Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
"Iwas thinking we should host a ball."
Isobel looked up from her painting, the brush pausing mid-air. Andrew stood in the doorway of the morning room, Chance at his heels, looking infuriatingly handsome in his riding clothes.
"A ball?" she repeated, trying to ignore the way her pulse quickened at the sight of him. "Here?"
"Why not?" He crossed the room and settled into the chair beside her. "We have the space. Mrs. Brendan would be thrilled to organize it. And it would give Joan a chance to meet more eligible gentlemen beyond Lord Ashford."
"That's thoughtful of you." She returned her attention to her painting, uncomfortable with the intensity of his gaze.
"This weekend," he continued. "We could send invitations today, have everything arranged by Saturday. What do you think?"
"I think it sounds lovely." But her voice was flat and mechanical.
Andrew leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong."
"Isobel." His hand covered hers, stilling her nervous stitching.
"You've barely looked at me all morning.
You picked at your breakfast. You're doing that thing where you agree to everything I say but don't really mean it.
So, tell me, what's wrong? Is it Chance?
Did he destroy another pair of slippers? "
Despite herself, she smiled slightly. "No, Chance has been well-behaved. Relatively speaking."
"Then what is it?" His thumb stroked across her knuckles, sending unwelcome sparks of awareness up her arm. "Talk to me."
She set down her painting carefully, buying herself time to find the words. How did she ask this without sounding like she was attacking him? Without revealing how desperately she needed to understand?
"What was it about your father that you wish to avoid so much?"
Andrew's hand stilled on hers. "What?"
"Your father." She forced herself to meet his gaze. "You've mentioned him before, how you swore never to become like him."
He pulled back slightly, his jaw tightening. "Where is this coming from?"
"I'm simply curious." She kept her voice gentle, non-confrontational. "We're married, Andrew. We share a home, a dog, and a life. But there are parts of you I don't understand. Parts that seem to drive everything you do."
"Isobel, I don’t think this is necessary."
"Please." She reached for his hand now, holding it between both of hers. "I need to understand. I need to know what you're running from."
He was quiet for so long she thought he might refuse to answer. Then he stood abruptly, pacing to the window, his back rigid with tension.
"My father was cruel," he said finally, his voice low and controlled. "Not in the obvious ways, he never struck me, never raised his hand to my mother. But his cruelty was insidious. Calculated."
Isobel said nothing, sensing he needed space to speak without interruption.
"He had no self-control in any aspect of his life." Andrew's hands clenched at his sides. "Not with drink, not with gambling, and especially not with women. He would see something he wanted, a lady at a ball, a servant in his household, and he would take it. Seduce it. Ruin it."
"He made promises he never intended to keep.
" The words came faster now, as if a dam had broken.
"Told ladies he loved them, that he would leave my mother for them.
Convinced them to give him everything—their virtue, their hearts, their reputations—and then discarded them the moment he grew bored.
Some of them had children. His bastards are scattered across London like debris from a shipwreck. "
Isobel's chest tightened at the pain in his voice.
"And the servant women..." Andrew's voice dropped to barely above a whisper.
"They had no choice. They needed their positions to survive.
To feed their families. And he knew that.
He used their desperation against them, made them think they wanted it when really they were just terrified of losing everything. "
"That's monstrous," Isobel said, the word inadequate for the disgust churning in her stomach.
"It was." Andrew turned to face her, and she saw the raw anguish in his eyes.
"I watched him destroy my mother with his infidelities.
Watched her fade away, piece by piece, until there was nothing left but a shell.
I watched servant women leave our house in tears.
I watched ladies at balls avoid him; their faces twisted with pain or shame or fury. "
He moved back to his chair, sinking into it as if the weight of memory was too much to bear standing.
"And through it all, he gambled," Andrew continued.
"Every night, every cent we had. He would come home reeking of cigar smoke and cheap perfume, sometimes winning, more often losing, always laughing like it was all some grand joke.
Until the night he came home and told me it was over.
That he'd lost everything. The fortune, the estate, everything our family had built for generations, gone. "
"Oh, Andrew." Isobel moved to kneel beside his chair, taking his hand again.
"I was young when he died." His fingers tightened around hers, almost painfully. "Young and facing complete ruin. And do you know what my last conversation with him was?"
