It did.
Or, at least, the life he’d fashioned for himself did.
~ ~ ~
Incredulous, Isabel stared at Lord Percival’s retreating back. Her lungs refused to inhale or exhale or do anything useful.
What in the blazes had she just done?
He rounded a corner and strode out of sight. Indignation flared through her, and her feet scrambled into pursuit.
He wasn’t getting away that easily.
They weren’t finished.
Fleet feet dashed across green and pink checkered marble as she wove through clumps and clutches of tropical plants in pursuit. She caught sight of the blasted man stepping through the exterior doorway and increased her pace. “Lord Percival,” she called, “we’re not—”
The door slammed in her face.Rude.Her jaw clenched in resolution, she dug her shoulder into steel and pushed the door wide. Across the expanse of the moonlit terrace, she saw the top of his head just before it dipped out of sight as he descended steps. Those steps led to the path to Rosebud Cottage.
He was going to hide from her in his room. To brood, or whatever it was he did in there.
Not on this night.
Resolve redoubled, she scurried into motion, her feet trilling down the stairs in chase. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say when she caught him, but she was absolutely finished with all their unfinished interactions. Tonight, they would see this through to its resolution, whateverthismight be, a prospect that both thrilled and quaked her to her bones.
“Lord Percival,” she cried out again as he disappeared into the copse of woods. “This is . . .”—she searched for the correct word—“this is . . .”—he’d reached Rosebud Cottage, his hand on the front door handle—“unworthyof you . . . of a man of your rank!”
Again, a door slammed in her face, but not before her ear caught an unimpressed laugh on the breeze. The cheek!
She rushed into the cottage and stopped short of slamming the door. Tilly, Nell, Eva, and the baby were upstairs. She listened for Ariel’s cry for three rushed heartbeats, but detected no sound. She exhaled a sigh of relief. She didn’t want Eva sticking her nose in where it didn’t belong. This, whateverthiswas, was between Isabel and Lord Percival, whose bedroom door she heard shut on a muted click.
She lightened her step to a quiet tiptoe through the dark house, only stumbling into two chairs and one sharp table edge along the way. At last, she reached his decidedly closed door and twisted the handle. It didn’t budge. She pressed her ear to oak and listened. Not a peep.
Her mouth to the crack where door met frame, she hissed, “Open this door.” If a whisper could be a shout, hers was. “We’renotfinished.”
Her ear again pressed to the door, she waited . . . and waited . . . for a sound, a sign, an acknowledgment,anything. At last, she heard it: a muffled shift, a light creak, a shuffle across bare floorboards.
Relief was quickly replaced with distress when the door opened and she all but fell into the room. He took a seat in a small, wooden chair, the picture of his usual laconic and devastating self.
Isabel stopped in the middle of the room and took in its furnishings: low, narrow bed with one worn blanket and one flat pillow; nightstand; dresser with three drawers; washstand in the corner; the chair he sat upon. None of it embellished or ornate. Simple. Spare. No excess. “Whose room is this?”
“It was the butler’s quarters when Rosebud Cottage was the main house.”
Proclivity toward self-denial.
Confirmation settled inside Isabel. “You’re the son of a duke, and you live in a servant’s room?”
He shrugged. “Your family are upstairs. This is simpler.”
“Simpler?” Really, this man. “You could be living in the manor house. You have access to every finery known to mankind. Yet you live in a servant’s room”—she shivered—“that doesn’t seem to have a heat source.” Though it was summer, the nights held a measure of winter never absent from this island.
He flicked an unconcerned wrist at the wall behind him. “Heat would have come from the kitchens, but since they are no longer in use, a bracing chill persists.”
“Abracingchill?” she scoffed. “So, the son of a duke does without.”
“I do wish you would stop calling me that.”
“The son of aduke? Which you are?”
