Isadora was so absorbed in their work that she didn’t notice Edmund’s presence until Lillian’s attention shifted toward the doorway. She looked up to find him standing in shadows beyond the firelight’s reach, perfectly still except for the slight rise and fall of his chest.
How long had he been watching?
Their eyes met across the library’s expanse, and Isadora felt her pulse stutter despite her determination to maintain distance after last night’s brutal dismissal. He looked tired—shadows beneath his eyes suggested he’d slept as poorly as she had. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, his cravat tied with less precision than usual, and something about the overall effect made him appear more human than the cold duke she’d grown accustomed to.
She broke the silence first, refusing to let the weight of his attention reduce her to stammering uncertainty. “Lillian has a sharp mind,” she said, pitching her voice to carry across the room without shouting. “She only needs patience and encouragement to thrive.”
Edmund’s expression shifted—surprise giving way to something she couldn’t decipher. He stepped into the light, and she saw genuine wonder flickering in his green eyes as he looked at his ward bent over books with an enthusiasm that had been entirely absent during her previous lessons.
“I can see that,” he said quietly.
For a heartbeat, warmth bloomed in Isadora’s chest. Perhaps their disaster of an evening hadn’t destroyed every possibility of connection. Perhaps he was finally beginning to understand what Lillian required?—
Then memory crashed over her like winter flood. Not a real wife. His voice echoed in her mind, flat and final, destroying whatever foolish hopes she’d been harboring about their marriage becoming something more than practical arrangement.
The warmth in her chest froze solid.
She rose from the table with movements sharp enough to betray her agitation, smoothing burgundy silk that didn’t require smoothing. “But forgive me, Your Grace,” she said, her tone cooling to match the ice spreading through her veins. “You maydo whatever you think best. That is what you require, after all—control.”
The words emerged as precise as surgical cuts, designed to wound exactly as she had been wounded. She executed a curtsy that was technically perfect and somehow insulting in its formality, then turned toward the doorway with her spine rigid enough to snap.
“Isadora—”
Edmund’s voice cracked across the library like a whip, sharp with something that might have been desperation. She heard his boots on marble as he strode after her, his longer stride eating the distance between them with alarming speed.
She didn’t slow. Couldn’t bear to face him again, to see that careful neutrality that had replaced whatever genuine feeling he’d displayed at the Fairfax dinner. Better to maintain her dignity through retreat than risk more of his brutal honesty about the nature of their arrangement.
The corridor beyond was cold despite Christmas candles burning in wall sconces. Evergreen garlands wound along the wainscoting released sharp scent that mingled with beeswax and the perpetual dampness of ancient stone. Isadora’s slippers were silent against marble that had witnessed centuries of Ravensleigh dramas, and she was halfway to the staircase when Edmund’s hand closed around her elbow.
“I did not mean—” He stopped, the words dying on his lips as she whirled to face him.
This close, she could see the exhaustion etched into his features, could catch the faint scent of sandalwood beneath sharper notes of wool and winter air. His hand remained on her arm, gentle despite the urgency that had driven him to pursue her through his own house.
“Did not mean what, precisely?” she demanded, proud of how steady her voice remained. “Did not mean to make it abundantly clear that I am nothing more than a convenient solution to your domestic difficulties? Or did not mean to dismiss every attempt I make at genuine connection as though I were some impertinent servant overstepping her bounds?”
Edmund flinched as though she’d struck him. His hand dropped from her arm, falling to his side with visible effort. She watched emotions chase across his face—guilt, regret, frustration, something that looked almost like longing before being ruthlessly suppressed.
“Do not call me ‘Your Grace’,” he said finally, the words emerging rough as though dragged from somewhere deep.
The request was so unexpected that Isadora froze. She stared at him, trying to comprehend what he was asking. After spending hours at the Fairfax dinner performing devotion they didn’t feel, after his brutal reminder last night that their marriage held no genuine feeling, he was objecting to formal address?
“I beg your pardon?” she managed.
“My name.” Edmund stepped closer, close enough that she had to tilt her head to maintain eye contact. “Use my name, not my title. Not when we’re alone.”
“But this is not a real marriage, is it?” The question escaped before wisdom could stop it, carrying all the hurt she’d been trying to contain since last night. “You made that abundantly clear when you dismissed my presumption that we might be anything beyond a practical arrangement.”
She watched his throat work as he swallowed hard. His eyes held storms she desperately wanted to understand—conflict and desire and fear all warring for dominance. For one wild moment, she thought he might actually answer honestly. Might confess whatever truths he kept locked behind those impenetrable walls.
“Isadora—” Her name on his lips sent heat flooding through her despite every effort to remain detached. “I wanted to say?—”
But whatever confession trembled on his tongue remained unspoken. She watched the walls rise again, saw the exact moment when fear won over honesty. His expression shuttered, becoming carefully neutral in that infuriating way that revealed nothing of the man beneath.
“We both agreed to that,” he said, the words emerging flat and final. “A practical arrangement. Nothing more.”
The confirmation shouldn’t have hurt. They had indeed agreed to exactly those terms. But somewhere between his hand at her back during the Fairfax dinner and his lips on her glove, somewhere in the space between performance and reality, she’d started believing their arrangement might evolve into something genuine.
What a spectacular fool she’d been.
