Nothing more than convenience.
His words echoed constantly, haunted her dreams when sleep finally came in the dark hours before dawn. Made her chest tight with humiliation and grief that refused to fade no matterhow many times she told herself she should be angry instead of heartbroken.
“You married him because you’re brave,” Charlotte said softly, coming to stand beside her at the window with the sort of gentle insistence that characterized their friendship. “Because you saw a girl who needed protection and a man who needed saving, even from himself. Because you have a generous heart that sees potential where others see only danger.”
“I was a fool.” Isadora pressed her forehead against cold glass, welcomed the slight ache it caused because physical discomfort was easier to bear than emotional devastation. “I thought I could help. Thought if I just pushed hard enough, cared deeply enough, loved honestly enough—” She stopped abruptly, couldn’t finish the sentence because finishing it meant admitting the truth she’d been avoiding for three days.
The confession she hadn’t dared speak aloud even to Charlotte, who knew her better than anyone.
She loved him. Foolishly.
Loved Edmund Ravensleigh with the sort of devastating completeness that made his rejection feel like dying slowly. Loved him despite his walls and his coldness and his absolute refusal to let himself feel anything resembling joy. Loved him enough that nothing more than convenience had struck like a physical blow, left her gasping for air while the world tilted sideways.
And he’d meant it. Had looked her in the eyes and delivered those four words with enough conviction to shatter every foolish hope she’d harbored.
“He’s an idiot,” Charlotte declared with the fierce loyalty that had defined their friendship since childhood, when they’d been girls sneaking books from libraries and sharing dreams about futures that looked nothing like the ones society planned for them. “A complete and utter fool who doesn’t deserve you or your tears or a single moment more of your time.”
“Perhaps.” Isadora turned from the window, wrapped her arms around herself against cold that had nothing to do with December weather. “But idiot or not, I’m bound to him. His wife in name if not in truth. And now my reputation is destroyed alongside his, tangled so thoroughly in his scandal that separating them would require scissors capable of cutting through ten years of gossip.”
She moved back to the settee, sank into cushions that felt too soft after weeks of Rothwell Abbey’s austere furniture, another reminder that she didn’t belong anywhere anymore—not at the Abbey where Edmund had made clear she wasn’t wanted, not in London where society whispered behind fans about the foolish girl who’d married the Dangerous Duke.
“The gossip will die down,” Charlotte offered, settling beside her with determined optimism that Isadora appreciated even while knowing it was misplaced. “It always does eventually. Some new scandal will capture society’s attention, and they’ll forget all about the Duke and his runaway bride.”
“They won’t forget.” Isadora’s voice remained flat despite the emotions churning underneath—anger and grief and humiliation all fighting for dominance. “The Dangerous Duke has finally found a victim foolish enough to marry him, then driven her away within weeks. That’s too delicious a story to abandon quickly. They’ll dine out on this for years, use me as cautionary tale for daughters who might be tempted to marry for anything other than cold practicality.”
Charlotte took her hand with the fierce loyalty that made her such a treasured friend, held it between both of hers as though physical contact could somehow transfer strength. “Then we’ll weather it together. You can stay here as long as needed. Mother adores you—she’s already planning how to rehabilitate your reputation once the worst passes.”
“Your mother is kind.” Isadora pulled her hand free gently, rose and began to pace because sitting still had become unbearable when her thoughts raced endlessly in circles. “But rehabilitation requires the cooperation of both parties in a marriage, and Edmund has made quite clear he has no interest in cooperating with anything I might suggest. He wants me gone, Charlotte. Actually wants me to disappear so he can return to his comfortable isolation without the inconvenience of a wife who expected more than cold duty.”
Energy needed outlet before it consumed her from within. She paced to the window and back, to the fireplace where Charlotte’s sacrifice of the scandal sheet still smoldered, back to the settee but unable to sit, always moving because stopping meant thinking and thinking meant remembering and remembering meant?—
“Do you know what the worst part is?” The words tumbled out before wisdom could stop them, bypassing every careful control she’d tried to maintain. “Not the gossip or the scandal or even the humiliation of fleeing my own home in the middle of the night like some criminal escaping justice. The worst part is that I still?—”
She stopped abruptly. Couldn’t say it aloud because saying it made it real and real made it hurt worse.
I still love him. Still want him. Still hope he might realize what he’s destroying and come after me.
The hope was pathetic, desperate, the sort of weakness she’d sworn never to indulge after watching her sister sacrifice everything for a man who’d proven unworthy. But apparently her heart hadn’t received that particular instruction, continued beating out his name despite every logical reason to stop.
“He kissed me,” Isadora said finally, voice barely above whisper as she returned to the window, couldn’t seem to stay away from it even though watching London’s bustling normalcy only emphasized her own fractured existence. “In the gallery. Kissed me like I was the only thing that mattered in the world. Like ten years of isolation had shattered under the weight of wanting me and nothing else would ever be enough.”
Charlotte’s expression softened with understanding tinged with anger on Isadora’s behalf. “Oh, Isadora.”
“And then he pushed me away.” The memory rose vivid and unwelcome—Edmund’s hands falling from her waist as though she’d burned him, his expression shuttering like windows slamming closed, the careful distance he’d constructed between them faster than she could breathe. “Called it a mistake. Apologized as though touching me had been some terrible lapse in judgment he’d never repeat.”
She pressed her palms flat against cold glass, welcomed the ache that spread through her hands. “He says he wants a wife, then casts me aside when I try to be one. He kisses me, then denies me with the next breath. And now I am branded a fool, married to the man who is a murderer according to every scandal sheet in London.”
“Edmund didn’t—” Charlotte started, but Isadora turned from the window with enough force to make her skirts swirl.
“Didn’t he?” The question emerged sharper than intended, anger finally breaking through the careful control she’d maintained. “Society says he did. The scandal sheets say he did. And Edmund himself has never bothered to defend against the accusation, just lets them call him dangerous and murderer and whatever else strikes their fancy. So perhaps it’s true, Charlotte. Perhaps I’ve bound myself to a man who killed his dearest friend and feels nothing beyond cold duty toward anyone foolish enough to care.”
The words tasted like betrayal even as she spoke them because she knew the truth—had heard Edmund’s confession in the library during that storm, understood that James’s death hadbeen terrible accident rather than intent, had seen the guilt consuming him like slow poison. Had watched him carry blame for something beyond his control until it twisted him into someone barely capable of human warmth.
But knowing the truth didn’t ease the pain of his rejection, didn’t make his cruelty hurt less, didn’t change the fact that he’d looked her in the eyes and called her nothing more than convenience with enough conviction to shatter every foolish hope she’d harbored.
“You don’t believe that,” Charlotte said quietly, watching her with concern written clearly across features that had known her too long to be fooled by pretense.
“No.” Isadora sank back onto the settee, suddenly exhausted by the effort of maintaining anger when grief threatened to drown her. “But it hardly matters what I believe when society has made up its mind and Edmund refuses to defend either of us. I’m the latest victim of the Dangerous Duke’s particular brand of destruction, and that story is too compelling for anyone to care about truth.”
