Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
Relief swept through Isadora so sharply that her knees nearly buckled. Nicholas stood before her, broad-shouldered and forbidding, having planted himself squarely between herself and Mr. Windham. The look he directed at the man was cold enough to frost glass.
Caroline wiggled her brows at Isadora, who tried her utmost not to look as though she might swoon from the tension.
Mr. Windham’s smirk faltered very slightly at the duke’s sudden arrival. “Your Grace,” he started. “I was merely greeting Her Grace. As an old friend… of sorts.”
Caroline snorted. “Not much of a friendship between them if you don’t mind me saying, Your Grace.”
Mr. Windham’s lip curled. “Forgive me for not holding much stock in your opinion, Miss…?”
“Hensley,” she said sweetly. “Do try to remember it on your way down”
Mr. Windham gaped at her for a moment, perhaps astonished that an American would speak to him in that way. Then again, he always did have an inflated sense of self-importance, as though he deserved something more than the average gentleman.
No doubt that was why his ego had taken such a beating at Isadora having gone over his head to marry another man of greater social standing.
He had essentially rejected her, and she had secured a better match.
No one who compared the two could doubt it.
She had humiliated him, and once he had ascertained that she would not betray her new husband, he sought to weaken their bond instead.
Well, Isadora had no intention of permitting it.
She threaded her hand through Nicholas’s arm and nestled close into his steely warmth. “There you are,” she said, beaming up at him.
“Ah, the lady reunited with her lover.” Mr. Windham’s smirk returned in full force.
“I confess, Your Grace, I have often wondered how she persuaded you to marry her. You never courted—indeed, you scarcely appeared to exist until you arrived without warning to announce your intentions. Such… circumstances do invite speculation.” He regarded them both with an expression that mimicked civility while concealing something poisonous beneath it.
Nicholas’s arm tensed, and she gripped his bicep. “Say that again,” he growled, his voice low and thunderous.
“Nicholas,” she whispered. “No, please.”
“No, no.” His chest rose and fell with one deep breath, and she saw the cracks in his armor, the anger peeking through. “I beg Mr. Windham to repeat his insinuation so I may call him out for it.”
Mr. Windham brushed an invisible speck from his coat sleeve.
“You may try, Your Grace, but I have no intention of meeting you. It would take more than a disappointed husband’s ire to entice me into arriving before dawn, that’s for certain.
And I would never dream of doing such a thing over Her Grace. ” He smirked at Isadora. “
“You mistake me for a man who would wait until dawn.” Underneath Isadora’s arm, Nicholas felt as though he was straining at an invisible leash—as though any second, he might break through entirely and launch himself at Mr. Windham.
She turned into him, placing her other hand on his chest. She knew the truth of how they married, and so did he, and few people would credit Mr. Windham’s record of events when he was so obviously the injured party.
“Nicholas,” she murmured, looking up into his face. “Please. Not here, and not like this.”
His hand came to rest on hers, and he looked down at her, inhaling as though he was taking in her scent for the first time. His body relaxed, slowly. When she thought she might have a chance of taking him away, she tugged at his arm.
Elizabeth—Eliza, Nicholas’s sister—chose that moment to descend on them, her arms outstretched. “Sophia,” she chimed with a radiant smile, giving no heed she had so much as noticed Mr. Windham standing there. “I have not seen you in years, it feels like! Have you grown in that time?”
Sophia giggled, also ignoring Mr. Windham, and accepted her aunt’s embrace.
This was the moment for Isadora to take Nicholas away and calm him down before he did anything rash he might regret.
Protecting her was one thing, but calling another gentleman out on her behalf, and on her honor, suggested there might be truth to the claims, and she could not allow Mr. Windham to win.
She guided him behind the shelter of a wooden stall. The instant they were concealed, Nicholas caught her by the hip and drew her against him. He lowered his forehead to hers, his breath coming faster than it ought.
“Something about that odious bounder makes me want to do him harm,” he muttered, his voice dark and dangerous. Perhaps the revelation should have shaken Isadora, but instead, she felt an inappropriate flutter of pleasure.
“You can’t,” she said.
“I am aware of that.” His other hand came to rest at the back of her neck, possessive enough to make the flutter considerably worse. “The way he looks at you makes me so mad I can scarcely breathe.”
