Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Another day slipped by where Isadora played her role of duchess before the servants and played her very real role of nursemaid to Sophia in private.
They had spent the morning naming Molly’s unborn kittens—Sophia insisted on Unity for the smallest after Isadora’s sister—and the afternoon butchering a duet at the pianoforte until they were both too giddy with laughter to sing another note.
Strange as it felt at times, the girl had folded Isadora into her days as though she’d been expected all along.
It was the house that hadn’t.
And that was partially because of its master. She had not expected love; she was not such a fool as that. But she had thought there would be something. A feeling of belonging, maybe? Yes, that at least. Yet oftentimes, she found herself feeling like a tenant of Winchester rather than a duchess.
After trying to sleep for the past hour in an uncomfortably too-large bed, Isadora rose to the sounds of footsteps outside her bedchamber door. She listened in the silence that cloaked the house, not missing the glow of light that slipped in the gap underneath her door.
Someone was awake.
She rose, bare feet padding against the soft carpet, and crept to the door, opening it just in time to see Nicholas creeping down the stairs, a candle in his hand, the flame flickering with each step.
He did not seem to notice her presence as he made his way down, and Isadora followed him as far as the head of the stairs as she listened to the sound of his passage through the house.
The front door clicked.
Hooves, on the gravel outside.
She hurried back to her bedchamber window, throwing open the curtains and peering into the moonlight-drenched scene before her. A carriage unhitching and rolling its way into the dead of night.
Where could he be going?
It was some time before she finally closed the curtains and went back to bed.
At breakfast, Isadora paid special attention to Nicholas’s hands. He sat as he always did at the head of the table, fingers encased in white gloves, the chair at his right standing empty, reading the broadsheets.
Sophia’s chair sat empty too. Spared her lessons for the day, she had gulped her chocolate standing up and gone down to the lake with the maids to feed the ducks.
Without her, the breakfast room felt twice its size and half as warm.
Isadora might have come along, but breakfasts were the only times she would see her husband most days.
Nothing in his bearing confessed to the night before. His coat was pressed to knife-edges, his hands as loose and easy as ever, and not so much as a shadow smudged beneath his eyes.
Yet he had most certainly stayed out late.
Isadora had fought sleep until somewhere around three in the morning, and while remnants of last night’s exhaustion clung to her bones, here he sat, fresh as new milk.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked as she poured herself some tea.
“Tolerably.”
The teapot throttled a little. Conversing with him was like paying calls on a brick wall. More silence stretched between them. She longed to ask where he had been, but if she did that, she would have to admit to spying on him.
Perhaps I should have taken the stroll with Sophia after all.
Or perhaps she would simply follow him next time. No small feat when they shared one roof and every servant in it, but she was a resourceful woman. She had married a duke with nothing but a carpet bag after all; she could manage a little espionage.
Gregson swept into the room bearing a silver salver held aloft, upon which lay a fresh pile of letters. He placed the correspondence first before Nicholas, who thumbed through it without much interest until he reached the fourth. His hand froze.
It was only for a second. Then he turned the letter facedown, slipped it beneath the others, and resumed as though nothing had happened.
Isadora watched the small motion out of the corner of her eye, wanting to pry, but she had her own post to attend to. Flicking through absently, humming, her own attention snagged on a letter with now-familiar handwriting.
She glanced sidelong at Nicholas, waiting until he was absorbed in another letter of his own before using her knife to break the seal and open the note.
Isadora (I hope I may still have the liberty of addressing you so),
I beg you would grant me a few moments of your time, that I might at least attempt to set matters right between us.
If there is any kindness left in your opinion of me, and you wish to know the truth of why I was unable to attend our wedding, meet me beside Mrs. Ellwood’s Tea Gardens, where your Uncle Vernon first introduced us.
I shall wait for you there this afternoon through to the evening.
Yours,
NW
Careful to avoid the duke’s eyes, Isadora folded the letter along its creases, small and smaller, and buried it beneath the rest of her post. Nicholas would never know, and while part of her was a tiny bit curious to know what Mr. Windham could possibly think would make this right—especially when she had ostensibly the happy ending she had always hoped for—she had no intention of meeting him.
