Chapter 20
Twenty
Isabelle fanned her cheeks as she made her way to the kitchens, grateful to be back at Windham House. Windham would be with Stanford for the rest of the night and Isabelle had little desire to dance with another man for the remainder of that evening.
Instead, the food in the kitchens was calling her name.
She walked through the halls, doing her best to calm her pounding pulse. As she pushed open the door to the kitchens she was happy to see that she was alone.
After three dances with the duke, a few moments to herself were exactly what she needed.
Though the sandwiches looked delectable, it was the scones, coated in a sugary glaze, that made her mouth water. She retrieved a small plate from the stack at the end of the counter and selected two of the delicate scones.
After choosing a fresh, plump peach from the towering bowl of fruit, she made her way out of the kitchens. There had to be a peaceful nook somewhere to eat her food.
Her quest to find a quiet place to rest were quickly dashed as she heard the soft sounds of a pianoforte being played. It was not coming from the ballroom; it was deeper in the bowels of the house. The melody was the most haunting piece she had ever heard.
It settled deep within her soul and drew her down the hall and into the drawing room.
Windham sat before the pianoforte, his head swaying gently as he caressed its ivory keys and lovingly drew its soothing notes into the air like gossamer threads.
A robust fire roared in the hearth and a single candle was perched on a holder that rose high above the pianoforte. No other light illuminated the room.
Windham did not hear her enter. He was lost in the music, his hair disheveled and his head bent over the keys in deep concentration. His jacket had been tossed into the corner of a chair. His sleeves were unbuttoned and rolled up to his muscled forearms.
Isabelle crept closer to the pianoforte, her heart thudding in her chest. Until that moment she hadn’t thought that a man could be beautiful, but this man was.
Windham was stunning, a work of art as he committed himself to the passion of the music, stroking the keys in a bewitching manner that utterly captivated her.
The melody grew softer; a light glimmering in the deeply haunting tune, lifting him up from the depths into which he had descended.
As he struck the final key, letting the note play out into the silence, he turned his head and looked at her. His gaze was filled with a haunted, faraway look, and for several heartbeats it was as though he could not recognize her.
Ever so slowly, his consciousness returned and he came back to himself.
“What are you doing in here?” he asked, his tone low and rich in a way that she had never heard it before.
She slowly drew closer to him. “I heard the music you were playing.”
He pressed a finger down on one of the keys, the deep note ringing throughout the room. “I guess you did.”
Isabelle tried to wet her lips but her mouth remained dry. This was not the duke she was accustomed to seeing. A new and alluring layer had been unearthed before her eyes; something that simultaneously invited her in and wanted her to stay away.
Even though she knew she should leave the room she could not. She put the plate of scones on the little table beside the pianoforte before sitting beside him on the bench.
His arm brushed against hers, but he did not bother to move away and neither did she. “What are you doing?”
“You asked me that already.”
“I know.” He breathed in deeply and raked a hand through his hair. “But you did not answer me.”
“I faked a fainting spell to get away from Lord Milton. I couldn’t handle much more of his droning on about what he thinks our potentially impending marriage might be.
” She took one of the scones, plucking a slice of sugar-coated orange peel from its top.
“If the question you wish to ask is what am I still doing here, in this room, then I can tell you that I do not know.”
Felix studied her carefully. The searching look in his eyes that made her feel as if he was peeling back her layers and exposing her innermost soul.
A shiver trickled down her spine at the thought of him seeing everything in her heart and mind that she had wanted to keep hidden.
Isabelle wondered if he realized that she didn’t have a clue what she was doing.
Perhaps he was already aware that, each time someone tore her down with a disparaging remark, she moved one step closer to giving up. She could not imagine spending the rest of her life as an outsider.
Windham’s fingers drifted lightly over the keys as his gaze remained locked with hers. “I used to spend a lot of time playing the pianoforte when my father was alive. I thought that one day I might be permitted to go to school and study music.”
“You wanted to be a musician?”
He shrugged as he idly played the haunting melody. “I thought about it on several occasions, but deep down I knew that it would never happen. I was the son of a duke. My life was never to be my own.”
“I feel the same.”
The Duke stopped playing as curiosity and anguish illuminated his eyes. He leaned closer to her, reaching for the other scone on the plate and breaking off a piece.
He popped it into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, allowing the silence to stretch between them. Isabelle put the remnants of her scone back on the plate and glanced at the lone candle flickering high above their heads.
When she looked back at the duke he was suddenly closer to her than she had anticipated.
She pulled her loose hair over her right shoulder, wishing now that she had worn it up. She no longer desired to make a statement or scandalize the ton. She should have tried to fit in.
One of her curls escaped, trailing back to the left side. Before she could move it back into place with the rest of her hair, the duke took the strand and curled it around his finger.
He studied the strand under the light for a moment before letting it slip loose. When she moved to pull it to the side with the rest of her hair, his hand closed over hers.
She sensed the ground slip from beneath her feet as though she had been bound with him in a freefall.
“Please, do not,” he said, his voice low. He kept his light grip on her hand as she let the hair fall loose. “You are beautiful, just as you are.”
Blood rushed in her ears and her cheeks warmed.
For a moment, a distance lingered between them like an ethereal mist. She could not discern if she had been the one to lean in, or if he had moved first, but the abyss evaporated as his lips met hers.
She lost herself in his warm and tender lips, enjoying the firm and sensual press of his mouth against hers. A deep, throaty sound escaped from him as his hand pressed needfully against the small of her back and pulled her closer.
Suddenly, Isabelle’s forgotten wrist grazed a lone key and the pianoforte rang.
