A visit to White’s brought wide-eyed stares and whispered conversations as he passed.
Kendall did not return.
He ceased his daily meetings with his secretaries, as there was now no diary to discuss.
Not even the commencement of Stephen Jarvis’s trial cheered him.
Instead, Kendall exhausted himself with his fencing master, attempting to purge the despair in his veins.
Once a week, he darkened the entry hall of Hadley’s townhouse to visit his betrothed.
There, Kendall sat opposite Lady Isolde in Hadley’s well-appointed drawing-room, Lady Hadley pouring tea as they aimlessly talked about the weather—Hadn’t the wind been chilly of late? Would the wisteria blooms endure?
Generally, his betrothed looked at her hands or the fire or the window, her expression dull and un-Isolde-like. As if, like him, she struggled to accommodate the abrupt change in their circumstances. But also, like him, she was polite and congenial and faintly . . . warm. Traits that were similarly un-Isolde-like but more positive in nature.
Lady Isolde was every whit as beautiful—auburn hair framing her face, waist trim in her neatly-pressed gown—and he found himself staring even more intently, memorizing each tiny thing. A patch offreckles beside her right ear formed a near-perfect circle and the tips of her eyelashes gleamed red-gold. Some appendage always had to be in motion—a bouncing foot or tapping finger. And despite her distress, that snuffling noise he adored remained.
Could his attraction form a viable foundation for marriage? A marriage in which—if he and Isolde negotiated a truce—they might eventually reach a sort of tentative friendship?
He felt a trace of hope at the thought.
Mostly, however, Kendall sat in the quiet of his library—the Library of Shame as he now thought of it—reminding himself that getting drunk at ten in the morning was probably ill-advised. The mantel clock ticked relentlessly, a cruel memorial to the days when time had mattered.
It was simply unbearable . . . witnessing every last goal and aspiration crumble to dust.
But then, he had always known this would be the result, were he to marry Lady Isolde. The circumstances of their marriage aside, allying himself with her scandalous reputation ensured that his own character and prospects suffered. It was why he had so stringently resisted the love-potion-fueled temptation of her.
Yet, had he succumbedbeforeducking with her into that ice house, he would have courted her properly. And so when faced with the loss of reputation and political clout, he could have claimed her heart as compensation.
Now . . . he had neither reputation nor Lady Isolde’s affections. Though again, that faint hope glowed, suggesting that perhaps attachment and regard might grow with time.
Allie’s staunch presence proved a balm.
His twin joined him in his Library of Shame, occasionally distracting him with raucous tales of her growing-up years in Italy and reading him humorous letters from her husband, Ethan.
Kendall would reply with appreciative syllables.
But Allie did permit one unwelcome caller to disrupt his wallowing.
“I am not at home to persons such as you,” Kendall grunted as the butler led Sir Rafe, hat in hand, into the library. “Please leave.”
“I will. Once I’ve had my say.” His brother looked around the room with interest. “Do ye still keep liquor in the hidden cabinet like ourfather?” He nodded toward the bookcase to the right of the window . . . the one where a panel of false book spines pulled out to reveal a small cavity.
Kendall hated this. Hated that Sir Rafe probably knew Gilbert House better than himself. That he shared so much history with his half-brother, and yet . . . none at all.
“No,” Kendall lied, folding his arms across his chest. “I’ve filled it with the bones of my enemies.”
Sir Rafe managed a wan smile, the upturn of his lips tugging on the white scar stretching from his temple to his cheekbone. He paced over to the window.
“I like the new drapes.” He touched the blue velvet that Kendall’s housekeeper had changed two summers past.
“I’m told the color compliments the similarly-new carpet. Now, why are you here?”
His brother turned back to him, eyebrow raised, rotating his hat in his palms. “Several years ago, I purchased an estate along the coast north of Inverness. It is a lovely old place with expansive sea views from nearly every window. Dunhelm Castle, it is called.”
Kendall merely stared at the man, unsure how this fact pertained to anything.
Sir Rafe did not misunderstand Kendall’s annoyed confusion. “I am returning there in a fortnight and will remain in residence for the remainder of the summer.”
