Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Isadora tried not to notice how openly the other passengers were ogling her.
A young woman in a wedding gown was curiosity enough. One traveling alone, a carpet bag in her lap and no ring on her finger, was a feast. The farmer’s wife opposite had almost certainly been watching her since Tadcaster.
She kept one hand folded over the worn handle of her bag, the other on the yellow silk at her knee. The evening had cooled by the time the coach lurched to a halt in the village nearest the estate, and the air smelled of dust, horses, and rain not yet fallen.
“Closest I can get you, ma’am,” the driver called down. “About a mile the rest of the way.”
A mile. She could walk that, and the dry weather would spare her hem. A small mercy, but she thanked her fortune for it.
As Mama would say, count your blessings where you find them…
Carpet bag in hand, she began the long trek down the single road to the Duke of Winchester’s home.
Though in truth, it was more of an avenue, lime trees arching on either side like a watercolor landscape, drawing her in like a church procession, yet beautiful enough to make her feel all the more out of place.
Ahead, beyond the bright gleam of a lake, the palatial house emerged, pale sandstone set off by the fresh green trees, its many windows glittering at her like all-seeing eyes.
By the time she crossed onto the gravel her shoes were powdered white and her courage worn thin. What could a man who possessed all this want with the dress on her back?
All she knew of the secretive Duke was that his reputation hadn’t a blemish—unlike the lordlings her second cousins snorted about over dinner.
Cold and reclusive, the locals said, but one who ‘knew what was afforded his position.’ By which, she presumed, he patronized them with the appropriate amount of attention as befitted their rank.
Hardly auspicious. But I cannot afford to think like that. This is my only chance.
The last dozen yards across the large gravel courtyard took an eternity. Pale marble reflected the dying sun as a fountain at the center speckled the haze of a rainbow, and over the door a carved coat of arms in which several stern beasts appeared to be judging her.
Composing herself with a breath, she rapped three times.
After a ponderously long wait—long enough to consider fleeing and living out her days under an assumed name in a bookshop—the door opened on a butler of perhaps fifty, graying hair brushed neatly back, brows heavyset.
His gaze dropped to her gown, and a muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“Good… afternoon,” she managed. “I am Miss Isadora Fairbourne, come to see His Grace.”
Thick brows furrowed like two slugs. “Alone, miss?”
“As you see.”
“His Grace is not accustomed to receiving young ladies without introduction.”
“Then I shall be the first of many disappointments today.”
His attention returned to the gown, and some private conclusion passed behind his eyes. She had thought he might turn her out; instead he sighed deeply and opened the door wider. “Follow me, ma’am.”
Winchester Manor opened into a cool marble hall on pillars of pale green scagliola, the floors so polished she could see the shabby edge of her hem in them.
Her slippers clapped harshly in the silence as he led her through a baize door into a narrow waiting room plainly meant for tradespeople with hard wooden chairs lined along the way and a dark wooden bureau she doubted held anything interesting. “Wait here. I shall inform His Grace.”
Isadora sat, heart pounding, clutching the carpet bag and wishing it were proper luggage.
A young lady of quality did not travel the countryside alone, and most certainly did not arrive unannounced at a duke’s house.
Still, it couldn’t be helped. She could only hope he had a kind heart and agreed to see her; within the hour she might be on her way to London, to her sister. The thought was some comfort, at least.
After an interminably long wait, he returned, nose slightly upturned. “His Grace has permitted you to approach. I trust you will not forget your manners.”
Relief came too sharply. She rose at once. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she said, and scurried behind the butler up a set of very grand stairs and through to a large library on the second floor.
For a breath, the room took her attention whole.
The library was inhabited by centuries. Morocco leather, beeswax, woodsmoke, the dry vanilla scent of old paper.
Books twined the walls in shadowed ranks; the Turkey carpet faded beneath generations of boots.
Each yard of this space undoubtedly held more wealth than was spent on Isadora in her entire lifetime.
Then she saw the man by the hearth.
He had been there all along, so still he had seemed part of the room’s dark polish and discipline.
Until that moment, for Isadora, a Duke had been a word from newspapers and drawing-room gossip, something grand, remote, probably old and faintly ridiculous.
This one was nothing of the sort.
