His eyes flared and his chest heaved. Kendall took a step toward her before appearing to forcibly restrain himself.
“Tread carefully, Lady Isolde.” His words cracked, a whip striking air. “Do not goad me into summoning a footman. I would take far too much pleasure in watching you be forcibly tossed onto the street.”
“Tristan Gilbert! Don’t you dare!” Allie called through the keyhole.
They both looked toward the music room door.
Helplessly, Isolde’s eyes skimmed the lines of his profile—nose, lips, jaw—hating how the whole ignited a low hum in her abdomen and made her itch to trace the contour with a fingertip.
You loathe him, she reminded her wayward body.He is a boorishly arrogant man in an attractive shell who is endeavoring to ruin your father and harm your family.
He brought his gaze back to hers.
“Come now, Your Grace.” Draining the last of the whisky, Isolde set the tumbler aside. “If I have learned anything from my father, it is that every proposed transaction has a finite price. A point at which the anticipated rewards are deemed worth what is sacrificed. So what compensation would be sufficient for yourself?”
His reply was immediate. “Hadley’s imprisonment and the utter and complete humiliation of your family.”
Rolling her eyes, Isolde pushed to her feet.
He followed her every move—a wolf studying its prey.
“Ye know that isn’t what I was asking. Permit me tae try again: What will it take for ye to let this matter with Jarvis go?”
“Nothing. Nothing will persuade me.”
“Are ye quite sure?” Isolde slowly walked toward him, her skirts swishing like quiet breaths.
And with each step she closed between them, he tensed.
As if he were steeling himself against . . . something.
How very interesting.
Was thatsomethingherself?
Hehadappeared attracted to her once upon a time. Before he knew she was the daughter of the Earl of Hadley. He had even kissed her hand—fervently, reverently—like a man under a witch’s spell. That kiss had felt like a promise. Of future strolls through moon-lit gardens, of whirling dances, of whispered words in hushed corners. Even eight years on, Isolde could easily recall the burn of his touch.
Surely that attraction had melted with the force of his disdain. Like others, he was certainly tabulating her problematic features: height (too tall), hair (too red), skin (too freckled), and conversation (too opinionated).
But maybe attraction still hummed under his skin . . . an electrical awareness of her proximity.
Could she use his potential attraction against him?
She darted a glance at the table where Mr. Whewell’s treatise lay abandoned.
Mmm, perhaps she should do as Kendall had demanded and apply the scientific method to this situation. A wee experiment on Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion, as it were. To see if an action on her part might elicit an equal and opposite reaction in the duke.
“Are ye quite sure ye have no price, Your Grace?” she asked again.
Kendall swallowed as she approached, his Adam’s apple rolling up and down.
“Yes,” he rasped, but the ferocity in his gaze betrayed him.
Again. Did she find his reaction merely interesting? Or . . . scintillating?
“Truly?” Isolde tilted her head. “There is nothing ye might desire from myself?”
Lifting her hand, she dragged her fingers across her décolletage with deliberate casualness, as if merely brushing away a spot of lint, fingertips grazing the collarbones visible above the muslin of her fichu.
