“And I will not die without hearing you say it.”Defeat weakened the words.“Perhaps I cannot blame you. We both knew what we were doing. We lied to each other for very noble purposes, I admit.”She careened, shrank to the floor, the thud quiet and sickening on the marble floor.
Father knelt next to her.“Let me take you to bed, dear.”
“I suppose a woman can live with lies her entire life. It is not until she dies that she must have the truth.”
He hoisted her into his arms.
“Edward.”
“You shall feel better in the morning.”
“Edward, say it—”
“Dear mercy, what would you have of me? What good is there in forcing me to say I do not love—”
“Do you?”
Isabella had clenched the banister railings and searched his face, already knowing he’d say yes, that he’d assure her.
But his features deadened with a frown, and his voice lacked passion.“No more than you have ever loved me.”
Now, staring at the same moonlit window and draperies, with the ghostly figures still alive in her mind, Isabella rose from the step. Tears wetted her cheeks. Foolish to cry over that night again. Why had it meant so much to her at nine years old? Why should it mean so much to her now?
Perhaps because that warm Christmastide in the drawing room had been pretend, an act played skillfully for an unsuspecting child. She’d believed their lie all her life until that moment.
Climbing the remaining steps, she brushed the tears from her face. She would not be her mother. She would not live that way. She would not die that way.
She would not expect the kind of love she knew too well did not exist.
January 1810
Numb and listless, William moved through each day, performing his duties without a sense of attachment to anything. He tried not to think. Every memory sucked him further into an abyss he could not climb free of.
Only at night, when he unrolled a blanket on the cold floor of the butler’s pantry, did he watch his breath cloud and allow his weary mind to remember. He couldn’t bear Rosenleigh, Shelton, or Miss Ettie.
But Isabella Gresham always came to him. Like a warming breeze, she swept over the inert places of his mind, fanning to life a small flame of something. He didn’t know what. Or why he should always imagine her.
But the memory of her laugh was soothing. The playful way she smiled at him. The trueness, the tenderness of her many expressions. If only they’d had each other. All those years growing up, if only William had truly been Edward Gresham’s son and known the bond of a sister who trusted and needed him.
But she was not his sister now.
She’d treated him with care before, as if he meant something to her. When he’d been injured, had she not cried over him?
That was lost to him too. He knew that. Upon their next encounter, upon knowing the truth, she would become cold and aloof. A stranger to him.
Just as well, he supposed.
But still, he could think of her, could he not? Was there any harm in that? If he didn’t dream of something, he would go mad.
Perhaps he was mad already.
A fortnight into the chill of January, William was interrupted from lugging an armload of firewood into the kitchen. The scullery maid bade him see Lord Manigan in his study.
Dread coiled through William as he brushed off his livery and hurried through the house. The earl had been gone since before Christmastide. What could he want with William? Why wish to speak with him now—when he had ignored him since the day William had donned a livery and wig?
Outside the white-painted door, he cleared his throat and tapped.
“Come in, come in.”
