She reached for Lillian’s hand, finding fingers ice-cold despite the inadequate shawl. The girl flinched at first contact, then went very still—as though kindness were still so foreign she didn’t know how to receive it.
Perhaps, Isadora thought with a pang, she hadn’t tried hard enough with her.
“You belong exactly where you are,” Isadora said, voice firm enough to cut through years of whispered cruelty. “You are under this roof because someone loved you enough to entrust you to the Duke’s care. Your father chose Edmund specifically, Lillian. Not some distant relation who might hide you away in the country. Not an institution for inconvenient children. He chose the man he trusted most in all the world to protect his daughter.”
Lillian’s breath hitched. “But that was before—” She stopped, struggling with words too large for her understanding. “Before everything went wrong. Before the duel. Before Father died and left me with a guardian who looks at me and sees only his own failure.”
“I don’t believe that’s what he sees.” Isadora squeezed the cold fingers gently. “I think Edmund looks at you and sees his dearest friend’s daughter. A young woman who deserves better than he knows how to provide. And yes, I think he sees his own inadequacy—but that’s not your fault, darling. That’s his burden to carry, not yours.”
“Then why—” Lillian turned to face her fully now, blue eyes swimming with tears she refused to let fall. “Why does it feel like I’m being punished? Why am I locked away in this house like some shameful secret? Other girls my age are preparing for their debuts, learning to navigate society, discovering who they might become. But I’m trapped here with Mrs. Hale’s ridiculous lessons about moral shepherdesses and proper deportment, as though the most important thing I could achieve is sitting still without fidgeting.”
The frustration in her voice was devastating—not the petulant whining of a spoiled child, but the genuine anguish of an intelligent mind being systematically dulled.
“You don’t have a place here,” Lillian continued, words tumbling faster now that the dam had broken. “Not really. Mrs. Hale treats me like a simpleton who can’t be trusted with real books.The maids avoid looking at me directly, as though illegitimacy might be catching if they meet my eyes. And Uncle Edmund?—”
She stopped, chest heaving with the effort of containing emotions too large for her slight frame.
“He treats me like a child,” she whispered at last.
Isadora pulled the girl closer, wrapping her arm around those thin shoulders and feeling her tremble from more than just cold. “Because he is afraid,” she said simply. “Men often are, when faced with things they cannot control.”
The observation startled a laugh from Lillian—choked and watery but genuine. She looked up at Isadora with something approaching wonder, as though the idea of the fearsome Duke of Rothwell being frightened of anything had never occurred to her.
“Uncle Edmund? Afraid?” She shook her head. “He’s the most terrifying person I’ve ever encountered. The servants practically genuflect when he enters a room. Even Mrs. Hale chooses her words carefully around him, and she’s never careful about anything else.”
“Fear and fearlessness aren’t opposites, darling.” Isadora brushed a curl from Lillian’s face, noting how the girl leaned into the touch like someone starved for affection. “Sometimes the most frightening people are the most frightened themselves. They’ve simply learned to armor their terror in authority and distance.”
She paused, considering how much truth to share. But Lillian deserved honesty—had probably been drowning in well-meaning lies her entire life.
“Your uncle looks at you and sees his dearest friend’s daughter,” Isadora continued carefully. “A brilliant young woman on the cusp of the world who requires guidance he has absolutely no idea how to provide. He’s terrified of failing you, Lillian. Terrified that he won’t be able to protect you from society’s cruelties, or prepare you for the life you deserve. So he does what frightened men always do—he builds walls and calls them protection. He creates rules and schedules and rigid expectations because at least those things can be controlled.”
Lillian absorbed this in silence, her breath forming small clouds in the winter air. Around them, the garden settled deeper into its blanket of snow. Icicles hung from the sundial’s edge, catching weak December light and transforming it into brief sparks of color.
“I wish—” Lillian’s voice was barely audible now, small as a prayer. “I do wish he would smile. Just once. The way Father described him in the letters.”
“Letters?” Isadora’s curiosity sharpened.
“I found them,” Lillian admitted, color rising in her cheeks. “In the library, tucked into a volume of Shakespeare that hadn’t been opened in years. Father wrote to someone—I assume my mother, though he never named her—about his friendship withEdmund. They used to laugh together, apparently. Shared jokes and adventures and all the things that made life worth living.”
She swallowed hard, blinking against fresh tears. “Father wrote that Edmund was the bravest man he knew. Not because he was fearless, but because he felt everything so deeply and still managed to face the world without flinching. He said Edmund’s heart was too large for his own good, that he loved fiercely and loyally and would defend those he cared about with his last breath.”
“And that sounds nothing like the man you know,” Isadora observed gently.
“Nothing at all.” Lillian’s voice broke on the words. “The man I know is made of ice and duty. I can’t imagine him experiencing joy, or allowing himself to care about anything beyond obligation. Sometimes I wonder if Father was writing about a different person entirely. Or if the duel somehow destroyed everything warm in Edmund and left only the cold behind.”
She leaned more heavily against Isadora now, her slight weight somehow both burden and gift. “I just want him to see me,” she whispered. “Not as James Gray’s daughter. Not as a problem requiring management. Just... me. Lillian. A person who exists beyond the circumstances of her birth.”
Isadora wrapped both arms around the girl, holding her while she trembled with emotion she’d clearly been containing for months. They sat together in the ruined garden, snow fallingaround them like benediction, and Isadora felt something fundamental shift in her chest.
This was why she’d accepted Edmund’s proposal. Not to escape Lord Ashcombe’s doughy hands and calculating eyes. Not even to gain the freedom a duchess’s rank could provide. This—this broken girl who needed someone to fight for her, to see her, to believe she was worthy of more than the scraps of affection she’d been offered—this was the purpose she’d been seeking.
“Then we shall have to teach him,” Isadora said, surprising herself with the fierceness in her voice. “Teach him that you’re not fragile china requiring careful storage. That you’re a person with thoughts and feelings and opinions that deserve to be heard.”
Lillian pulled back slightly, blue eyes searching Isadora’s face. “You think that’s possible? Teaching Uncle Edmund anything?”
“I think your uncle has spent ten years convincing himself he’s incapable of warmth. But I’ve seen cracks in that armor, Lillian. I’ve watched him listen to music with an expression of such profound hunger it broke my heart. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when you’re not watching—he does care. Love you.”
“Love?” Lillian’s voice held desperate hope and crushing skepticism in equal measure. “He barely speaks to me. How can that possibly be love?”
