Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Sophia chattered incessantly about the fair on the way home. Already, she had conceived an unlikely fondness for the silly-looking doll Nicholas had won for her. Then again, Isadora could hardly judge, considering her fondness for the book of dubious poetry she now harbored.
They returned home only to dress for the tiny ball Nicholas had promised Sophia, and as Isadora played the pianoforte, Nicholas danced with his daughter, treating her as though she was already full-grown.
After the day they’d had, Isadora’s heart felt full as she watched them bow and twirl across the room. Isadora and Sophia had practiced their dancing together specifically for this moment, and Sophia’s little face was perfectly serious as she went through the steps.
For Nicholas and Isadora, this was a little bit of fun and silliness, but for Sophia, it was her first taste of high society.
Isadora played until she ran out of pieces, and then Sophia took to the pianoforte, playing clumsily through a few jigs and reels as Nicholas took Isadora’s hand and led her to the floor.
He drew her closer to him than strictly necessary, his eyes burning into hers, and she knew he hadn’t forgotten the moment they’d shared at the fair.
Was this what happiness tasted like?
When their dance came to an end, he kissed her hand politely. “My lady,” he said, oddly formal.
She curled a teasing brow. “As I’m your wife, you may refer to me by my name.”
“Isadora. Dora.”
“I adora you,” Sophia said from the pianoforte, and dissolved into a peal of laughter. Nicholas squeezed Isadora’s hand once, then went to tickle his daughter until she squirmed and squealed, begging for Isadora to save her from Nicholas’s tyranny.
Isadora sank onto the chaise. “If you can make it to me,” she said, holding out her arms, “then I will protect you from the terrible monster!”
Nicholas raised his head. “A terrible monster, am I?”
“Are you not?”
“I’ll show you what a terrible monster I can be.” He fake roared, scooping Sophia into his arms, and carried her across to Isadora. Sophia, laughing so hard her cheeks were apple-red, latched her tiny arms around Isadora’s neck.
Something changed and softened inside Isadora.
She had already known how inordinately fond of Sophia she had become, but now she realized that Sophia was, in essence, her own daughter.
If she had to, she would run into a burning building for the girl.
And she wouldn’t even hesitate. If she never had children of her own, she would still feel satisfied.
Sophia was hers in every way that mattered.
She buried her face into Sophia’s hair.
“All right, Lady Sophia,” the nursemaid said, entering the room. “I think it’s time for bed.”
Isadora released Sophia and looked up. All their ballgowns were rumpled from having wrestled on the chaise, and Nicholas stood over them all like a protective lion over his family.
The playfulness left Nicholas’s face, and he straightened. “Very good. Come, Sophia.”
Isadora wished she could have clung to that moment—that version of Nicholas—for a little while longer. But the walls had come down around that relaxed, happy, family man he had been for the last hours.
And she had to accept that.
Sophia kissed Isadora’s cheek before retiring, and Isadora slumped back on the chaise, smiling at the ceiling.
Nicholas blocked the light, standing over her with a hot look in his eye. “Finally…” he growled, and brought his mouth down on hers.
Another searing kiss—this one, if possible, even deeper than the last.
“I have been waiting for hours to get you alone,” he mumbled against her mouth.
Isadora surrendered to the feel of his hands skimming over her shoulders and waist and breasts, and returned the favor. The light was greater now, and her fingers trembled with anticipation as she unbuttoned his waistcoat.
Finally was the right word. She would finally get to see him in all his naked glory again.
Yet as she tugged at his shirt, more eager than she could ever remember being—even here, in their drawing room, on the chaise instead of in a bed—he caught her wrists to stop her, only a sliver of his stomach visible.
She halted, almost feral with need.
He panted above her, eyes two coals, glowing, desperate. But instead of kissing her again, or pushing up her skirts, or even undressing himself, he merely murmured, an edge to his voice, “I… must tell you something first.”
“Tell me what?” she asked, still faint and breathless.
He released her wrists and shrugged off his waistcoat and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it over to one side. Then he stepped back.
Isadora looked… and looked. She had expected to drink in the sculpted splendor of his body—and she did, but that was not all she did.
Instead, her eyes snagged on the faded bruises across his sternum.
