Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Isadora had known almost before the words left his mouth that refusing him was impossible.
A duke.
She had spent years being measured against prettier cousins, wealthier dowries, and younger girls making their first bows into society while she quietly slipped further into the category of poor relation.
Marriage had ceased to be a romantic prospect long ago.
It had become a narrowing corridor, one everyone else seemed determined to close before she reached it.
And now a duke had looked straight at her and declared her suitable.
Suitable! The word should have sounded bloodless. Instead, it warmed her all the way down to her toes.
Still, some ceremony must be preserved.
Had she accepted on the spot, he might have guessed how little stood between her and disaster.
He mistook her for a baron’s daughter suffering a temporary misfortune.
He knew nothing of the years Isadora spent wearing her cousins’ discarded gowns, taking the poorest chair by the fire, and hearing every kindness described as though it had cost the Chesters blood.
Even before that, she had been the middle child, always destined to be overlooked and forgotten.
Yet, as arbitrary as his reasons were, the duke had chosen her.
The moment Winchester House disappeared behind the lime trees, Isadora clutched her carpet bag to her chest and spun in the road, laughing until the hedges and her horrid yellow skirts blurred together into one long streak of color.
Never mind London. She would be a duchess! Who cared if she was only being chosen because the duke wanted a ‘maternal’ figure for his daughter, as he so put it?
He had at least chosen her.
Isadora lay staring at the canopy above her bed while a blade of afternoon sun crept slowly across the faded damask.
Three days.
Three days shut inside the house, with every letter inspected and every attempt to leave met by a locked door or one of her uncle’s servants planted in the passage. All because she refused to tell them where she had gone after the wedding.
Aunt Judith had somehow decided that Nathaniel’s absence was Isadora’s fault.
Apparently, she possessed secret command over the man and had merely chosen not to exercise it.
Had such powers existed, she would certainly have ordered him to arrive—or, better still, to stay away months ago, before she had stood before a church crowd dressed like a jaundiced sacrifice.
Though after Winchester House, Mr. Windham seemed a very small loss indeed.
The duke had asked her to marry him.
And she was imprisoned upstairs like a disobedient nursery maid.
With a groan, Isadora flung back the coverlet and went to the door. It yielded with its usual complaining creak. Corridor empty, at last. Downstairs, Aunt Judith sat in the drawing room turning the pages of a novel, while Uncle Vernon’s voice carried through the half-open study door.
“We cannot be expected to keep her indefinitely,” he was saying.
“Food, gowns, pin money—and for what? She has already failed at the one useful thing required of her. Perhaps I ought to write to your sister and ask her to take in another of the children. After all, the girl they took in has already married; there must be a vacancy by now.”
Isadora winced. A vacancy. When her father had died, leaving her an orphan, she and her four sisters had been divided by a selection of family members. Their aunts and uncles had gathered around, choosing which sister they wanted.
Isadora had been everyone’s last choice, bumped around until finally her Aunt Judith and Uncle Vernon had been forced to take her in. And ever since, they had made their dissatisfaction with the situation plain, complaining to all and sundry about the unfairness of it all.
Isadora’s sweet younger sister, Unity, at twenty, was also unmarried.
But no one spoke of her as though she were a cracked vase taking up shelf room.
Of course they didn’t. She had dimples, a pretty singing voice, and the good fortune to live with an aunt who considered affection a Christian duty rather than an expense—blessings Isadora loved her for and envied in equal measure.
Soon, none of that would matter.
Isadora smiled as she crossed the passage.
She could already picture Aunt Judith’s face when the announcement appeared in the York Courant: Miss Fairbourne, niece of Mr. and Mrs. Chester, to become Duchess of Winchester.
Her aunt would have to sit down. There might be hartshorn. Perhaps even weeping.
“Watch where you’re going!” Her aunt snapped her book shut.
The lovely little vision burst. “Yes, Aunt Judith.”
“And cease being a mouse about the house. If you require occupation, there is embroidery enough in the morning room—that fire screen has sat unfinished since Easter. Or simply return upstairs.” She made a shooing motion. “I am beyond my wits’ end with you.”
Isadora glanced toward the front hall. Three days, and still no chance to send word. The duke might believe she had refused him. Worse, he might decide he had been mad to ask.
