“Absolutely not,” Isadora smirked.
“Very well then,” she huffed. “Should you decide to change your mind, know that I would—at the very least—make an excellent fugitive partner.”
“Oh, I never doubted your ability or your company,” Isadora chuckled. “I think we should inform the kitchen staff as Father asked, otherwise he might just cause another tantrum.”
“Yes, fine,” Penelope sighed. “You’re right as always. Annoying how that always works out.”
“What took you both so long?” George scolded the moment Isadora and Penelope stepped back into the drawing room. His tone was clipped and impatient, as though they were still children under his command rather than grown women with their own lives. “I asked you to do one simple thing—had you planned on taking the entire week?”
“We got talking and didn’t realize,” Isadora replied simply. She was used to him overreacting about the smallest of things—it did not even faze her anymore.
“Thoughtless behavior,” he continued to grumble even as the staff entered the room and finally began to serve the refreshments. “You are a married woman now. One would expect better from you.”
Isadora let his rambling fade into the background, but there was someone in that room that wasn’t unaffected. She noticed Evan’s face pull back into a scowl, and his fists ball up against his sides.
The shift in him was subtle but immediate—the straightening of his posture, the clenching of his jaw, the glint of something dangerous flashing through his normally composed gaze.
“Lord Morton, I would watch that tone if I were you,” Evan warned in a low voice. “Might I remind youagainthat this is my wife that you are speaking to?”
“Oh, surely you cannot have a problem with this as well?” George said, baffled. As if it was perfectly normal in his world to talk downto women as inferiors. “Why the need to be so sensitive, Your Grace? A father ought to correct his daughter when she strays from proper manners. It is how they learn, is it not?”
“This is not about a father correcting his daughter—though even that has a time and place.” He glanced over to the staff, whowere now exiting the drawing room. “What I take issue with is the tone in which you addressmywife inmypresence as though she were still under your rule.”
“It is just the way things have always been,” George faltered. “Surely, you know that I mean no harm by it.”
“Then perhaps you need to understand…” Evan’s face grew stormier. “… that things have changed. Isadora is no longer yours to command, nor will I tolerate you speaking to her as though she is some wayward child in need of correction. She is a duchess. She ismywife. And you will show her the respect that title demands, or you shall find that your company will no longer be tolerated.”
The room fell into silence. Even Penelope held her breath, darting a glance between the two men.
“Your Grace,” Isadora said softly, trying to diffuse the situation. Despite her difference with her father, the last thing she wanted was for him to get into a spat with Evan on her behalf. “It’s fine. I believe the point has been communicated.”
Evan shot her a look.
Please listen,she pleaded silently in her own head.
“Has it been communicated, Lord Morton?” Evan turned to his father-in-law once more. His tone was softer now but somehow just as threatening.
George opened his mouth then closed it again. “Yes, of course. No harm intended, Your Grace.”
Evan did not so much as blink. “See that it stays that way.” He stood up. “Isadora, I shall leave now for some tasks at the center. You may spend time with Penelope till then. I shall come and collect you in three hours. Good day to you.”
“No.” Isadora stood up herself. “I shall come with you wherever it is that you are going. We shall leave together.”
It was a small act of solidarity. She did not wish for her husband to leave without her—and most of all, she wanted to communicate to George that Evan and she were one unitnow.
Isadora stepped forward and slipped her hand into Evan’s arm. He turned to her, his expression softening the moment his eyes met hers.
“I suppose we could do that as well,” he murmured. Isadora wasn’t sure if she was imagining things, but she saw the briefest hint of a smile creep onto his face. “Very well, then. The Duchess and I shall be taking our leave now.”
Isadora nodded, offering a brief glance to Penelope to mutter a quicksorrybefore turning back to her husband. “Yes, let us go.”
George said nothing as they made their way to the door. He only watched—in remorse or in defeat, it was difficult to say, but he did not look like a happy man.
Finally, they left together.
CHAPTER 16
“To the estate,” Evan instructed the driver as the husband and wife made their way inside the carriage. “Immediately.”
