They laughed, as quietly as they could, until tears overtook them from trying to stifle the sound. Isobel’s head pounded with the effort, but it felt good to feel something other than sadness for a brief moment.
When they settled, though, Clara was still set on getting answers. “So, you love this mystery gentleman?”
Her heart answered before her lips. “I think I do. And if I don’t now, I definitely could love him. It would be very easy to.”
“Does he let you be yourself? Make you laugh? Cherish you?” Clara asked excitedly. “Is he everything Dick isn’t?”
Isobel nodded, unable to open her mouth lest a sob escape her.
“And,” Clara continued, “have you ever felt like this before?”
“No,” Isobel said quietly. “Never. I thought feelings like these only existed in books.”
Clara gave her a sideways glance. “Like the novels you hide behind your side table?”
“Oh, God. Please don’t tell me you’ve read them!”
The face Clara made was answer enough.
“You are the worst!” Isobel hissed, grabbing a pillow and weakly hitting her with it several times. She should have known that nothingwas safe from her niece. Clara had probably been snooping when she should have been practicing her piano forte or memorizing poems.
“That is beside the point,” Clara said, easily defending herself from the onslaught. “You can’t let something like that go—only a madwoman would do such a thing. I know he’s the reason you’ve been spending time away. You’revisitinghim, and that says more than anything how smitten you are. You don’t give your company so freely to just anyone.”
“I think it might be too late,” Isobel said, collapsing against the pillows again. The heartbreak swelled in her chest, leaving her unmoored. That pit of unending despair gaped open within her. She’d known the disappointment would hurt. What she hadn’t known was how much her heart would.
He was already gone. And if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter. He couldn’twanther. He was set on vengeance and saw their connection as a weakness. That singular night lived in its own universe, separate from reality and duty.
“It’s not too late. Trust me,” Clara said as she blew out the candle she had come in with and settled at Isobel’s side. “This is how it always works in the books, too. Right when you think all hope is lost, that’s exactly when the main character acts.”
Isobel frowned at the truth of it.
Clara yawned and concluded with, “You more than anyone should know that.”
Chapter 30
Isobel
“I’m going back to my room, it’s too hot,” Clara mumbled hours later. By the time her niece untangled herself from the sheets and stomped from the room, Isobel was fully awake.
She tossed and turned, fluctuating between being too cold and too hot. But mostly, now that she was awake, her mind wouldn’t stop racing. The restless energy sat beneath her skin, feverish and scratchy.
She could rise, sneak out of the house, and discover if Ved had departed for certain. But he’d said he would be gone inhours, and it had already been a full day.
Despite what the books said, it really was too late. Isobel had always known that the great love in books was never meant for her. And she and Ved, they weren’t a romance story. Romances ended in passionate kisses and happily ever afters. In ardent vows and unbreakable connections.
They were a genre unto themselves.
She was staring intently at the ceiling when the sound of her door creaking open drew her attention. Propping herself up on her elbows, she expected to see Clara. Maybe she couldn’t go back to sleep, either, and wanted to talk more.
But the threshold was empty. Eerily so.
“Clara?” she whispered.
And then a sudden realization dawned on her.
“Ved?” Excitement lit up her nerves. They’d agreed only one night. Had he changed his mind? She sucked in a breath as unexpected tears pricked her eyes. Maybe it wasn’t too late after all.
Red eye shields appeared first, and then the rest of him materialized.
