Page 70 of A Bride for the Heartless Duke
“Why?” she asked, despising the tremor in her voice.
His eyes remained fixed on the newspaper. “Why what?”
“You know perfectly well.”
He exhaled. “Sit down. Eat something. And compose yourself before Sophia comes down.”
“Composemyself?” Isadora opened her mouth to argue more, then closed it again when Sophia skipped in, oblivious to the tension between them.
“Good morning!” Sophia chirped. “I thought I might give the kittens to the stables so they can have rat catchers. Cats catch rats.” She smiled, evidently pleased with herself and this conclusion.
Isadora stepped in. “That’s a lovely idea, Soph, but I think the kittens will be better suited to a genteel household.”
Sophia frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Oh yes. Have you seen their coats? They will be beautiful.” And the stablehands would probably neglect the unwanted kittens; there were already cats in the stables, and the last thing they needed weremore. “I’m sure we can find them new homes. Do you not agree, Nicholas?” She asked the question pointedly, and Nicholas lowered the newspaper once more to look at Sophia.
“They will be safe,” he said vaguely. “We will find somewhere for them to be. But I agree with Isadora that the stables are perhaps not the right place.”
Sophia pouted, but she collected some toast and buttered it in silence. Isadora sank back in her seat, relieved that she couldlapse back into her thoughts. Nicholas was fighting again—which meant there was something wrong. Something he wasn’t telling her. He’d told her about Grace’s death, and he had even told her how terrified he was of his own intensity.
Surely this had to be something different.
She caught his arm as he was about to leave the room, halting him in place. “Sweetheart,” she said, the endearment tripping off her tongue. “What is this about? You can tell me, you know. You can tell me anything.”
The implacable expression in his eyes as he looked down at her suggested he felt differently. All the certainty she had been carrying about the future of her marriage evaporated in an instant.
“There is nothing you need concern yourself over,” he said, and that was that. He left the room, and Isadora was left to collect the scattered remnants of her dreams.
Nicholas looked at the brandy in his hand in disgust. His head still pounded from the night before, and although he welcomed the pain—he knew he deserved it—he didn’t particularly fancy making the same mistake twice.
Guilt scraped at his insides at the thought of how rude he had just been to Isadora. The things he’d said—he’d had to, but thatdidn’t make it any more palatable. And it didn’t mean he had to enjoy the prospect of hurting her, or hate himself any less for what he was doing.
He was a despicable human being.
Oliver read through the letter Sherborne had sent right at the very beginning of his marriage. Although Nicholas had largely dismissed it out of hand, he had kept the letter. Just in case.
Oliver scratched the back of his neck. “Do you think it could be real?”
“I hardly know what to think. Sherborne was with her, definitely. He knew details about her—intimate details—that he could not have known unless they were together. But when?Sophia?” He blew out a long breath. “I loved Grace, Oliver.”
“I know.”
“It wasn’t the same as…” Nicholas shook his head. Thinking about Isadora would get him nowhere.Yes, the way he felt toward Grace was far and away different from the way he now felt toward Isadora. Grace felt like duty, and affection borne of that duty. Like the taste of attending socials, throwing parties, mingling with the ton. While Marriage with Isadora felt… it felt like home, in a strange and bizarre way.
But he had still loved her.
At the time, he had believed she would never betray him. But when they were in the marriage together, fighting for their life together—or so he could have thought—such a betrayal had seemed inconceivable. Just as inconceivable as him finding some lightskirt to replace Grace.
While he was in love, while he spent his life with someone who ought to dedicate themselves to him, he was blind to the potential for betrayal.
“I can’t prove it either way,” he murmured. “She resembles Grace, not me—but she doesn’t resemble Sherborne, either. There’s no way to verify his claims.”
Oliver cleared his throat. “Were you… intimate before she got with child?”
“Often enough,” Nicholas said. “There were no gaps. If there had been, I might have been suspicious at the time, but it was perfectly plausible—even likely—that the child was mine.”
“So Sherborne can’t know. Neither could Grace have done.”
