“She needs guidance,” Edmund said at last. “Protection. The world isn’t kind to girls like her.”
“Girls like her,” Tobias repeated.. “You mean girls whose fathers died in scandals that still follow them a decade later. Girls whose guardians are so paralyzed by guilt that they’d rather lock them away than risk watching them face the consequences of their inheritance.”
“Careful, Tobias.”
The warning carried enough ice to freeze blood, but Tobias had never been intimidated by Edmund’s reputation for danger. If anything, he seemed to find it amusing—a fact that had both saved their friendship and occasionally made Edmund want to throttle him.
“You cannot handle a teenager without a wife,” Tobias continued as though Edmund hadn’t spoken. “It’s impossible. She needs a woman’s influence, not your scowls and lectures. Someone who can teach her how to survive in our society without losing her soul in the process.”
“I will never marry.” The words came out flat and final, a truth Edmund had carved into his bones along with all the other certainties that kept him functional. “You know that.”
Tobias took a sip of whiskey, studying Edmund over the rim of his glass with the sort of attention that made lesser men confess their sins. “Do I? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re finally discovering that some problems can’t be solved by glowering at them until they submit.”
“I don’t glower.”
“You’re glowering right now. And you’ve been glowering at that girl for months, wondering why she won’t magically transform into a biddable child who doesn’t require actual parenting.” Tobias leaned forward. “She’s fifteen, Edmund. In three years, she’ll need to start to find a husband—someone who won’t care about her father’s disgrace or her guardian’s reputation. But that will only happen if she knows how to move in society, how to charm and deflect and survive the sharks who’ll be circling the moment she appears.”
Edmund’s hand tightened around his glass until the crystal groaned in protest. Everything Tobias said was true, which made it infinitely worse. He’d spent so much energy protecting Lillian from the world that he’d failed to prepare her for the battle she’d inevitably face.
“Then you must manage her yourself,” Tobias continued, pressing his advantage with the ruthless skill that had made him invaluable during their military days. “And judging by your expression every time I see you, that’s going very poorly indeed.”
“It is,” Edmund admitted, the words scraping his throat raw. “She hates me. And she’s right to hate me—I don’t know how to talk to her, how to help her, how to be what she needs. I see James in her face every time she looks at me, and I...”
He stopped, unable to finish the sentence. ’’ He had tried so hard to bury all that he’d felt with regard to his friend’s death. There was no point bringing up the sting thereof.
Tobias set down his glass with deliberate care. “Edmund, if you want to protect the girl—truly protect her—you must accept what is necessary.”
For a few moments, both men remained silent. Outside, London continued its restless dance of light and shadow, but inside their small circle of lamplight, the world had narrowed to two men and a truth that neither wanted to acknowledge.
“Very well,” Edmund said finally, the words feeling like stones in his mouth. “I will marry.”
Tobias blinked, his composure cracking for the first time in memory. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.” Edmund rose from his chair, beginning the restless pacing that had marked his worst moments for the past decade. “Lillian needs a mother figure, someone who can guide her through the complexities of society. The only way to provide that is to take a wife.”
“And where, pray tell, will you find a bride willing to wed the Dangerous Duke of Rothwell?” Tobias’s voice was filled with disbelief, as though he were watching a chess master execute an impossible gambit. “In case you’ve forgotten, your reputation tends to send marriageable misses running for their mothers.”
Edmund’s lips curved in something that might generously be called a smile, though it held no warmth. “There is no need to search. I have already decided. It will be Lady Isadora Cavendish.”
Silence followed his words. A silence so overwhelming that the low crackling of the fire was audible, the soft whisper of his own breathing, even the distant murmur of conversation from the card room. Tobias stared at him as though he’d announced his intention to take holy orders and become a monk.
“You’ve spoken to the woman once,” Tobias said finally, his voice strangled with disbelief.
“Once was enough.”
And it had been. In that charged moment when Lady Isadora had stood between a predator and his prey, Edmund had seen something rare: a woman who possessed both the strength to face down danger and the compassion to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves. She’d challenged him in that shadowed alcove, had called out his failures as a guardian with the sort of fearless honesty that most people wouldn’t dare show a duke.
More than that, she’d looked at him without flinching away from the scar that marked him or the reputation that preceded him. Her hazel eyes had held curiosity rather than fear, intelligence rather than calculation. For those few charged moments, he’d felt almost human again.
“Edmund,” Tobias said carefully, “you can’t simply decide to marry someone because they impressed you during a five-minute conversation. Marriage is... complicated. It requires affection, compatibility, mutual respect. Things that take time to develop.”
“It requires practical advantages,” Edmund corrected. “Lady Isadora is well-bred, intelligent, and clearly capable of handling herself in difficult situations. She has the social standing to help Lillian navigate thetonand the backbone to protect her from its worst excesses. What more could I ask for?”
“Love, perhaps? Happiness? The hope that your marriage might be more than a business arrangement designed to solve your immediate problems?”
Edmund stopped pacing, turning to face his friend with the sort of cold stare that had silenced Parliament on more than one occasion. “Love is a luxury I forfeited ten years ago in a field outside London. Happiness is not something men like me are entitled to expect. And as for business arrangements—that’s what marriage is, Tobias. Everything else is fairy tales designed to comfort children.”
But even as he spoke the words, Edmund could feel the lie in them. Something had stirred in his chest when Lady Isadora had looked at him with those challenging hazel eyes, something he’d thought permanently buried beneath layers of guilt and self-imposed isolation. Whether it was desire or simple human longing for connection, he couldn’t say. He only knew that the thought of seeing her again, of convincing her to bind her life to his, made his pulse quicken in ways that had nothing to do with practical considerations.