“That is precisely what he wants. A reaction.”
“He wants you too, Isadora. I can see it.” Nicholas’s mouth hardened. “Perhaps only because you were denied to him, and his vanity has never recovered. But he wants you. When he stands there speaking as though he has some claim upon you, what am I supposed to do? Smile politely?”
“No one has ever accused you of smiling politely,” she giggled, reaching up to rest her hand on his cheek. His jaw worked under her fingers, and she marveled at the feel of the muscles. “But if you pay credence to his rumors, don’t you see that you’re giving them fuel?”
“I know that,” he said with obvious reluctance.
“And by speaking to me, he isn’t laying claim to me,” she noted, wrapping her other arm around his shoulder, holding him to her as he held her to him.
“You have laid claim to me in every way that matters. Think of him as a hound, snapping at your heels. All he wishes is to find a way to get between us, but we shan’t let him. That’s the end of the matter.”
The fingers at her nape squeezed, and he tilted her head back, bringing his mouth to hers with savage intensity.
If he recalled they were still in public, he showed no signs of it.
And Isadora could not bring herself to mind.
Eliza had Sophia, and they were out together, and Mr. Windham had not succeeded in separating them.
Nicholas wanted her. He defended her. Even if he didn’t love her, this was more than enough.
Pressed against his body as she was, she felt the way he hardened as the kiss deepened. His tongue plundered her mouth, and she made way for him, offering him everything. In this, she was reminding him once again that she was his; he was the only man to have ever claimed her.
There was no Mr. Windham, no plots to fracture their marriage, nothing but them and this moment.
He broke away and rested his forehead against hers. “The things I want to do to you,” he said, his voice a growl.
She wished he might have a chance to do them, too. If they were anywhere but here—
But they were here. And Sophia was not far away. There was a limit to how long Eliza could keep her.
“When we return home,” she promised.
With a frustrated noise, he withdrew. But there was a wry expression on his face when he looked down at her. “What have you done to me, Isadora?”
“I don’t know,” she beamed up at him, “but I hope it may last.” She linked her arm through his, and after composing themselves, they returned to their party. Marie, Nicholas’s younger sister, had also joined the scene.
“You can’t just stop me from spending time with Ollie,” she was saying to Eliza, her cheeks flushed. “We will marry one day, you know.”
Eliza heaved a sigh. “All I’m saying, dearest, is that you should spend more time getting to know him before making such outrageous statements. And you can’t run away merely to sneak a moment with him. What if someone discovers you?”
Nicholas looked as though he might say something, but Isadora placed a hand on his arm. Marie, her eyes sparkling and her head thrown back, was the picture of defiance; to push against her now would only be to put her back up.
“Mr. Chant,” Nicholas said, a strange note in his voice. “That is the man you have been seeing, Marie?”
Marie turned to them, her face briefly splitting into a smile when she glimpsed Isadora, before she looked back at Nicholas. “Yes, Oliver Chant. Do you know him?”
“I…” Nicholas’s voice trailed away. “You truly like him?”
“He is excessively charming, and he thinks I am the most charming young lady of his acquaintance.” She gave a soft, lovely smile. “And it doesn’t matter to him what I am, so long as I am who I am.”
“That’s the most precious thing of all,” Isadora said earnestly, giving Nicholas’s arm a little squeeze.
Theirs had not been a marriage of affection, but he had certainly not cared who her father and mother had been.
Of course, rather than the sister of a duke, she was his social inferior by several rungs, but the end result was still the same. He didn’t care.
Nicholas glanced down at her, his eyes searching.
“Oh! You should meet him,” Marie blurted to Nicholas, taking his other arm. “Then you can judge his character for yourself.”
“What a good idea,” Isadora said pointedly.
“I quite agree,” Eliza sighed with a nod. “And if you approve, Nick, then I can wash my hands of the matter.”
“I suppose I’m left with little choice, then,” Nicholas murmured, still with that odd reserve in his voice. “Very well. I shall call on him tomorrow, Marie. Does that suit?”
Marie beamed at him. “You are perfectly the best brother!”
“You may want to learn the result of the meeting before making such declarations,” he said dryly. Then, looking from Isadora to Sophia, he offered them both a smile. “Shall we go home?”