“Because you are not ready,” he said simply, as though the entire conversation rather bored him. “And until I say otherwise, you will remain under my roof and under my rules. Defiance will gain you nothing.”
It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it the moment the words left his mouth, but Edmund had never learned how to speak to children, least of all to a girl who embodied every failure, every regret, every moment of weakness that had led to James Gray’s death.
Lillian pushed back from the table with enough violence to send her chair scraping across the polished floor. “You don’t understand! You never even try!”
Tears glittered in her eyes—tears of frustration and loneliness that he recognized because they lived in his own chest like shards of broken glass. She rose with the dramatic flair that seemed bred into young ladies of her age, her napkin falling forgotten to the floor.
“I hate it here,” she whispered. “I hate this house, and I hate pretending that you care about anything other than keeping me locked away like some shameful secret.”
She fled then, hurrying away as though something dangerous was after her. Mrs. Hale hurried after her, shooting Edmund a look that somehow managed to be both apologetic and accusatory before disappearing in pursuit of her charge.
Edmund remained alone at his seat. The morning light that had seemed so cheerful moments before now felt harsh and unforgiving, illuminating every flaw in the scene he’d just orchestrated.
She’s right, he thought, the admission bitter as wormwood on his tongue. She’s absolutely right.
He was keeping her locked away, though not for the reasons she imagined. Not because he was ashamed of her existence—God knew he’d weathered far worse scandals than an illegitimate ward—but because he was terrified. Terrified of the world that had destroyed her father, terrified of the mistakes he would inevitably make, terrified of failing her as he’d failed James.
The scar along his jaw throbbed with phantom pain, a constant reminder of that dawn ten years ago when honor had demanded satisfaction and friendship had paid the price. He touched it absently, fingers tracing the thin line that marked him as surely as a brand. The Dangerous Duke, they called him in the drawing rooms of London. The man who’d killed his best friend and walked away with nothing but a scar to show for it.
They weren’t entirely wrong.
Edmund rose from the table, his breakfast abandoned, and made his way to the study that had become his refuge. The room was exactly as his father had left it twenty years ago—dark wood paneling, heavy curtains that kept out most of the light, shelves lined with leather-bound volumes that smelled of duty and disappointment. It was a room designed for brooding, and Edmund had made it his own with a decade of practice.
He settled behind the massive desk and tried to focus on the estate reports that required his attention. Crop yields, tenant concerns, maintenance schedules—the mundane details that kept a duchy running while its master slowly went mad with isolation and regret. But the numbers blurred together, meaningless marks on paper that couldn’t hold his attention against the echo of Lillian’s accusations.
Other girls my age are preparing for their Season.
The words haunted him because they were true. At fifteen, she should be learning to understand society, developing the skills and connections that would see her safely married to a decent man who wouldn’t care about the circumstances of her birth. Instead, she was trapped at Rothwell Abbey with a guardian who had no idea how to guide a young woman into adulthood.
He could hire another governess, of course. Someone younger, more fashionable, better equipped to prepare Lillian for the world beyond these walls. But that wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem: she needed a female role model, someone to stand beside her when society’s vultures began circling. She needed a woman who understood the delicate balance ofstrength and submission that allowed a lady to survive in a world designed to crush her spirit.
She needed a mother figure. And Edmund, for all his wealth and titles and carefully cultivated reputation for danger, couldn’t provide that.
The thought that had been circling his mind since last night crystallized into sharp focus. Lady Isadora Cavendish, standing in that shadowed alcove with her chin raised in defiance, defending a girl she barely knew against a predator who should have been beneath her notice. The memory of her voice—cool and commanding despite her youth—sent something dark and hungry stirring in his chest.
When a man behaves without honor, it concerns every woman.
Bold words from a lady who couldn’t be more than three-and-twenty. Most women of her class would have looked the other way, unwilling to involve themselves in something so sordid. But Lady Isadora had stepped between Bickham and his intended victim without a moment’s hesitation, armed with nothing but righteous fury and the sort of backbone that suggested she’d been born for battle.
Edmund found himself remembering the way she’d looked at him—not with the fear or calculation he’d grown accustomed to seeing in women’s eyes, but with curiosity. As though she were trying to solve a particularly intriguing puzzle. The sensation had been so foreign, so unexpected, that he’d nearly forgotten how to breathe.
The afternoon passed in a haze of halfhearted attention to correspondence and estate business. Edmund’s mind kept drifting back to hazel eyes and the sound of silk rustling as Lady Isadora moved to protect someone weaker than herself. By the time Pemberton announced that his carriage was ready for the journey to London, Edmund had made a decision that would have seemed impossible just twenty-four hours ago.
The drive to his club passed in a blur of darkening countryside and the steady rhythm of hoofbeats on packed earth. London emerged from the December gloom like a glittering cancer, all gas lamps and coal smoke and the desperate gaiety of a society that refused to acknowledge its own rot. Edmund had once loved this city, had reveled in its possibilities and dangers. Now it felt like returning to a battlefield where he’d lost everything that mattered.
White’s was exactly as he’d left it, all leather and tobacco smoke and the quiet murmur of men who’d never doubted their place in the world. Conversations faltered as he passed, not from recognition but from something more primitive. The instinct that warned lesser predators when something genuinely dangerous had entered their territory.
He found Tobias exactly where he’d expected: sprawled in a wing-backed chair near the fire, a glass of excellent whiskey in one hand and the evening papers in the other. Viscount Redmond had perfected the art of appearing utterly at ease while missing nothing that happened around him—a skill that had saved Edmund’s life more than once during their wilder years.
“Well, well,” Tobias drawled without looking up from his paper. “The hermit emerges from his cave. And looking particularly brooding tonight, even for you. Did someone die, or are you simply practicing for your role as gothic villain?”
Edmund settled into the chair opposite his friend, accepting the whiskey that appeared at his elbow as if by magic. The amber liquid burned away some of the chill that had settled in his chest, though it did nothing for the knot of tension between his shoulder blades.
“Lillian,” he said by way of explanation.
“Ah.” Tobias folded his paper with the precise movements of a man who’d spent years perfecting every gesture. “Let me guess: she’s discovered that other girls her age are not imprisoned in crumbling abbeys by guardian-shaped gargoyles. She wants freedom, society, perhaps even—God forbid—to enjoy herself. And you, in your infinite wisdom, told her to submit to your authority and stop being troublesome.”
The accuracy of Tobias’s assessment was as uncomfortable as it was expected. They’d known each other too long for pretense, had shared too many secrets and survived too many disasters together. If anyone could read the guilt written across Edmund’s features, it was the man who’d stood as his second in that grey dawn field ten years ago.