The Duke of Winchester made rank seem physical: the height of him, the breadth of his shoulders, the dark, exact elegance of his greatcoat.
His hair was nearly black, with a blue gloss where the evening light touched it, and his eyes were the startling color of winter sky.
An aquiline nose, a firm mouth, a jaw with the obstinacy of stone.
He was the most handsome man Isadora had ever seen, which felt grossly unfair after the day she had just endured.
Then those severe blue eyes lowered to her gown, and his nostrils flared. There could be no doubting he recognized the dress.
“Miss Isadora Fairbourne,” the butler announced.
“Thank you, Gregson. That will be all,” came the deep rumble from the dark.
Gregson inclined his head and backed out of the room, shutting the door neatly behind him.
Isadora pressed a hand to her stomach, uncertain what to say. The duke stood with his back to a mantel carved with lions, shields, and other expensive declarations of conquest. Evening light struck the side of his face, turning one blue eye brilliant and leaving the other in shadow.
Instead of confronting her, he simply said, “You are not what I expected.”
That stopped her dead. “You were expecting someone?”
“On some days.” A ghost of a frown touched his mouth and was gone before she could pin it. “Sit, Miss Fairbourne. Tell me what brings you to my library uninvited, and try not to bore me. I so rarely have the pleasure.”
Some of the metaphorical wind left her sails, but she sat. Instructing this man to buy his own dress back because it was ‘faulty’ seemed even more ludicrous in the face of his impeccable civility.
“I… imagine you must be wondering why I’ve come,” she bumbled awkwardly.
“I confess to a little curiosity.”
Chin up, she announced, “I am here to procure a refund.”
He went quiet a beat too long. “A refund?”
“For this gown.” She twitched at the skirts, wishing they were not such fine material or she were speaking to a duke.
Perhaps she ought to have taken the complaint to the servant who’d sold it to her aunt—much too late for that now.
“I was not aware it was so very dated. And you must see the color has lost its luster.”
His brow crept up. “You have come to sell me the dress you are presently wearing.”
Her cheeks went hot. “I’d change first, of course—”
“Considering bodily slavery has been unlawful for some time, I should hope so,” he said, utterly serious. “Regardless, I believe Mrs. Perry made it clear to the lady who bought it that the dress was nine years old and would need making up.”
Isadora flushed. Yes—and had her aunt not been such a miser, it might have been. Had she been allowed to make up one of her mother’s gowns instead, none of this would have arisen at all.
“Well, I need the money,” she blurted. “To go to London.”
He propped an elbow on the arm of his chair, observing her sharply. “I… see.”
“My situation is a precarious one, as you may imagine.” She changed tack. “If this did belong to your late wife, perhaps it holds some sentimental value, and you might wish it back? I would happily part from it—for a small sum, of course.”
Whatever stillness had been in his face, it sharpened to offense. “If I had intended to keep it for sentiment, Miss Fairbourne, rest assured I would not have permitted its sale.”
Her face burned hot. “Sorry… Excuse my presumption.”
He rose and crossed to a sideboard to pour a drink. “So… Were you intending to be married?”
Isadora may have walked a mile to a duke’s home like a pauper, prepared to beg for what amounted to charity, but admitting that her bridegroom had abandoned her this morning at the altar to this handsome stranger was still a step too far. “I, um—not today, Your Grace.”
“But that was perhaps the plan for you,” he murmured. “So, tell me, who is your family, Miss Runaway?”
“I live with my relatives, Your Grace… b-but I do not intend to go back to their household, because—” He arched a brow at her repeated presumptions, and under the sternness of his gaze, she quailed. “I live with my aunt and uncle, the Chesters… But my late father was a baron. Baron Weatherby.”
“Hm. A baron’s daughter, selling her wedding gown in a stranger’s house.” He strummed his fingers against the oak sideboard, deep in thought. The words should have shamed her. They did. But there was no mockery in his voice. “You’ve had quite a day, I gather.”
Isadora stared at her clasped fingers on her lap, waiting for the inevitable bell that would summon the butler to return her to the road—and with any luck, still in her wedding gown.
She could perhaps pawn the dress then, but any pawnbroker would want the gown for the material only and would pay a pittance, if they deemed it necessary to pay a desperate lady at all.
At last, the duke turned back to her. “I shall not be purchasing that dress,” he started.
Her heart sank.