“He doesn’t look at me like anything,” she said finally. “We have a practical arrangement, nothing more.”
“Bollocks.”
“Charlotte!” Isadora’s head snapped up, shock overriding her determination to avoid eye contact. “Such language…”
“Is entirely appropriate given your spectacular refusal to acknowledge reality.” Charlotte set down her teacup with enough force to make porcelain rattle against porcelain. “I saw you both at the Fairfax dinner, remember? I watched him touch you like you were something precious he was terrified of breaking. I saw the way you leaned into him despite claiming you felt nothing. Whatever this arrangement started as, it’s become something else entirely.”
Heat flooded Isadora’s cheeks. “You’re imagining things.”
“Am I? Then why have you been hiding in this room for three days straight? Why does your expression go carefully blank whenever his name is mentioned? Why—” Charlotte leaned forward, her dark eyes sharp with the intelligence that made her dangerous at drawing room intrigue. “Why do you look like your heart is breaking whenever you think no one’s watching?”
The accuracy of the observation stole Isadora’s breath. She set down her embroidery with trembling hands, no longer able to maintain the pretense of working while her entire world tilted sideways.
“It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “Even if I felt... something. Which I’m not admitting. He’s made it abundantly clear that our marriage is purely practical. Nothing more.”
“Then he’s a fool.” Charlotte’s voice softened despite the blunt assessment. “But that doesn’t change what you’re feeling, does it?”
Isadora rose abruptly, moving to the windows where she could stare out at snow-covered grounds without meeting her friend’s knowing gaze. The rose garden was barely visible through falling snow—just skeletal shapes suggesting what had once bloomed there.
Rather like her heart, she thought bitterly.
“You should tell him,” Charlotte said quietly. “Be honest about what you want from this marriage.”
“Absolutely not.” The words emerged sharp enough to cut. “I won’t humiliate myself by confessing feelings he doesn’t share and doesn’t want. He married me to provide guidance for Lillian, and that’s precisely what I’ll do. Nothing more complicated than that.”
“But—”
“He called me ‘not a real wife’, Charlotte.” Isadora’s voice cracked despite her determination to remain composed. “After spending hours at that dinner pretending devotion that felt far too genuine, after I’d started believing our arrangement might evolve into something real—he looked me in the eye and reminded me that we both agreed to nothing beyond practicality.”
Silence settled over the morning room, broken only by the fire’s crackle and the soft whisper of snow against windowpanes. Isadora could feel Charlotte’s sympathy radiating across the space between them, warm and genuine and somehow making everything worse.
“Perhaps he was frightened,” Charlotte suggested carefully. “Men often say cruel things when they’re terrified of feeling too much.”
“Then he can continue being frightened in private while I do the same.” Isadora pressed her palm against cold glass, watching condensation form around her fingers. “I won’t beg for affection from a man who’s made it clear he has none to offer.”
“But surely?—”
A knock at the door interrupted whatever scandalous advice Charlotte had been preparing to offer. Both women turned as Mrs. Pemberton appeared in the doorway.
“Forgive the intrusion, Your Grace,” the she said. “His Grace requests permission to join you and Lady Charlotte for tea. He understands if you’d prefer privacy, but—” She hesitated. “He specifically asked that I convey his hope that you might permit him to become better acquainted with your friend.”
Isadora’s heart stuttered against her ribs. Edmund wanted to join them? The man who’d been avoiding common spaces with the same determination she’d employed? Who took his meals in solitary splendor and spent his evenings locked in his study?
“Oh, you must say yes,” Charlotte whispered, her eyes sparkling with mischief that suggested she saw opportunity in this unexpected development. “I’m dying to meet the Dangerous Duke properly. All I’ve heard are the most delicious rumors.”
The emphasis on “dangerous” made Isadora’s stomach clench. She’d been so focused on her own confused feelings that she’d forgotten Charlotte only knew Edmund by reputation—the whispers that followed him through London’s drawing rooms, the speculation about duels and scandals and whatever darkness had driven him to Yorkshire isolation.
“What sort of rumors?” she asked, though dread settled cold in her chest.
Charlotte glanced toward Mrs. Pemberton, who remained frozen in the doorway awaiting response. “Perhaps we might discuss that after His Grace’s visit? I wouldn’t want to speak freely with—” She gestured delicately toward the housekeeper.
Mrs. Pemberton’s hands twisted in her apron—that telltale gesture again, betraying discomfort she couldn’t quite conceal. “Shall I inform His Grace that you welcome his company, Your Grace?”
Isadora wanted to refuse. Wanted to maintain the careful distance she’d been cultivating since their disastrous confrontation in the corridor. But denying her husband access to the morning room would only make the household gossip intensify, would confirm for the servants that something was very wrong with the Duke and Duchess’s relationship.
“Please tell His Grace we would be honored by his presence,” she said, the lie tasting bitter on her tongue.
Mrs. Pemberton curtsied and withdrew, leaving Isadora alone with Charlotte’s knowing smile and her own thundering pulse.
