Tobias’s smile was knowing. “And how did it feel to be contradicted?”
Edmund considered this, remembering the way his pulse had quickened when Isadora had stepped closer, the heat that had flared between them when she’d refused to back down despite the cold authority in his voice.
“Alive,” he admitted, the word escaping before wisdom could stop it. “For the first time in years, I felt alive.”
Tobias raised his glass with a grin that held decades of friendship and far too much understanding. “To your duchess, Edmund,” he said, his voice carrying weight beyond the simple words. “May she plague you until your last breath.”
And Edmund, though he growled in reply, could not shake the image of his wife’s proud defiance, or the way her hazel eyes had burned into him when she’d demanded he do better by the girl who’d been entrusted to his care.
An hour later, as his carriage rolled through London’s darkened streets toward the coaching inn where he would spend the night before beginning the journey back to Yorkshire, Edmund found himself speaking aloud to the shadows beyond the windows.
“What the devil did you expect, James?” The words escaped unbidden, raw with frustration that had been building for months. “You left me a daughter—a brilliant, spirited girl who deserves better than I can give her. Did you think I would somehow transform into the sort of guardian she needs? Did you imagine I possessed skills I’ve never demonstrated?”
The carriage swayed as they turned a corner, Christmas lights from shop windows casting brief patterns across the leather seats. In the distance, church bells were ringing the hour—a reminder that tomorrow was Christmas Eve, that families across England were gathering around their hearths while he traveled alone through the night.
“She defies me at every turn, and I haven’t the faintest idea how to respond. Mrs. Hale treats her like a child, but she’s nearly a woman grown. Isadora sees it—sees everything I’ve failed to provide. And the worst part, James, is that she’s right. About all of it.”
The admission tasted bitter as winter wind, but speaking it aloud to the man who’d entrusted him with such precious cargo somehow made it more bearable. “Your daughter deserves to laugh, to question, to grow into the remarkable woman she’s meant to become. Instead, I’ve kept her locked away like someshameful secret, so terrified of failing you that I’ve guaranteed that failure.”
“Beg pardon, Your Grace?” The driver’s voice drifted down from his perch, muffled by the wind and the steady clip-clop of hooves on cobblestones.
Edmund started, realizing he’d been speaking loudly enough to be overheard. “Nothing. Drive on.”
The carriage continued its progress through London’s sleeping streets, past houses decorated for Christmas, past warm windows that spoke of families gathered in comfort and love. Edmund closed his eyes and wished, not for the first time, that he could simply sleep and forget—forget the weight of promises he’d never learned how to keep, forget the look in Lillian’s eyes when he’d failed her again, forget the way Isadora’s voice had trembled with righteous fury when she’d accused him of letting fear govern his choices.
But sleep would not come, and memory was a cruel mistress who refused to be dismissed. By the time they reached the inn, Edmund had made a decision that would have seemed impossible just hours before.
Tomorrow, he would face his wife and his ward and attempt to become the man they both deserved—or die trying.
CHAPTER 14
“You need not be so careful around me.”
Isadora settled onto the worn stone bench beside Lillian, smoothing her skirts with deliberate calm. The December air bit through burgundy wool, sharp enough to make her lungs ache, but she refused to shiver. The girl needed steadiness, not another adult who flinched at discomfort.
The rose garden was a cathedral of ruin. Skeletal canes reached toward pewter sky like penitents’ arms, their summer abundance reduced to thorns and the occasional frost-blackened hip that clung stubbornly to withered stems. These were old roses, the sort that required patience and understanding rather than simple maintenance.
Now the garden stood abandoned.
Lillian clutched a leather-bound volume against her chest like armor. She wore the same severe blue dress from yesterday—wool that had been expensive once but showed signs of being let out as she grew, the seams visible where fabric had been pieced together to accommodate a girl becoming a woman despite everyone’s determination to keep her a child. Someone had wrapped a woolen shawl around her shoulders, thin and moth-eaten, doing precious little against Yorkshire’s bite.
The girl was shivering.
“I am not here to lecture you,” Isadora continued, keeping her voice gentle.
Lillian’s grip on the book loosened fractionally. She turned her head just enough to reveal one wary eye, watching Isadora with the careful attention of someone who’d learned that adults rarely meant what they said.
“Your Grace, I—” The words caught in Lillian’s throat. She swallowed hard, tried again. “I do not belong here. Everyone knows it.”
Silence settled between them for some heavy seconds.
“The servants whisper,” Lillian continued, voice dropping to barely audible. “I hear them when they think I cannot. About Father, about the duel, about how I’m...” She stopped, biting her lip hard enough to leave marks in pale skin. “About how I’m a constant reminder of Uncle Edmund’s greatest failure.”
Isadora’s heart cracked at the careful neutrality in the girl’s voice, the way she recited these cruelties as though they were simple facts rather than weapons that had been used to wound her.
“Even he—” Lillian’s voice broke completely now, tears threatening despite her obvious determination not to cry. She pressed her lips together, blinking rapidly.
The unfinished sentence hung between them, weighted with all the loneliness of a child who had never been allowed to be anything beyond an obligation. Isadora could fill in what Lillian couldn’t bring herself to say: Even Uncle Edmund sees me as a burden. Even my guardian wishes I were anywhere but here.
