Kendall had resorted to broody pacing after that.
Every now and then, he would pause, lift his watch into the light filtering through the door jamb, and announce the time in stern ducal tones.
Three hours. They had been trapped together for three hours.
Aside from Kendall’s clipped calling of the time, they hadn’t spoken to one another in over ninety minutes.
Isolde kept to her space on the wall, her feet aching from standing. She had briefly sat down, but Kendall had been unable to pace with her long legs blocking the hallway. And regardless of how minor or inadvertent the touch—a sweep of her skirt, the brush of her hand—the man recoiled as if she carried the plague.
Her bonnet and his hat and walking stick rested on the floor just inside the door. And though the space hadn’t seemed particularly cold when they first entered, Isolde could feel the chill creeping into her bones. Fortunately, she wore a pelerine—a loose, shawl-like garment that covered her shoulders—but it would hardly provide sufficient warmth once nighttime descended.
She tried not to dwell upon that fact. Or how the light around the door jamb dimmed with each ducal proclamation of the hour.
Fionahadto have realized by now that Isolde was not returning. Would she raise a hue and cry within Kew itself? Or would Fiona discreetly return to Mayfair to inform Lord and Lady Hadley? Isolde could hardly say which option she preferred.
Kendall strode back to the door, stopping opposite Isolde and matching her stance—shoulders leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
The faint light illuminated one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow and turning his eyes into glittering obsidian.
“Your family will assume I abducted you,” he said, voice gravelly. “If you don’t return home tonight, that is what they will fear has happened. Fiona last saw you in my company, after all.”
Isolde let the thought bounce around her mind.
“Or that you and I eloped,” she couldn’t help but say, just to entertain herself with his reaction.
Kendall did not disappoint.
“Do not be absurd, Lady Isolde,” he growled. “No one would believe such lunacy.” He punctuated the comment with a slow, scathing perusal of her person.
Isolde couldn’t help but laugh in return. “But ye abducting me like some nonsensical Drury Lane farce is somehowmorebelievable?”
“Yes,” he snapped.
“I suppose ye did kidnap your sister from Italy, so there is a history of such behavior.”
Kendall squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenched.
Isolde hoped he was praying for patience.
“My history with my twin is none of your affair, Lady Isolde.”
“Except, perhaps, your wee penchant for kidnapping,” she needled. “I do believe I am feeling rather abducted at the moment. Ye did drag me in here.”
He pinched the brow of his nose, a sure sign—she now knew—that her words were taking a toll.
“What I mean,” he said with condescending patience, “is that others are more likely to perceive me as a criminal, eager to hurt Hadley, rather than a lovesick swain carrying on a besotted secret courtship with a woman like yourself.”
Well, when he put it that way . . .
“A woman like myself,” she repeated slowly. “That unattractive, am I?”
The duke grunted, that muscle in his jaw flexing as he gritted his teeth. “It is not your physical appearance I find disagreeable, Lady Isolde. As well you know.”
Interesting.
But then, her experimentation had already hinted at this.
“Just my engaging personality?” she asked sweetly.
