“Thatwouldbe your favorite.” Her dry words drifted through the dark. “Is there one for husbands?”
“No, but there is one for Scots.”
“I am almost afraid tae—”
“A Disrespect of Scots,” he helpfully supplied, tone far too chipper and deliberately vexing.
She kicked him. Hard. The toe of her walking boot hitting his anklebone.
“Ow!” Kendall pulled his leg back with a yelp.
“Och, I do beg your pardon, Your Grace,” her sugary voice sailed across to him. “Was that a Scot disrespecting yourSassenachself?”
He rubbed at his injured ankle. “Indeed, it was.”
“I have brothers, Your Grace,” she snorted, that snippet of sound he liked far too well. “Ye would be wise tae remember that fact.”
Quiet reclaimed the space.
Kendall rubbed his nose and wiggled his toes, willing warmth into them. The night was not so cold that he feared for their health, but the air had passed into uncomfortably chilly at least an hour ago.
Lady Isolde shifted again, leaning forward and pulling her knees close to her chest, her hands tucked against her ribcage. She turned her face toward the door, permitting the faint moonlight to gently trace the contours of her elegant profile.
He closed his eyes against the sight.
She was so still, he wondered if she had finally fallen asleep.
But then her voice reached him, small and weary. “No one will come until morning, will they?”
He hated it, the note of fear in her tone. It seemed wrong, somehow, to live in a world where Lady Isolde succumbed to despair.
Until that moment, he realized he had always thought of her as existing beyond the natural forces of nature. That, of course, she would gallivant off to university in Massachusetts and return blazing with life. Of course, she would shrug off theton’s scorn, as if it mattered not. Of course, she would be immune to feelings of anxiety or fear.
Lady Isolde wrote the rules of her life, rather than contort herself to others’ whims.
She shifted again, as if restless. Only then did Kendall realize what he should have long ago—
She was shivering.
“You are cold,” he said, not a question.
Her only answer was to rub her hands up and down her arms.
Damnation.
They would need to share body heat in order to stay warm.
He was going to have to . . . to . . .hold her, wasn’t he?
His body both recoiled and yet slavered at the thought.
Heaven help him.
Hadley would likely take a claymore to his head if he discovered his daughter and arch-nemesis cuddled together.
But even then, Kendall decided that touching Lady Isolde was wiser—not to mention more tolerable—than watching her suffer.
He refused to examinewhyhis brain reached such an illogical conclusion.