“If I might only walk into town—”
“You will do no such thing.” Aunt Judith’s mouth thinned. “A young woman wandering the roads alone, dressed as you were! One would think you had been reared among gypsies!”
“You were the ones to leave me at the church,” Isadora protested meekly.
“And you should have returned directly when Mr. Windham failed to appear. Instead, you vanished for half the day and came creeping home after dark.”
“I did not creep…”
She narrowed her eyes, the effect only succeeding in making her appear more severe. “I hardly know why we bothered to find you such an advantageous match if you did so little to ensure it happened. You may be sure I will not do such a thing again.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am.” A footman appeared behind Isadora, clearing his throat. “There is a caller… for Miss Fairbourne.”
Aunt Judith brightened. “Mr. Windham, no doubt. Show him into the drawing room.” She caught Isadora by the arm before she could move. “And mind yourself. I will not have you spoiling matters twice.”
Isadora’s stomach corded into knots at the thought of having to confront Nathaniel all over—and on the off-chance he wished to actually marry her—having to be the one to tell him no this time.
There would be consequences. Locked doors, confiscated letters, perhaps a sudden journey to some relation in the north who believed cold baths improved female obedience.
Swallowing, she turned and trudged her way down to the drawing room on the ground floor, and nearly walked into a tall gentleman on his way to the same destination. Dark coat smelling of orange peel, severe tailoring, shoulders that made the ordinarily wide corridor seem abruptly narrow—
Her heart gave a violent leap.
The Duke of Winchester stared down at her impassively, and for the longest moment, she wondered if she had hallucinated the entire series of events where she had gone to his home and he had proposed her marriage.
“Miss Fairbourne,” he said with a stiff bow.
Isadora’s jaw dropped. No, surely she could not have imagined it—this was not a social call she could otherwise have expected.
“Your Grace! W-why are you here—”
He gave her an irritated glance, but her aunt had now reached them and gave a somewhat similar gasp.
“Your Grace!” Aunt Judith slipped neatly between Isadora and the duke. “Do come in! You must forgive us for receiving you in the passage.”
She ushered Nicholas into the drawing room before he had quite finished bowing.
The room suffered badly beside the memory of his library, and Isadora flushed in mortification. Her embroidery frame leaned drunkenly in one corner, still displaying three miserable leaves and half a blue bird, while Aunt Judith’s novel lay face-down upon the sofa with its spine cracked open.
“Oh, do sit,” Aunt Judith continued, clearing the book and waving the butler off in the direction of the study. “Thomas, fetch Mr. Chester at once. And send for tea. No—the silver service. Mind you, tell Cook.”
Evidently, this was to be a whole family affair. Isadora felt a little sick.
“That will not be necessary,” the duke said.
“Nonsense! A duke does not cross our threshold every afternoon. You honor our family.”
The duke’s gaze flicked to Isadora, a question in his blue eyes she had no clear idea how to decipher, much less answer. So, in return, she gave him a pleading glance.
His lips thinned, and he gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “Thank you, Mrs. Chester,” he said with that iron self-control Isadora had witnessed before. “But it is no great honor, I assure you.”
“Oh, but it is.” Aunt Judith caught the look and smiled broadly. “You have come to see our Isadora, I presume?”
Our Isadora? Isadora wanted to laugh.
Uncle Vernon entered, puffing and red-faced. He had always been a portly man, but age had done him no favors, and his waistcoat strained at the seams. “Your Grace,” he said jovially. “What can bring you to our humble home? Have you sent for some refreshments, Judith?”
“As I told your good wife, that won’t be necessary.” Although the duke did not speak with undue haste, there was definitive command in his words. “I thought perhaps we might take a stroll in Rowntree Park. If you are amenable, Miss Fairbourne?”
“Yes!” Isadora said, a little too quickly. Yes, she was amenable. Agreeable, affable, all the nice words, anything to get her out of this drawing room with her aunt and uncle practically salivating over the duke. “That sounds lovely, Your Grace.”
“Excellent.” He gave a bland, polite smile to her aunt and uncle, waiting for their inevitable agreement. One did not often deny a duke, it seemed, and her aunt and uncle were never ones to buck a trend.
“…Why, yes, of course,” Aunt Judith said with a saccharine smile.
Aunt Judith had her best bonnet tied beneath her chin before Isadora had even found her gloves, and Uncle Vernon appeared soon after, smelling of port and struggling into his coat. So much for a private stroll.