Old scars that made no sense to her, marring his skin.
Last night, in the light of a single candle flame, she had not known they were there.
“I have tried resisting you,” he started, watching her from that distance. “I have tried keeping apart from you, but all it has done is make me mad for you. But if this—if any of this—has a chance of working, then you deserve the truth.”
She recalled the bruises on his knuckles. The nightly outings. The countless secrets. And now, all the proof that he used his body for something far more brutal than merely being a duke demanded.
“After… after Grace died, I spent the better part of a year drowning. Drink, mostly. I put the whole world at arm’s length, my friends, my sisters—even… even Sophia. She had already lost her mother, and I was doing my level best to make certain she lost her father too.”
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“The man who came rushing their way and overturned their carriage was never charged. A baron. He walked away from the wreck with a broken wrist, and I could not touch him—not in law, not in society, not in any way that would not have finished Sophia along with me.” His jaw worked.
“So, one night, I got word he frequented a certain cellar in the Shambles. Bare-knuckle bouts, no names asked. I went there meaning to kill him.”
Her breath caught.
“I didn’t. He never came. But there were other men in that ring, and I found that when I was in it, the noise in my head went quiet.” His eyes came to hers, steady and terrible. “I have gone back every week since. Under another name. For over half a decade.”
Isadora stared at him, trying to make sense of it. Except that it already made a dreadful kind of sense—why he stole from the house at the hours he did, why he went where he went, why his knuckles were forever ruined beneath those gloves he had worn even to her wedding.
“You’re… you’re a pugilist?” she said finally.
He nodded, his eyes on hers. “It was the one thing that was mine. A way of keeping hold of myself.”
“Through violence.” As though in a dream, she rose and crossed to him, and pressed her hand flat against his chest. “And… and all this while, it has been killing you.”
“The pain is”—he licked his lips, looking as though the words hurt him more than any bruises could—”good.”
“I hate that you are hurt,” she whispered. “I can’t stand thinking about all the ways you could be wounded. You have been wounded, Nicholas. And Sophia knows it, too.”
His eyes shuttered. “This has nothing to do with her.”
“It has everything to do with her. You are her father. She knows when you leave at night, she sees what you carry home, and one day she’ll be old enough to understand it.
” Her palm stayed planted over his heart.
Beneath it, she felt him gather the courage to step back, to put distance between them before her words found some vulnerable place inside him. Except… he stayed.
That decided her.
She reached behind her neck and slipped the first clasp of her gown.
“Isadora,” he muttered raspingly, “you don’t have to—”
“I know.” Her fingers found the next hook. “I want to.”
One by one, the fastenings yielded, loosening the silk along her spine. She watched him watch her. The change in his expression came slowly, like winter breaking upon a frozen river. The cold receded from his pale eyes, and something reckless, famished, and achingly human rose in its place.
She stepped free and waited for him to unlace her stays. Once they, too, fell to the floor, she turned her back to him and drew her chemise over her head.
When she faced him again, his brows drew together, as though he meant to fight what he felt. But lust burned openly across his face.
Good.
This was what she needed—she needed him to feel it. More than that, she needed him to understand that wanting her was neither weakness nor sin.
“I am here.”
She took his hand and placed it over her breast.
“And I will not leave. The greatest harm you can do is make Sophia and me live without you. Everything else can be faced.”
She held him there, forcing him to feel the beat of her heart beneath his palm.
“If you are grieving, confide in me. If you are furious, argue with me. If you want me, then take me. And after it all, we will confront whatever remains.” She held his gaze pleadingly.
“No more slipping away into the night, Nicholas. No more punishing us because you are afraid of what you want.” Curling her fingers over his hand, she whispered, “I happen to want, too.”
His gaze dipped to her breasts, and she felt its passage as keenly as if he had tipped a candle and let one slow ribbon of wax travel over her skin.
“What do you want, Isadora?”
“You.” The answer came breathless and without hesitation.
“I want you constantly. I want your mouth on mine. I want your hands everywhere. I want you to make me feel the way you did last time. And”— his eyes finally lifted to hers, and she refused to look away—”I want you to allow yourself to want these things, too. I don’t want you to hold back anymore.”
He growled, or perhaps it was a curse, and then his hands were around hers.