With a startle, she and the duke sprang from the bench in surprise. As he retreated to the window bank, she backed away towards the safety of the fireplace.
What have I done?
Windham linked his hands together behind his head and paced back and forth. “I apologize. I should not have done that.”
“I do not believe that you are the only one at fault in this scenario.” Isabelle’s voice trembled with raw emotion as she stared down at the flames in the hearth.
Felix sighed. “I am the one who should have known better. My family had been entrusted to your care and now I have ruined your virtue. I have utterly abolished your hopes of finding a husband.”
Isabelle took a deep breath, but was secretly relieved that she would no longer have to marry.
The duke strode over to her. “We will marry at once. Of course, this shall compromise the other half of the arrangement, but there is only so much I can do to remedy the situation.”
“The other half?” Isabelle asked, her tone suddenly sharp. She spun and glared at him, her arms crossed angrily over her chest and her marriage prospects forgotten. “What do you mean by that?”
His face grew ashen. “I mean that there are sacrifices that will have to be made. Nothing more.”
She fumed. “You are lying to me. After what just happened and the times that we have spent together, I would think that you would be more forthcoming with the truth. I am not a child, Windham. I demand to know what the other half of your arrangement is about.”
“You needn’t concern yourself about it.”
“You and my father are playing games with my life. I deserve to hear the truth so I know what I must prepare myself for.”
Windham wavered. She watched the emotion drain from his face as he reconstructed the walls that had existed between the two of them.
Whatever he had to say to her, she knew it was going to hurt.
“Isabelle, it is truly unimportant. We shall be married and then it will all be over.”
“Not all of it.” She marched over to him, stopping a few inches away. “Tell me about the rest of the deal, Your Grace.”
His face hardened further. “There were to be additional funds awarded for each child you produced, and even more if I found you a husband with a considerable fortune. Provided that came to pass, and you received a title of baroness or higher, your father promised to sell me the piece of farmland in his possession that backs onto my estate.”
“Price per child.” Isabelle felt hollow with disbelief.
“You put a price on each of my unborn children. You set another price based on my acquiring a title. And yet another price for bringing me here in the first place! Is there a single aspect of my life that you have not had the gall to assign a worth?”
Felix colored and looked away, his eyes incapable of meeting hers. He stared at the ornate flooring beneath their feet as Isabelle angrily wiped tears of rage and betrayal from her eyes.
She took a shuddering breath and drew her shoulders back. “We will not be married.”
“I have tarnished your reputation. No other man will want you now.”
“An unnecessary reminder, I assure you.” Isabelle turned and fled for the door. Before she exited she turned to him once more. “It is a disgrace that you felt the need to lie and hide things from me while I was prepared to walk through fire for you and your family.”
Windham House was silent. The rest of the family was out, and the servants had the night off. Lady Evangeline and Lady Hyacinth had gone to stay with their aunt in the country.
Isabelle was free to be alone, but she wished that she wasn’t. She longed to tell Victoria everything that had happened. She wished that she could confide in her, but it would be for nothing.
Isabelle stood in her room and looked at the American dresses in her wardrobe, ready to be worn at all of the events a young lady with an upstanding reputation was expected to attend.
The longer she looked at the dresses, the more she understood that she would never be accepted into English society.
She could see it in the pulled seams that had been altered to bring her American dresses up to English standards of fashion. The military elements that she had once liked so much now looked out of place. It was now easy to see the many ways that she had fallen short.
As she turned to look at herself in the mirror, it only became more evident.
Her cheeks were still flushed, although she did not know whether that had occurred as a consequence of dancing or from the duke’s kiss.
She took a deep breath, selected several pins from her vanity, and twisted up her hair, pinning it into place. Once that had been done, she walked to the windows and opened them, letting the cool night air into her room. She hoped that it would soon dispel the flush in her cheeks.
The last thing she wanted was a reminder of the night to linger any longer than necessary.
“Isabelle?” There came a soft knock at the door. “Mama said you were feeling unwell and came home early.”
“Come in,” Isabelle said as she crouched by the fireplace, adding more wood to the fire that was beginning to burn low.
Victoria entered the room, not saying a word as she helped Isabelle light the lamps and candles scattered about the chamber. Once their soft warm glow had lit the room, Victoria took a seat at the small corner breakfast table.
Though Isabelle desperately wanted to ask Victoria what she truly knew about the duke’s plot, the question dried up on her tongue when she looked at her friend. There wasn’t a cruel bone in Victoria’s body. She would never do or condone something as treacherous as her brother had done.
Isabelle sat across from her, leaning forward and resting her forearms on the table. “Why did you not dance?”
Victoria looked down at her hands in her lap. “With my family’s reputation, do you think that gentlemen would wish to dance with me?”
“Your father may have been a horrid man who hurt his family, but that does not deny the fact that you are beautiful. Men can be simple creatures at times and beauty will often outweigh dowry size.”
“Once I marry, and you can marry for love, will there be less of an issue with you finding a man to fall in love with?”
“I suspect there shall not be much of an issue at all.”
Though Isabelle longed to run away and spend the rest of her life traveling Europe and studying art, evading all those who had wronged her, she knew that her wishes were merely a fantasy concocted from the depths of her anger and despair.
Running away was impractical. She would have no money to her name.
My dear friend is facing an uncertain future.
The duchy will fall to ruin.
Despite the fact that she was angrier than she had even been before, she still couldn’t find it in herself to turn her back on the duke.
However, if anyone were to ask, she would say that she was sealing her fate for Victoria.