Night had long settled over the ice house. Kendall could no longer see his watch, but he guessed the time to be approaching midnight.
Lady Isolde shifted across from him.
They had both slumped to the floor around sunset, each leaning against an opposite wall, their feet stretched past one another on the flagstone. He could see little of her now, just the general shape of her body and the poof of her skirts beside his knees.
Kendall kept his feet carefully angled, desperate to avoid any physical contact. Fighting the spell of his attraction to Lady Isolde was difficult enough from a distance, but feeling the burn of her touch and resisting the sharp cut of her wit and intelligence . . .
If he was to escape this debacle with his sanity and reputation intact, he had to minimize the battering of his defenses.
Cold seeped up through the floor and drifted along the hallway. He tucked his gloved hands into the pockets of his frock coat.
“Why do ye hate my father so?” Lady Isolde asked, her voice a silken rasp in the darkness. The sound raked along his skin and set all the fine hairs on his forearms flaring to attention.
“I do not hate your father.”
A guffaw met his pronouncement. “Please. Spare my unbelief.”
“It is true. I have no quarrel with your father, per se. I merely abhor any Peer who violates our laws.”
Kendall could practically feel her eyes rolling. “We both know that tae be a lie. A man can seek justice without spitting vitriol. There is more to the story.”
“I have no intention of discussing this topic with you.”
“Why?”
“I am not obligated to provide you with a reason.” Resisting her meantnotbeing lured into an intimate conversation.
“Mmm,” was her only reply.
She shifted, lifting one knee over the other and accidentally dragging her foot up his shin in the process.
He hissed at the scalding contact.
“Pardon,” she whispered.
She likely couldn’t see his answering twinge of pain.
Hours. He had enduredhoursof this torture. The smell of her perfume, the rustle of her feet, the softshushof her hands across her skirts, the occasional brush of her leg or arm.
It was Kendall’s personal definition of Hell.
Worse, he was learning all manner of things about her.
When she was amused or exasperated, Lady Isolde made a snuffling noise somewhere between a huff and a snort. He kept telling himself it was irritating, but he was terrified that part of him found it rather . . .damnation. . . adorable.
She didn’t fill the air with mindless chatter, as if needing the sound of her own voice to dispel the quiet. Instead, she sat in the hush with him, content to dwell in stillness.
And though they were faced with a decided crisis, she hadn’t devolved into hysterics or drowned him in recriminations. No. Rather, the lady endured their unwilling captivity with an admirable stoic verve.
Lady Isolde shifted again, voice echoing softly in the quiet. “So if ye won’t speak of my father, then perhaps ye will explain why ye dislike myself tae such a degree? I understand that I am not tae everyone’s liking—that ye find my education and upbringing distasteful—but there are other similarly unconventional ladies amongst the ton. I am hardly singular.”
Kendall begged to differ on that point. Lady Isolde was utterly unique, for better or worse.
The silence stretched a little too long.
“Your Grace?” she prompted.
“I am merely collecting my thoughts.”
