Chapter 15 #2
“Grace and I were the best of friends,” Lady Windermere started, the emphasis dripping from her words.
And Winchester and I came to know each other well, too, didn’t we?
” She didn’t pause long enough for a response, instead seating herself between them and helping herself to a strawberry.
“Sometimes, I feel as though I am part of the family—so imagine my surprise when I discovered Winchester had married again without asking me!” She laughed, though Isadora found nothing funny about the situation.
Nicholas poured them both some wine, his fingers grazing Isadora’s as he handed her the glass. “I did not feel as though I needed to ask for anyone’s permission. My choices are my own, and I’m more than happy with my wife. She has complemented my family perfectly.”
Lady Windermere sent Isadora a calculating glance, but then she laughed again. “To be sure, I could never have suspected anything else. I would never judge your judgment, Duke.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he muttered blandly.
Isadora took a sip of wine, wishing she could take rather more than one.
Fortunately, the lack of gossip or scintillating conversation provoked Lady Windermere to move, and she clambered back to her feet, shaking off her skirts as she invented someone else she must speak to at once.
Silence descended after she left. Isadora toyed with her glass stem, not daring to look at Nicholas.
“I’m sorry,” he sighed, reaching for her hand.
“I know it must be difficult to have people questioning your right to be a duchess. But you mustn’t listen to them.
You are perfectly qualified for the position, and I do not regret—” He broke off, and she finally tore her gaze away from their linked fingers to his face and the turmoil that reigned there, just for a second.
“I do not regret choosing you as my wife,” he finished.
They were not the prettiest words. Isadora did not much like poetry, but she understood its potency now; even these paltry few words touched her in an odd way.
He squeezed his fingers and retracted his hand. “The sun is shining and not all the world is as objectionable as Lady Windermere,” he shrugged. “Shall we make the rounds?”
After another glance at Sophia, Isadora agreed, and they undertook the rather tedious business of walking around all the different groups and social parties, greeting everyone they knew and finding introductions to those they did not.
By the end, Isadora might have retired back to her blanket in the shade when she encountered a young lady with a decidedly American accent twirling a parasol between her fingers.
“This heat is nothing,” she snickered when Isadora made her usual polite comment about the weather, ready to move on. “Not compared to Virginia, anyhow.” She smiled prettily at Isadora. “Oh! Don’t tell me you’re the infamous new duchess everyone’s been prattling about lately?”
Isadora held up her hands in protest. “Infamous? Oh no.”
“Well, I should hope you are, for that might at least make two of us,” the lady pinched her with a mischievous grin.
“Caroline Hensley, at your service. No doubt by now you’ve figured I’m the American, always two columns down from your name in the gossip sheets.
With this accent, no one lets me forget. ”
Isadora had not heard of anyone discussing an American, but then again, she had hardly been privy to much of the gossip. After all, a fair amount was about her.
“I, too, am quite infamous, you know,” the lady went on, shrugging a single shoulder. “But I am also due to inherit an eye-wateringly large sum of money, so I suppose that accounts for the fact I can call an earl a strutting coxcomb to his face and still be invited to events.”
She looked Isadora over with an intrigued air, “I have to say… I expected you to be terribly stuffy, but it bodes well for me that you’re not. Shall we be friends? We both need a comrade in these trying times, I’d say, and where better to find one than in each other?”
Isadora giggled, warming to this strange American heiress almost immediately. “Well, I certainly could do with a friend.”
“Good, because I could, too. And more than you, I’d wager.
You have your husband, and he’s a duke. My father is willing to sell me to any titled gentleman he thinks might improve his standing, but the ones still with teeth don’t want an American wife.
” She shrugged. “He’ll find me some ancient fortune-hunter, and he won’t care in the slightest.”
“Can’t you refuse?”
“Well, I just had the most ridiculous notion that I was a woman and my autonomy belonged to another. Ah, never mind, I am, and it does.”
Chuckling, she linked her arm through Isadora’s, and they walked around the perimeter of the small park. Sophia had made her way back to the blanket, and looked as though she was gorging herself on pies and cheese and sweet treats. The two footmen stood protectively over her.
“That’s not a ridiculous notion,” Isadora said to her newfound friend.
“Is it not? I feel as though it must be in this day and age. Unless…” She cast a mischievous glance in Isadora’s direction. “Did you marry your lovely duke for love?”
Isadora flushed, unable to help herself. “The duke and I… we married out of a mutual agreement.”
“A marriage of convenience? How quaint.” Caroline chewed her lip as she looked across at Nicholas, who was busy speaking with a larger group of gentlemen. “But do you like him?”
“Of course I like him.”
She slapped Isadora’s arm playfully. “Oh, you know what I mean. Do you like like him?”
“I—” Isadora found the words failing on the tip of her tongue. The simple answer was that, no, she didn’t; she had never felt anything remotely tender for him. Theirs was a passionless agreement, and that was all they had ever committed to.
And yet…
If she denied it, would she be lying? Did she have feelings for Nicholas?
“Say no more…” Caroline answered cryptically, and patted her hand. “Well, he hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off you the entire time we’ve been talking, so it seems there may be hope for you yet.”
Isadora made to turn, but Caroline heaved her back. “Not yet! Let him have some space for you, and perhaps pine a little.”
“We see each other little enough as it is,” Isadora said, grimacing. “I doubt he pines.”
“You don’t know that! Men of his caliber keep everything inside, I assure you.
Heaven forbid they express their feelings.
As though we should ever be so lucky.” She chuffed a laugh.
“But we ladies prevail anyway! He is your husband, and you have ample opportunity to compel him to fall in love with you, if that’s what you’re looking for.
And if not, that is just as easy. Perhaps easier.
You have a lot of freedom as a married lady, you know.
Perhaps you could try using some of it.”
“Oh.” Isadora considered her position for a moment. She was a duchess, married and with an entire household at her command. Nicholas had never encouraged her to take full advantage of it, but he had never discouraged her, either. In fact, he had left her behavior entirely up to her.
Perhaps she should take more advantage of it. Who knew what could come from owning her position as a duchess and as Nicholas’s wife?