Wife. The word sent an odd shiver through her, though she was not quite certain why. The assembled guests began the process of departure, offering final congratulations and promises to call upon the new Duchess when she was settled at Rothwell Abbey.
As the dining room gradually emptied, Isadora found herself alone with her new husband for the first time since the ceremony. The silence between them felt charged with possibilities neither seemed prepared to acknowledge.
“I trust the arrangements are satisfactory,” Edmund said finally, his tone carefully neutral. “The journey tomorrow will take most of the day. I’ve arranged for stops along the way should you require refreshment.”
“Thank you. That’s very considerate.” She folded her napkin with precise movements, using the simple task to avoid meeting his eyes. “And Lillian? She’ll be traveling with us?”
“She’s already at the Abbey. I thought it best to spare her the spectacle of London society dissecting our marriage.” A pause.“She’s eager to meet you properly. I believe you’ll find her... challenging.”
There was a subtle hint of affection in his voice when he spoke of his ward. Almost tenderness. It gave her hope that perhaps there was more warmth in Edmund Ravensleigh than he chose to reveal.
“I look forward to the challenge,” she said, meaning it. “And to seeing Rothwell Abbey. I confess I know very little about your estate beyond its reputation for grandeur.”
“Grandeur.” He smiled, though there was little humor in it. “That’s one word for it. You may find it rather... austere after the comforts of London. The Abbey has been in my family for three centuries, and we’ve always favored function over fashion.”
“I’m sure it will be perfectly suitable.” She rose from her chair, the movement bringing her closer to him than was entirely comfortable. “If you’ll excuse me, I should oversee the final packing arrangements.”
He stood as well, executing a bow that was perfectly correct and somehow intimate at the same time. “Of course. I’ll call for you at eight tomorrow morning. Dress warmly—December in Yorkshire can be unforgiving.”
Yorkshire. She was going to Yorkshire, to an ancient abbey filled with strangers and shadows, to begin a life she could scarcely imagine. The thought should have terrified her. Instead, she found herself oddly eager for whatever challenges awaited.
“Until tomorrow then,” she said, offering him a curtsy that felt more like a gesture between equals than the submission expected of a new bride.
“Until tomorrow,” he agreed. For some reason, she could not shake the feeling that he was as curious about their future as she was ..
As she left the dining room, Isadora caught a glimpse of herself in the gilt mirror hanging near the door. The woman looking back at her was still pale, still composed, but something fundamental had changed. There was a spark in her eyes that hadn’t been there that morning, a sense of anticipation that had nothing to do with duty and everything to do with the possibility that perhaps, despite everything, she had chosen well.
Tomorrow would bring Rothwell Abbey, Lillian, and the beginning of whatever strange partnership she had entered into with the Dangerous Duke. Tonight, she would sleep for the last time as a Cavendish, and wake as someone entirely new.
The prospect no longer terrified her.
It thrilled her.
CHAPTER 6
The carriage lurched through another rut in the road, and Edmund tightened his grip on the leather strap beside the window, using the motion as an excuse to look anywhere but at the woman seated across from him. His wife. The word still felt foreign in his mind, like a coat that didn’t quite fit despite being tailored to his measurements.
They had been traveling for three hours, and though they had attempted to make conversation at first, the better part of the ride had been spent in a thick, choking silence. Outside the windows, London’s sprawl had given way to countryside dusted with December snow, bare trees stretching skeletal fingers toward a pewter sky that promised more weather to come. The landscape was familiar yet somehow transformed—as though marriage had altered not just his circumstances but his very perception of the world around him.
Isadora sat with her hands folded in her lap, her traveling dress a sensible wool in deep green that brought out the warm tones in her chestnut hair. She had removed her gloves somewhereoutside the city limits, and Edmund found his attention drawn repeatedly to her fingers—long and elegant, with ink stains on her right hand that spoke of correspondence or perhaps charitable accounting. The sort of practical marks that most ladies of her station would hide beneath gloves and careful grooming.
She was nothing like the wives of his acquaintance. Nothing like the pale, simpering creatures who graced London drawing rooms, content to discuss fashion and weather while their husbands managed the serious business of life. Even in repose, there was an alertness about her, an intelligence that seemed to take in every detail of their journey and file it away for future consideration.
The memory of catching her on the church steps refused to leave him alone. The feel of her waist beneath his hands, the way she had looked up at him with those remarkable hazel eyes wide with surprise and something else—something that had made his carefully controlled pulse stutter like a schoolboy’s. For one unguarded moment, she had felt real in his arms, warm and alive and utterly present in a way that had shaken him more than he cared to admit.
She was different. Different from any woman he’d ever met, and quite frankly... it unsettled him. Not that he cared, per se. He was just... unsure of her. In many ways.
The thought was unsettling enough to make him shift uncomfortably on the padded seat, the movement drawing her attention. She glanced up from whatever she had beencontemplating outside her window, and for a brief moment their eyes met. Edmund felt that same jolt of recognition, that same dangerous pull that had nearly undone him on the church steps.
“Are we making good time?” she asked. It was the first direct question she had asked in over an hour, and he seized upon it like a drowning man grasping driftwood.
“Well enough. We should reach the Abbey before full darkness if the weather holds.” He gestured toward the clouds gathering on the horizon. “Though Yorkshire weather is notoriously unpredictable this time of year.”
“I see.” She returned her attention to the window, but Edmund could sense a new tension in her posture. “And how does Lillian fare in such isolation? It must be difficult for a young lady to be so far from society.”
The question carried layers of meaning he wasn’t prepared to examine. Was she worried about Lillian’s welfare, or was she beginning to understand the magnitude of her own exile from the world she had known? Rothwell Abbey was magnificent, certainly, but it was also remote in ways that London ladies rarely experienced.
“She finds ways to occupy herself,” he said carefully. “Reading, music, walks in the gardens when weather permits. Mrs. Hale ensures she maintains her studies.”
