“You would do well to remember, madam, that marriage does not automatically grant you authority over matters that do notconcern you. I married you to provide guidance for Lillian, not to gain a critic of my methods.”
The words should have stung, should have sent her retreating with stammered apologies and promises to confine herself to more appropriate feminine concerns. Instead, they sparked something defiant in her chest—a recognition that this man, for all his titles and authority and carefully cultivated reputation for danger, was afraid. Afraid of losing control, afraid of being challenged, afraid of allowing anyone close enough to see whatever wounds he carried beneath his scarred exterior.
“Then perhaps,” she said quietly, her voice carrying the sort of steel that had been bred into her bones during years of standing up to masculine authority, “you should consider whether those methods are serving anyone’s interests but your own.”
For an instant, she thought he might turn back, might continue their confrontation until something broke or shifted irrevocably between them. His shoulders tensed under the fine wool of his coat, and she saw the way his hand tightened on the door frame as though he were anchoring himself against some internal storm.
Then, without another word, he strode from the room, his footsteps echoing through the corridor with the sort of measured cadence that spoke of a man hanging onto his composure by the thinnest of threads. The lingering scent of sandalwood was all that remained of his presence, that and the memory of green eyes that had burned with something far more complex than simple anger.
Isadora remained where she stood, her hands trembling slightly though not from fear. Something fundamental had shifted in those charged minutes of confrontation—some barrier had been crossed that could not be uncrossed. She had stood up to the Dangerous Duke of Rothwell in defense of principles that mattered to her, and he had not crushed her for her audacity.
More than that, she had seen something in his eyes during those moments when his guard had slipped—a hunger that had nothing to do with authority and everything to do with the way she had challenged him as an equal rather than simply submitting to his will. Her husband had truly looked at her in that schoolroom, had seen her not as an ornament or a convenience but as a woman capable of matching his intensity with her own.
He left without another word, nodding once at Lillian. A silent command that had the girl following him out of the schoolroom wordlessly.
Isadora sat down on one of the chairs, her hands trembling.
For the first time since arriving at Rothwell Abbey, she felt the stirring of genuine purpose. Let Edmund rage about boundaries and proper feminine behavior. Let him warn her about presuming too much or challenging his authority. She had seen the hunger in his eyes, the way he responded to her strength rather than being intimidated by it.
Her husband had truly looked at her in that schoolroom—not as an ornament or a convenience, but as a woman capable ofmatching his intensity with her own. The knowledge was as thrilling as it was terrifying, and Isadora found herself eager to discover what other walls might crumble if she continued to push against them.
The battle lines had been drawn.
CHAPTER 11
“So tell me, Edmund,” Tobias drawled from his leather chair beside the fire, swirling amber liquid in a crystal tumbler with the practiced ease of a man who’d spent the better part of a decade perfecting such gestures, “how fares married life? Have you frightened the poor girl into silence already?”
Edmund’s grip tightened on his own glass, the Waterford crystal warming beneath his fingers as he stared into the depths of whiskey that had done nothing to burn away the memory of hazel eyes blazing with righteous fury. White’s Club hummed with its usual evening atmosphere—the soft murmur of political gossip, the crack of newspapers being folded with deliberate precision, the occasional burst of laughter from the card room where fortunes changed hands with each turn of the deck. Christmas holly adorned the mantels, their red berries bright as drops of blood against the dark paneling, while evergreen garlands wound around marble columns released the sharp scent of winter into air thick with tobacco smoke and masculine authority.
Yet despite the familiar comfort of his sanctuary, Edmund felt as unsettled as he had three hours ago when he’d fled his own schoolroom like a green boy who’d never faced down an opponent across twenty paces of frost-covered ground.
“She is impossible,” he said finally, the words emerging rougher than he’d intended. “Presumptuous. Stubborn to the point of folly.”
The accusation should have carried more conviction, but even to his own ears it sounded hollow. How could he explain to Tobias—to anyone—the way Isadora had looked when she’d accused him of being afraid? The way her chin had lifted in defiance that was both maddening and magnificent, the way her voice had remained steady even as she challenged everything he’d built his guardianship upon?
“Ah,” Tobias said, taking a leisurely sip that suggested he was savoring far more than aged whiskey. “A perfect match for you, then.”
“I will not be mocked.” Edmund’s voice carried the edge that had once settled disputes with steel and powder, but his oldest friend merely smiled with the sort of infuriating calm that came from twenty years of surviving Edmund’s darker moods.
“My dear friend, I wouldn’t dream of mocking you. I’m merely observing that after a decade of terrorizing London society with your scowls and perfectly controlled silences, you’ve finally met someone who refuses to be intimidated.” Tobias’s darkeyes sparkled with unholy amusement. “How refreshing for you both.”
Edmund set his glass down with enough force to make the side table rattle, though he was careful not to shatter the crystal. He’d learned long ago that displays of genuine temper only encouraged Tobias’s more irritating tendencies. “She challenges me in front of my ward, undermines my authority, and speaks as if she knows better than I do about matters concerning my own household.”
The words spilled out despite his better judgment, carrying with them the frustration that had been building since that morning’s confrontation. How dare she waltz into his carefully ordered world and begin rearranging everything according to her own notions of what constituted proper treatment of an adolescent girl? How dare she look at him with those knowing eyes that seemed to see straight through every defense he’d spent years constructing?
He paused, glaring into his glass as though the whiskey might provide answers to questions he wasn’t prepared to ask. “And the most infuriating part of it all, Tobias, is that sometimes she does know better.”
The admission escaped before he could stop it, raw and unwilling as a confession dragged from a prisoner under interrogation. Because that was the truth that had been eating at him since he’d stalked away from the schoolroom—Isadora had been right about Lillian’s education, right about the girl’sneed for intellectual challenge, right about his own failures as a guardian.
Tobias chuckled outright now, the sound rich with genuine delight. “Sweet heaven above, the Duke of Rothwell has found a woman who gives him orders. Tell me again how you’ll never fall in love.”
“Love.” Edmund spat the word like poison. “This has nothing to do with such romantic nonsense. I married her for practical reasons, and she’s proving rather less biddable than I anticipated. That’s all.”
But even as he spoke, Edmund could feel the lie burning his throat. Because if their confrontation had been purely about household management and educational philosophy, why couldn’t he stop thinking about the way her breath had caught when he’d stepped closer? Why did he keep remembering the flush that had spread across her cheekbones when their eyes had locked in that charged moment before he’d fled like a coward?
“Of course,” Tobias agreed with the sort of bland courtesy that fooled absolutely no one. “Purely practical. Which is why you’ve been staring into that whiskey for the past quarter hour as though it contained the secrets of the universe, and why you’ve missed three attempts at conversation from Pemberton and Ashford.”
Edmund glanced toward the cluster of chairs near the windows, where indeed Lord Pemberton and Lord Ashford sat looking slightly offended at having been ignored. Both men had beenattempting to catch his attention with the sort of tentative gestures that suggested they wanted his opinion on whatever political matter was currently exercising the House of Lords, but he’d been too lost in brooding to notice.