Nothing good could come of a rendezvous like that. And although Nicholas’s lack of interest in her stung more than she cared to admit, she would never repay coldness with betrayal.
She was better than that. His sister’s enigmatic words came back to her, ‘He is not always perfect, but he will try.’
Yes, their marriage was far from perfect when he carried so many secrets and hid so many demons, but growing up as the overlooked middle child in her family and the unnoticed niece with her aunt and uncle, Isadora was nothing if not patient.
Nicholas glanced up as she gathered her letters to her bosom and rose to leave.
His mouth opened, as though he wanted to say something to her.
A line appeared between his brows, and for a moment, he looked almost anguished.
Then the calm slid back over his face like ice sealing a pond, and he looked down and took a slow, deliberate bite of toast.
She left the room.
Sophia had been talking about the ducks for the better part of ten minutes.
“—and Betsy said we couldn’t feed them the good bread, so we had the heels, and the big one, the cross one, he took it right out of my hand.
Betsy screamed.” She was lying on the library carpet with her feet on the fender, sighing at the memory.
“He didn’t bite me, though. Betsy said he would but he didn’t.
His head’s green like the bottle glass in the still room. ”
“Mm.” Isadora turned a page. “The cross ones never bite. It’s the quiet ones you want to watch.”
“That’s what Papa taught me about people.
” Sophia wiggled her toes at the fire. “Can we go again tomorrow? Betsy won’t come, she says her boots are ruined, but they were ruined before, I saw them.
And I want to show you where the swan nest was.
Mama fed the swans, I think that’s why there’s no picture of her on the stairs anymore, Papa had it taken away because she’s holding the bread basket in it, Mrs. Perry said—anyway, there might be eggs by now. Betsy said July but I think sooner.”
Isadora went very still at the mention of the former duchess.
Her portrait was removed? Why? She had been led to believe Nicholas had loved his last wife. Was that not the reason he’d remained unmarried?
She looked at Sophia, sprawled on the carpet, who was now examining a hole in her stocking, entirely unaware she had said anything at all.
“Next week on your free day, I should think,” Isadora answered her tightly. “If the weather holds.”
The hall clock struck nine.
She counted the chimes with her heart climbing. He had left at ten, last time. An hour to dress and decide whether or not she was to go through with her little espionage plan after her husband. “Come on. Bed.”
“You said after your chapter,” Sophia pouted.
“I said no such thing, and you can’t even see the book from down there. Up.”
Sophia got up in stages, sighing like an elderly woman. “Could you carry me, please?” she asked, arms already raised.
“Come on then.” Isadora hauled her up and got a sleepy cheek pressed against her shoulder for her trouble.
“You smell like the garden,” the little girl mumbled, already half gone. “The wall part. Where the oranges are… I’m so happy you’re here, Izzie, the house was such a bore without you.”
Oh, the adorable little girl she was.
After she’d taken her to her rooms, which were about as spacious as Isadora’s own, she rang for Nurse, kissed the small fair head, and went to her own chambers.
By the time the clock struck ten, Isadora had already made up her mind that she would follow Nicholas if he showed any signs of leaving.
In fact, although she had made it known to Anna she would be retiring, she had not gotten ready for bed, instead getting dressed up in her old riding habit. Then she waited.
It didn’t take long. Almost as soon as Nicholas came upstairs, he descended again, a carriage already pulling up on the gravel.
Isadora followed, sending for a mare to be called round.
Far easier for her to follow on a horse than in a carriage, and it also meant that no one else would know where she was going.
Besides, it wasn’t yet that late, and although it was perhaps unusual for a lady to ride at night, she did not mind being considered eccentric.
Not when it would provide her answers.
It took them very little time to reach the outskirts of York, whereupon she found herself with considerably more traffic.
With the other carriages moving about the way they were, it was difficult to keep up with the box emblazoned with the Winchester crest. Evidently, he had a specific place in mind.