He moved further into the chamber, his gaze taking in the Christmas decorations with an expression she could not quite read. “I wanted to speak with you before dinner. About expectations. About how the household functions.”
“Of course.” She turned from the window to face him fully, noting the way the firelight caught the scar along his jaw and made it appear even more pronounced. “I am eager to understand my role here.”
A small smile played around his lips at this.
“Rothwell Abbey operates according to certain... principles,” he said at last. “Order. Efficiency. The maintenance of standards that have served this family for centuries. My servants understand what is expected of them, and they perform their duties accordingly.”
Through fear, Isadora thought but did not say. Through rigid control rather than loyalty or affection. But she merely nodded, waiting for him to continue.
“I hope,” he went on, his voice taking on a note of something that might have been warning, “that you will find these arrangements suitable. That you will not feel the need to introduce... complications to a system that functions well as it stands.”
“What manner of complications concern you?” she asked, genuine curiosity rather than challenge in her tone.
He moved closer, close enough that she could catch the familiar scent of his cologne beneath the sharper notes of winter air that clung to his clothes. “Lillian, for instance. She is young, impressionable, perhaps inclined to test boundaries when presented with new influences. I would prefer that her education continue according to the schedule Mrs. Hale has established.”
Translation: he did not want her interfering with his method of keeping the girl safely isolated from anything that might complicate his carefully ordered world.
“I see,” she said for what felt like the hundredth time that day. “And what of my own role? Am I to confine myself to these chambers, or am I permitted to move freely throughout the house?”
The question seemed to surprise him, as though the possibility that she might want to explore her new home had not occurred to him. “You are the Duchess of Rothwell,” he said slowly. “These are your chambers, but the house is your domain as well. I would never presume to restrict your movements.”
But his tone suggested that while he would not restrict her movements, he would prefer her to restrict them herself. To remain safely within whatever boundaries he had established for appropriate feminine behavior, just as Lillian was kept within the bounds of her schoolroom education.
“How generous,” she murmured, and something in her voice must have warned him that he was treading on dangerous ground.
Their eyes met then, and for a moment the careful politeness fell away, replaced by something charged with possibility and danger in equal measure. She saw recognition in those green depths, an acknowledgment that despite their practical arrangement, despite his warnings about boundaries and expectations, something was building between them that could not be easily controlled or dismissed.
“You will find everything you need here,” he said finally, his voice rougher than it had been moments before. The words were prosaic, merely polite, but the way he said them carried implications that made her pulse flutter.
She lifted her chin, meeting his stare without flinching. “Will I?”
For a heartbeat, she thought he might step closer, might abandon the careful distance he had maintained since their arrival. His gaze dropped to her lips, then returned to her eyes with an intensity that made her breath catch in her throat.
Then, with visible effort, he seemed to master whatever impulse had seized him. He inclined his head in a gesture that was perfectly correct and somehow intimate at the same time, his eyes holding hers until the last possible moment.
“Dinner at eight,” he said quietly. “I will send someone to escort you to the dining room.”
He turned then and walked toward the door with measured steps that spoke of rigid self-control. At the threshold he paused,glancing back at her with an expression that might have been regret or longing or simple exhaustion.
“Welcome to Rothwell Abbey, Isadora.”
The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded somehow final, leaving her alone in the vast silence of her magnificent prison. Outside, the wind had begun to howl around the ancient stones, driving the snow against her windows with increasing force. The Christmas candles flickered in their holders, casting dancing shadows that seemed to move with lives of their own.
She sank into the chair beside the fire, her tea grown cold while they had talked, and contemplated the strange twist of fate that had brought her to this place. Three days ago she had been a spinster daughter facing an unwanted marriage to Lord Ashcombe. Now she was a duchess in her own right, mistress of one of England’s most magnificent estates, guardian to a lonely girl who needed her protection.
And wife to a man who promised her nothing but honesty and respect, yet looked at her with eyes that held depths she wanted to explore despite every warning bell in her head.
The fire crackled in the grate, and somewhere in the distance, she could hear the sound of servants moving through corridors, preparing for whatever rituals marked evening at Rothwell Abbey. Soon she would have to dress for dinner, to present herself as the new Duchess and play whatever role was expected of her in the careful drama of this household.
But for now, she was alone with her thoughts and the growing certainty that whatever she had expected from this marriage, the reality would prove far more complicated than either she or Edmund had anticipated.
Outside her window, Rothwell Abbey settled into winter darkness, snow continuing to fall like a curtain being drawn between her old life and whatever future awaited her in this place of shadows and secrets. And for the first time since accepting Edmund’s proposal, Isadora allowed herself to acknowledge the truth that had been growing in her chest since that moment on the church steps when he had caught her in his arms.
The duke was far more dangerous than she had realized—and not for the reason anyone else thought, but for the effect his presence had on her.
CHAPTER 8
Edmund had been awake since five, as was his custom. The habit had been drilled into him even during his childhood years, reinforced by a decade of managing estates that demanded attention before the sun rose over the Yorkshire moors. But this morning, sleep had eluded him entirely, chased away by the awareness that his carefully ordered world had been irreversibly altered by the presence of a woman sleeping in chambers that had stood empty for twenty years.
