Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nicholas reached out a hand to welcome Sophia as she entered his dressing room, beaming from ear to ear. He’d heard the pair return while he was shaving, and he had immediately sent for his daughter, wanting to know how their little excursion had gone.
Perched upon his bed, she obliged him with every detail and recounted her extraordinary day.
Ordinarily, Nicholas had no particular interest in the workings of a seamstress’s shop or the process of measuring for a dress, but he found himself listening raptly, enchanted by her delight in the experience.
“Everyone treated me just like a grown-up,” Sophia giggled. “Oh! And the dress will be beautiful. I can’t wait to show you! You mustn’t ask Izzie for clues either.”
“Well, I can’t wait to see it,” Nicholas laughed, splashing his face.
“I like Isadora.” Sophia gave him a sly look from under her lashes. “I’m glad you married her, Papa.”
Nicholas felt his chest lurch, and searched for the correct thing to say. “Yes,” he settled on finally. “I am too.”
“But we met a nasty man,” Sophia went on, and he suddenly straightened, heat and awareness pulsing through him. “He knew Isadora, or he said he did, and he wasn’t very nice to her. She said he’s not a very nice man, and I think she’s right.” She pursed her lips.
“Do you know who the man is, dear?”
“I can’t remember his name.” Sophia shrugged, unconcerned, and not seeming to notice the darkness that Nicholas felt was emanating from him.
“But Isadora said she was supposed to marry him before she married you. Only she’s glad she didn’t, because he’s not very nice and he doesn’t like her very much. ”
It was only for the sake of his daughter that Nicholas did not immediately turn on his heels to find Isadora. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say—only that there was a tight, possessive, angry feeling in his chest at another man having stopped her.
No, not just another man: Nathaniel Windham.
Nicholas had done his research into this Mr. Windham.
His pockets were well and truly to let, with debts scattered across the entirety of York and further afield.
No doubt he hadn’t married Isadora either because he deemed her dowry insignificant, or because he had been recovering from a hard night and hadn’t risen in time.
Either option was a coin toss with him.
Nicholas didn’t care much for the reason, only that it had humiliated Isadora.
And knowing how much it had hurt her—desperation had sent him into her arms, hoping to sell her wedding gown for a chance to reach London—made him all the more furious.
If she had been that hurt, she must have cared a little about him.
He found that thought deeply unwelcome.
He listened to Sophia tell him more about her day, then told her a little about his—which was far less exciting—and played a brief game of chess with her before the nursemaid arrived. The moment they left, he went to his wife’s dressing room.
Isadora sat before the mirror with a string of pearls at her throat, her fingers struggling with the clasp. Nicholas came to stand behind her and fastened it without a word.
She jolted at his touch, but soon regained her composure, keeping her eyes on her own reflection rather than his.
“Do you have anything to tell me?” he asked after a moment or two of silence.
Her shoulders tensed, just slightly. “If you’re asking whether the trip was a success, I believe it was. Sophia had a wonderful time.”
“I know. She’s been talking my ear off about it for the past half hour.” He smiled slightly, but the thought of Windham knocked the smile off his face entirely. “But I wasn’t referring to Sophia.”
“What, then?”
“The gentleman you encountered after you left the shop.”
“Ah.” She sighed and twisted in her chair to face him. “I suppose Sophia told you?”
“She said you met a man who wasn’t very nice, and who didn’t seem to like you very much.”
“That more or less covers it,” she said, a wry note in her voice. “Why he ever agreed to marry me in the first place escapes me, although he clearly still thought little enough of me back then to abandon me at the altar. All’s well that ends well, I suppose.”
“Did he hurt you?”
Her brows rose slightly. “In public? No, he did not, and if he had, you may be sure I would have told you immediately.”
“Why didn’t you tell me the moment you came back home?” He gripped the back of her chair, his knuckles white with the strain, and recognized the inflexible note in his voice. “Unless you have something to hide,” he murmured, knowing well he was being silly now but unable to stop himself.
“Is that the only reason a lady can keep her own counsel?” She rose, spinning so she was directly facing him, her eyes flinty.
Ever since they had married, it seemed she had gained her confidence, and for better or worse, she now stood up to him with alarming frequency.
