Page 72 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
“How should I know?” Isadora rubbed her forehead. “It’s as though he left the house as one man and came back as another. I’ve asked what the matter is, of course, but he simply tells me it is none of my concern. As though I have no say in his life.”
“Ah, yes,” Caroline said dryly, “because a wife has no role or say in the life of her husband.”
“Precisely!”
Caroline fetched something and handed it to Isadora. She looked down to find a bowl of candied nuts in her lap.
“For you,” Caroline said, unnecessarily. “I always eat them when I’m feeling particularly down about something or other, but I think you deserve them more than I do today.” She pondered Isadora, her chin in her hands. “I thought you said things were going better?”
“Theywere. For a matter of weeks. We were…” Isadora’s cheeks heated. “Well, that is to say we finally—”
“You finally consummated your marriage.” Caroline nodded knowingly. “I have older sisters in the States, you know. I’m familiar with the concept. So, it’s notthatthat has gotten in the way of you both.”
“Not in the slightest. At least… not that I was aware of. He even…” She hesitated, looking down at her stomach. In the days since he had finished inside her, after explaining what was required to get a woman with child, she had examined herself and wondered if that might have been enough. Or all the times since.
How soon was too soon to know?
She didn’t know if she desperately wanted a child to hold the family together, to bind Nicholas to her in a way evenhecould not ignore, or if she was terrified that having a child might be the final piece that tore down their ephemeral bliss.
“You think it’s something else?” Caroline asked.
“He married me out ofobligation—for Sophia’s sake, and a little for mine. Once he understood my situation, I think he meant to save me from it, though he’d never admit to as much. But now that I’m his wife, what if he’s changed his mind?”
Caroline shook her head decisively. “That makes no sense.”
“Then what other explanation is there? He doesn’t listen when I talk, he doesn’t confide in me—and he did at one stage, you know. I thought we took all of the pain from our past and showed each other, and we were able to move on from it. But all that has ended. The last few nights he hasn’t even come to my bed. As though he’ll accept me as Sophia’s mother and nothing more.”
The tears came despite her, and she blinked them off. Losing him hurt worse than she might admit—but letting it eat her hollow served nothing. “The thing is,” she went on, brittle, “I don’t know how to fight for a man who doesn’t want to be there. And if I push and push, what if he gets fed up and simply tells me he wants to leave?”
“He wouldn’t dare!” Caroline shot upright, her eyes alive with indignation. “I wouldn’t let him.”
“He’s a duke, Caro. What couldanyonedo? If he decides he no longer wishes to be married to me—or at least, in the manner in which we have been married—then he can change his mind, and no one can stop him.” And the longer his silence continued, the more Isadora felt as though that was the only possible conclusion.
For Sophia’s sake, she didn’t think he would send her away, exactly. But he might change her role within the house: to Sophia’s stepmother and nothing more. An end to all the intimacy they had shared, and an end to her dreams of the family she had always wanted.
The one she’d, briefly, thought she’d had.
“Well,” Caroline said bracingly, “at least you’ll still be a duchess. He can’t takethatfrom you. You have your house, your servants, a little girl who adores you. What more could a woman want?”
Love. Isadora didn’t say it, but she felt the word spring instinctively to her lips.
“And if youdowant more,” Caroline said, “you’ll have to fight for it, even when it seems there’s nothing left to fight for. You’re thinking of your pride, of being rejected. But perhaps the man is a fool who needs a push. Suppose he loves you, yet believes rumors you’ve been unfaithful. Consider Windham.”
“Mr. Windham isnothingto me,” Isadora interrupted, frustrated.
“Iknow that. But does he? And I don’t mean has he expressed that, but does he truly believe it?”
Isadora pressed a hand to her aching heart. There was a quietness inside now, a ragged feeling that hurt every time shetook a breath. “If he thinks me capable of that,” she said quietly, “then I don’t believe he can love me at all.”
Nicholas sat Sophia on the small chair before his mirror and held up two coats. “Which do you think? The blue or the green?”
Sophia tilted her head. Her lips pursed. But the question she asked was not the answer he had been expecting. “Why are you and Izzie fighting?”
He blinked. The question hit as he expected a marksman might: right between the ribs. For a moment, he felt as though he ought to look down and check there was no blood.
A fatal blow.
“Who says we are fighting?” he asked carefully.
