Page 75 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Isadora caught Sophia and, before she could think better of it, pulled the girl into a hug and buried her face in her hair.
“I hoped you would. Papa said you wouldn’t, but I said you were our family too.”
Isadora glanced up to find Nicholas watching her, his face inscrutable. “Is that so?” she asked.
“Evidently, I was mistaken,” he answered.
“You brought flowers as well!” Sophia took the roses from Isadora’s hand and skipped back to the grave. Kneeling, she tucked the pale blooms among the others. “Papa says Mama loved her flowers. I don’t remember her, but I bring them anyway. And I tell her about myself. I’ve already told her all about you.” She looked trustingly up at Isadora. “I think she would like you.”
Isadora’s stomach was a tight, painful knot. She made herself meet Nicholas’s gaze. “Do you think so?”
“You were not much alike,” he said quietly. Not the most promising beginning. “But yes. Perhaps she would have.”
His eyes seemed darker in the grey morning, and although he had been smiling for Sophia, she thought she caught a glimpse of something approaching devastation in his expression before it smoothed over into blankness.
She longed to demand what was on his mind and what had made him look like that, but with Sophia there, all she could do was muster a small smile and nod. “Then I’m sure we would have gotten along well.”
Sophia slipped her small hand in Isadora’s. “Do you want to join us? We were telling her everything that has happened since last year.”
“Oh, well.” Isadora glanced at Nicholas, who showed no emotion one way or the other. “Would you like me to? I’ve never met her, I would not wish to force myself into something that belongs to the three of you.”
At last, Nicholas looked fully at her. “But you have already come all this way.” His voice was civil, almost gentle. It made the knowledge in his eyes harder to bear. He had seen through her. “I thought this was why you came.”
She wished she could ask him why he was being this way, but instead, she merely nodded. “Very well. Shall I tell your mama the story of how I came to marry your papa?”
Sophia nodded enthusiastically and beamed. “I already told her some of it, but it will be more fun to hear it from you.”
If Grace could really hear them, she wondered what the lady would think of her daughter so easily informing her of her father’s second marriage. Or, more, what she would think of the second wife coming to tell the story herself.
Isadora sat on the wet grass before the stone, took a deep breath, and began to tell the tale.
She left out some specifics, but she included having been left at the altar and how Nicholas had saved her—not by repurchasing the dress, but by marrying her and bringing her into his home and family. She spoke longest on how important Sophia was to her, and refused to look at Nicholas when she explained how grateful she was for the life he’d given her
When it was over, she inclined her head as though she were greeting an acquaintance and rose to her feet.
Sophia immediately came to wrap her arms around Isadora’s middle. “It’s like a fairytale!” she chimed, eyes shining.
There was such a thick lump in Isadora’s throat, she feared she might burst into tears then and there. Fairytales usually had happy endings, but she doubted there was one in sight for her. At least, not the happy ending she had begun to hope for.
Before Nicholas had shown her any affection, she had thought being a duchess and Sophia’s mother would be enough. But now that she’d had a taste of more, she wondered how she ever thought she could settle for less.
“Shall we return to the house?” Nicholas suggested. They all fell into line, winding their way back home. Isadora found herself beside Nicholas, but he didn’t so much as look at her.
And this, she thought, is the beginning of the end.
Nicholas didn’t know what to think. Every time he saw Isadora, especially when he saw her speaking with Sophia in that affectionate, gentle way she had, he wanted to throw aside all his doubts and run to her.
But standing before Grace’s grave, all he had been able to think about was how he had believed in her, and yet, she had betrayed him. Everything in his world had been gilded with pain. His daughter, his wife, the very life they all lived together. He saw the cracks; he went looking for them, finding reasons why it couldn’t last.
Sooner or later, Isadora would tire of raising another woman’s child. She would discover wants he could not satisfy. She would miss York, then crave London, its gaiety and admiration, just as Grace had. And Nicholas would be left behind again.
Worse, when Sophia repeated his carelessly uttered words that Isadora and Grace would be friends, he felt his entire world collapse a little around him. Would they have liked one another? Truthfully, he doubted it, yet in his bleakest moments, exhaustion made him cruel, and he wondered whether women were not all drawn eventually toward the same open door.
In spite of it all, he wanted to reach out and pull her close and lose this awful tension, this distance between them. And he also wanted her miles away, where she could not become necessary enough to destroy him.
The silence between them as they walked back to the house was near unbearable. His chest ached. Keeping his distance now was so much harder than it had been before he had known what life with hercouldbe like. Two blessed weeks of happiness, and now this.
When they reached the house, Isadora caught his sleeve before he could follow Sophia inside. “Tell me,” she whispered, her eyes liquid and sad. That sorrow was his fault, and he felt the burden of guilt as though it were stones in his pockets. “Tell me what it is that I have done, or at least that you are suffering. Let me help. Please.”