Not alarming on the surface of it—he knew even as he was making these demands that he was being unreasonable and autocratic; nothing in Sophia’s story had suggested to him that Isadora had done anything she ought to be ashamed of—but because when she raised her chin in this way, he had the absurd, almost overwhelming desire to kiss her.
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “When it comes to… him, I would prefer it if you were more forthcoming. I don’t wish to rely on Sophia to feed me information.”
Isadora passed a hand over her face. “If something of note had happened, then I would have told you—although I hardly see why I should.”
“Because you are my wife.”
“And you are my husband, yet that knowledge hardly leads you to being forthcoming with me.” She challenged him with her honey-brown eyes. “Why should one rule apply to me and another not apply to you?”
Because my secrets are for the sake of my sanity.
The underground pugilism was his one relief; an escape from the world. A chance for him to unleash his emotions in a controlled environment so that he could keep himself reined in everywhere else, as he was proving spectacularly he could not do around Isadora.
“Things are more… complicated than that,” he said finally.
“Then perhaps they are for me, too.”
Frustration had him taking her shoulders, careful not to hurt her, yet unable to risk the thought of letting her go. “Do you still care for him? Is that it?”
Her gaze searched his face as though she was seeing him for the first time.
“No,” she said slowly. “No, that is not it. I didn’t love him when I thought I would marry him, and any prospective affection I felt for him died when I was waiting at that altar, alone and humiliated.
He wants nothing more than to hold something over me, and to increase his influence.
“He is upset I married above him—especially when he deemed me too unimportant for his notice. And he’s hoping that if he belittles me, I may come running back to him, or even that our marriage may suffer as a result.
” She pressed her lips together, but he still heard the next words she didn’t say. Which it is.
A strange emotion clamped his chest. He felt as though he was teetering on the edge of something—only he didn’t know what he needed to do. Reach out to touch her and express his relief at her words?
It shouldn’t have mattered to him that she didn’t care for Mr. Windham. The man was unworthy of her notice, but he had never intended to care one way or the other about his wife’s preferences.
Privately, Nicholas suspected that Isadora’s new gowns and ducal composure had revealed to Windham what Nicholas had seen from the beginning. Now the fool wanted her notice, perhaps even her affection. Fortunately, he seemed determined to court both by insulting her.
Nicholas, conducting a jealous interrogation in her dressing room, could hardly claim greater sophistication.
His chest expanded, and the blinding rage he felt at the idea of Windham desiring Isadora made him draw closer, callused fingers tightening on her shoulders. She tipped back her face, startled, and her lips parted on a question, and—
He kissed her hard enough to press the pearls into her throat.
It was no way for a husband to kiss his wife, but there was no gentleness left in him.
Driving her back against the dressing table, his hand slid into her hair as he drank the startled little breath from her lips.
She could draw softness from him when she chose.
She could also wake an appetite so ravenous it frightened him, a need to take possession of her body and give her no reason to doubt whom she belonged with.
She moaned.
He tore his mouth away, but Isadora caught both fists in his coat and dragged him back until their teeth nearly struck.
“Last time,” she gasped against him, “you left me wanting. I shan’t permit it again.”
Whatever good sense was left in him until that point dissolved. His hands dropped to her hips. He hauled her against him, spreading his fingers over the curve of her buttocks through her skirts, and ground the thick ridge of his arousal into the softness of her belly.
“That,” he breathed, catching her lower lip between his, “is what you do to me.”
A needy little sound escaped her. “Show me what to do.”
He swept her into his arms and carried her to the nearby chaise, mouth never leaving hers. Lust had reduced him to carnal instinct. He sat with her astride his thighs, pushing aside the billows of her skirts, and her mouth returned to his with a desperation that surpassed his own.
Grace had always been submissive, electing to be guided. Isadora sought no such invitation. How refreshing to see his desire reflected in her kiss and the bold friction of her hips against his.
He gripped her waist, drawing her close, positioning her over his arousal, and pulling her down until the pressure pressed between her thighs. For a moment, she stiffened, and he wondered if he had gone too far, but then her fingers knotted in his hair and held fast.
Closer, her body urged.