“We were simply conversing,” he said with wounded dignity that might have fooled someone with less experience in masculine duplicity. “Surely there’s no harm in…”
“There’s every harm in a grown man cornering a child barely out of the schoolroom.” Isadora moved past him, placing herself between predator and prey while extending her hand to Miss Gray. “She’s under my protection now. If you value your reputation, you will leave at once.”
The girl’s fingers were ice-cold when they closed around hers, trembling with relief and lingering fear. She pressed close to Isadora’s side, ’’who allowed her hand to hover over the girl’s back gently. All in her wanted to hold the girl and comfort her.
Bickham’s mask slipped completely. “You presume too much, my lady. The girl is hardly your?—”
“The girl is mine.”
The voice came from the shadows like thunder rolling across a summer sky. Deep, commanding, edged with barely leashed violence that made Bickham go white as parchment.
Edmund Ravensleigh, seventh Duke of Rothwell, materialized from the darkness at the corridor’s end like something summoned from a gothic novel. He was taller than she’d expected, broad-shouldered and imposing in black evening wear that seemed to swallow light. Dark hair framed features that belonged on a Renaissance sculpture, all sharp angles and classical lines, marred only by the thin scar that ran from cheek to chin like a blade’s kiss.
But his eyes… Her heart skipped a beat when she met his eyes. Green as bottle glass and twice as cutting, they fixed on Bickham with the sort of cold fury that had once settled disputes with pistols at dawn.
“Your Grace,” Bickham stammered, nearly genuflecting in his haste to bow. “I was merely… that is, Miss Gray and I were…”
“Leaving.” The Duke’s voice was cold. “You were leaving. Permanently.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. Bickham nodded frantically, babbling apologies and excuses as he practically fled down the corridor. Within seconds, his footsteps had disappeared entirely.
Silence settled over their little alcove. Miss Gray’s breathing slowly returned to normal, and the distant sound of Miss Hartwell’s harp drifted through the walls. The Duke’s attention shifted to his ward, his expression gentling fractionally as he assessed her for damage.
“Are you hurt?” The steel in his voice wrapped itself in velvet when he spoke to the girl.
“No, Your Grace,” Lillian whispered. “This kind lady, she...”
Isadora smiled spontaneously. “Lady Isadora Cavendish,” she introduced herself and the girl’s eyes lit up. “Lil… Lady… Lillian Gray.”
The girl turned back to her guardian. “Lady Isadora helped me.”
Then those remarkable green eyes turned on Isadora, and she felt like she was standing in the path of a lightning storm. She’d been stared at by countless men over the years. Appraising looks, admiring glances, calculations of her worth as a potential bride. This was different. This was a man seeing her, really seeing her, not as decoration or commodity but as something infinitely more complex.
“Who are you to interfere in matters that don’t concern you?”’
She lifted her chin, meeting his stare without flinching. “When a man behaves without honor, it concerns every woman.”
Something flickered in those green depths, though she was not sure whether it was simple surprise or begrudging respect. The moment stretched between them like a bowstring, thrumming with possibilities she couldn’t name. He was nothing like the safe, acceptable bachelors Father paraded before her. Nothing like men who spoke in careful platitudes and measured their words against social expectations.
There was something wild about Edmund Ravensleigh, something untamed despite his perfect manners and ducal bearing. He was danger wrapped in silk and tied with a coronet… exactly the sort of man she should run from as fast as her slippers could carry her.
So why was she taking a step closer instead of backing away?
“Lillian,” he said without breaking their locked gaze, “go back to Mrs. Hale. Tell her I’ll be speaking with her about tonight’s... oversight.”
The girl curtsied quickly, shooting Isadora a grateful look before hurrying away. Her footsteps faded, leaving them alone with nothing but shadows and the faint scent of flowers.
“You defend her fiercely for someone you’ve just met,” he observed. ’
“I defend innocence wherever I find it. It’s become rather rare.”
“Indeed.” His mouth curved in what might generously be called a smile, though there was no warmth in it. “Tell me, Lady Isadora, for I assume you are our hostess this evening, do you make a habit of rescuing maidens in distress?”
Isadora looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Do you make a habit of leaving your ward unprotected in rooms full of wolves?”
The words escaped before she could stop them, sharp and accusatory in a way that would have given her governess heart palpitations. Ladies didn’t speak so boldly to gentlemen, especially not to dukes with reputations like Rothwell’s. But something about his presence stripped away years of careful training, leaving her raw and honest.
Instead of taking offense, he laughed. The sound was rusty, like he was out of practice, but genuine. The transformation it worked on his features was startling—suddenly he looked younger, less forbidding, almost human.
