her heart fluttering. “Is that your second question?”
“It is.”
Straightening in his chair, he scrubbed a hand over his jaw. It was the first time the duke had ever looked genuinely nervous. “I have enough money left for Victoria’s dowry and that is it. There is no money for Evangeline or Hyacinth if I do not fulfill the deal with your father.”
“And yet you brought two people on?”
“Third question?”
She pressed her lips together, giving him a withering look before nodding. “Yes, that is my third question.”
“Milton wronged them. The least I can do after the kindness they have shown to us is to give them a job while I can still offer it. If Mr. Peregrine can make my farmland abundantly productive again, that would go a long way to putting pounds back in my pockets.”
Isabelle said nothing, turning Felix’s words over in her mind.
She was surprised by the duke’s admissions.
She had thought he was cold and detached to everyone other than his sisters, yet these weren’t the words and actions of such a man.
He seemed to care for the strangers that had freely given them shelter and food and she was now uncertain of his true character.
Perhaps he was a kinder man than she had given him credit for.
She dealt another round of cards and they played until he won and looked at her with a mischievous smile. The candle flickering between them dimmed, the house growing darker as the night grew longer. The wind had stopped howling outside and it felt impossibly warm in the little cottage.
“Now you owe me truths,” the Duke said. “And I mean to collect.”
Isabelle reached behind her and took the pins out of her hair, setting them on the table. She had worn them for the better part of the day, and she was certain that the headache they were starting would only be worsened by the duke’s questioning.
Windham leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Are you truly this adverse to marrying, or is it only to vex me?”
“Vexing you may be a hobby, but I do not wish to marry. I had more than one would-be suitor in America who opened his mouth and wished me to be his housewife.”
“Do you not wish to spend your days at home cooking pies and raising children?”
Isabelle combed her fingers through her long tresses, loosening them and allowing the headache to ease. “Is that your second question, Your Grace?”
“I suppose it would be better that you call me Windham when we are in situations such as these.”
“Ones where I couldn’t possibly embarrass you?”
He smirked. “Precisely.”
“Then, Windham, please tell me if that was your second question or not.” Her heart skipped a beat, the familiar name foreign on her tongue. “And you shall call me Isabelle, but only when we are alone. I would not have others thinking that we are on friendly terms.”
He studied her for a moment, his dark eyes boring into hers. “It was, Isabelle.”
She hated the way her body seemed to come to life, tingles spreading through her toes and fingers until she finally looked away from him.
“Then you should know that I love baking and children, however, I do not believe that those are the only two facets of my personality. I also do not wish to be reduced to such a demeaning position once I am married. If I am to find a husband, then I want a man who recognizes who I am and what I am passionate about.”
“Passions are important to you?” he asked, his tone low and husky as he leaned closer to her, picking up one of her hair pins and twirling it around on the table.
“Without our passions we are nothing. Motherhood will not change what I love, no more than fatherhood would change what a man loves.”
“Then you are open to marriage as long as you have a husband who is willing to allow you to continue to be yourself.”
“I doubt that such a man exists.”
Windham’s smile faltered, but there was still a mischievous look in his eyes. “I fear you may be correct.”
Isabelle set the cards to one side, not interested in playing another round. Not when she could spend the rest of the night talking to him. She loved the deep timber of his voice and the way he stared at her like she was the only thing in the room.
The branches tapping against the window did not draw his attention away from her, nor did the sound of Evangeline sighing in her sleep or when the fire grew low in the hearth. Nothing took his gaze away from her.
Her inhale was shaky. “Is my father’s shipping company the only one through which you are able to ship your products to America?”
“There is no other that charges me such reasonable fees, and he is willing to lower those fees if I can get you married.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Not only is he giving you a sum for marrying me off and giving you monthly payments for the first year, but he is going to lower the cost of using his company?”
“Yes.” Felix stood, paced over to the fire and threw another log onto it. As he sat down at the table he looked as composed as before their conversation had begun.
“I didn’t think my father would find me that difficult.”
“He does not, at least to my knowledge. What I have heard is that, after the scandal with your fiancé, he was willing to put forth whatever money was required to see you married and happy.”
Isabelle suspected there was something Windham wasn’t telling her. She could see it in the way he looked away from her and wouldn’t quite meet her eyes when he spoke.
She thought she knew everything there was about coming to England, but perhaps there was still more that her father kept contained. She wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there was. He hadn’t made his name in business without being able to keep secrets.
She sorely wished that men would stop playing games with her life and her future.
Isabelle’s throat tightened. “I wish that he did not feel the need to see me settled. I am happy on my own.”
Isabelle realized that any further questions she asked of him would not provide her with better information. She could sense the walls around him grow and rise as he shut down and closed her out. He was once again the duke.
“I doubt very much that you are.”
“Windham, do you think you know me better than I know myself?”
“I think I know that you come to life when you spend time with my sisters, and while I may not agree with the wild influence you have on them, they have not been this happy since before our father died.”
Isabelle yawned and pressed her hand to her mouth. She no longer had any desire to sit up all night and converse with him. Not if he was going to continue to hide what she needed to know about his deal with her father.
It had been bad enough snooping through her father’s things, listening to conversations, and finding out the truth about her move to England in that way.
Now a gentleman sat directly across from her who could tell her everything but was determined to conceal the truth instead.
“I think it is time we call it a night,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion as she got up and went to sprawl on the other couch in the living room.
As she closed her eyes, she tried not to let the sting of her father’s dealings cut her too deeply.
One day I will be free.