"What?"
"I told him I would rebuild everything he'd destroyed.
That I would prove I was nothing like him.
That I would never let vice control me the way it controlled him.
" Andrew's laugh was bitter. "And he laughed.
Called me his 'little fox.' Said I was just a gambler's son, doomed to repeat his mistakes no matter how hard I tried to be different. "
"But you're not like him," Isobel said fiercely. "You're nothing like him. You built a business, rather than destroying a duchy. You have been faithful to me, rather than canoodling with other ladies."
Andrew said simply, “I built a place where men face their own weaknesses. Not mine. I have nothing to hide.” He shifted. “I lived ten years in temptation, Isobel. Every night. Every hour.”
He tapped a finger lightly against his chest. “I never chased what didn’t want me. Never touched a woman who wasn’t fully aware of exactly what she sought.”
She swallowed. “You speak as though that makes you noble.”
“It makes me disciplined,” Andrew corrected. “And honest. Two things the ton pretends to value but rarely practices.”
Isobel didn’t respond.
He watched her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “I know what people say. That I ruin households. That I corrupt women. That I have no honor.”
A faint, almost amused huff escaped him. “If I had lived half the life the ton accuses me of, I would be dead.”
Isobel’s lips twitched before she could stop them.
Andrew’s voice softened, steady, not fragile. “I am not ashamed of the Mayfair Fox. I took a ruin and made it an empire. I made rules for myself and kept them. That is a victory most men will never understand.”
Isobel held his gaze. “You surprise me.”
“Good,” he murmured. “Surprising you is far more interesting than impressing them.” He said, lowering his voice, “you judge me more honestly than the rest. And I prefer honesty.”
She blinked. “You… prefer mine?”
Andrew smiled. “Even when it irritates me.”
A short silence stretched between them—tense, charged, but not consoling or desperate.
“The Mayfair Fox is my anchor. My reminder."
"Your prison," Isobel finished quietly.
Andrew froze, staring at her. “You think I’m repeating my father’s mistakes.”
Isobel stiffened. “I did not say that.”
“You didn’t need to.” His voice was calm, not wounded — firm, certain. “You look at me as though I’m one wrong step away from becoming him.”
“That is not—”
“It is,” he cut in, but without heat. “And you’re wrong.”
Isobel’s jaw tightened. “Then what do you want me to see?”
“A man who knows precisely what he is doing.” He stepped closer, his gaze steady, unwavering. “I don’t run my life on impulse. I never have. Every choice I make is deliberate.”
She opened her mouth, but he continued.
“I am nothing like my father, Isobel. Not because I fear becoming him, but because I decided long ago that I wouldn’t.”
Her breath hitched, not because he sounded broken, but because he didn’t. He sounded infuriatingly certain.
Isobel looked away. “You speak as if it’s that simple.”
“It is for me,” Andrew replied. “But not for you, it seems.”
Her eyes snapped back to his. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” he said, leaning in just enough to make her pulse stumble, “that you don’t trust me. Not truly. Not my judgment, not my choices, not my control.”
“That is not fair.”
“Is it not?” he asked quietly. “You trusted Eleanor after one afternoon. You trust Norman without question. But me?”
His voice dropped, soft but unshakeable. “You hold me at arm’s length and wait for me to fail.”
Isobel swallowed hard. “I have reasons.”
“I know,” he said. “But they are your reasons, not mine. You see danger even when I offer certainty.”
She tried to step back. He matched her.
“I am not the one who doubts myself, Isobel,” he continued. “You are the one who doubts me.”
Her pulse kicked, stubborn and frantic. “You are twisting my words.”
“No,” Andrew murmured, “I’m exposing them.”
A charged silence stretched between them, not comforting, not gentle. Sharp. Unavoidable.
Isobel’s voice came out low. “And what do you expect me to do?”
“Stop waiting for me to become a villain,” he said. “And admit that the real battle is not with me.” His gaze locked with hers.
Her breath faltered — not from fear but from the way he said it, with absolute certainty, with no plea for her approval.
He didn’t look like a man seeking comfort. He looked like a man she could either trust… or lose.
“You are not your father,” she whispered, pressing her lips to the sharp line of Andrew’s jaw.
He smelled of sandalwood and something darker, something musky, intoxicating.