“You are owed one that is not stolen,” he heard himself say, voice rougher than he liked.
“Are you certain,” she murmured, “this is not theft?”
He did not answer. He reached for her, slow enough that she might turn away. She did not. Her lips parted, a fraction. His hand found her jaw, thumb resting just below her ear. He kissed her. It began as caution. The taste of her flooded him, wine from the supper, the faint tang of apple, something purely her.
She made a small sound in her throat, answering rather than protesting, and the kiss deepened of its own accord. Her hand came up to brace against his chest and he felt the quick staccato of her pulse under his palm and knew with a strange certainty that his own matched it. The room narrowed to lamplight and her mouth.
He did not know who broke away first. One moment they were joined, the next they were not. Isla’s eyes were dark, pupils wide. Shock rippled across her features, something like desire still pulsed there, too, before she shuttered it.
“That,” she said, after a heartbeat, “was remarkably ill-advised.”
“Yes,” he agreed hoarsely.
“We are meant to be dancing,” she said.
“We are meant to be sensible,” he said.
“How are you at pretending nothing has happened?” she asked.
“Practiced,” he said. “You?”
“Talented,” she replied, though her voice wobbled on the last syllable.
He stepped back fully, forcing himself to drop his hand. “We should return before my mother decides you have eloped with an unsuitable volume of verse.”
At the door he held it open for her. She paused as she passed him. For a fraction of a moment, her fingers brushed his. The touch could have been accidental.
“Edward,” she said softly, without title, just once.
He swallowed. “Isla.”
They looked at each other, two people who had shared more in ten minutes than they had in seven days, and then wrapped that knowledge in politeness like paper around something fragile. Together they walked back toward the music. By the time they reentered the ballroom, their faces were composed, their steps measured.
From the gallery, the Dowager’s gaze tracked them like a cannon. Edward guided Isla to the edge of the floor, released her hand, and bowed. “Will you dance, Your Grace?” he asked, for all the world as if the answer did not already live in his chest.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe I owe you one.”
They stepped into the set. The music swept them into movement, but the echo of the library clung to him. He felt the weight of his doubts still there, lodged like flint. He did not know yet whether they would strike sparks or be worn down by the current. For now, he held his frame, watched his wife, and tried not to think of bright stars or stolen kisses.
Chapter 13
Isla had agreed to ride with him, but only because it meant the opportunity to ride. That was what she told herself, at least. She sat side-saddle because they were to visit Edward’s tenants and she did not wish to shock them. Wexford’s tenants might faint if their duchess turned up in breeches. The habit chafed.
The skirt dragged. Her knee felt wrong where it pressed against the pommel instead of the horse’s side. Still, the air was sweet and open, and the fields rolled out in gentle, green ribs. Beside her, Edward rode astride with the ease of a man who had spent half his life balancing on moving things.
“We will start with the north farms,” he said, reins held in one hand, posture straight. “Dalton, Partridge, then old Mr. Hewson on the rise. After that, the sheep pastures and the dairy.”
“You have them all mapped in your head,” she said. “I’m impressed.”
“A captain who cannot recall his own deck is unfit for command,” he replied.
“This is not a deck,” she pointed out, waving at the hedgerows, the crofts, the distant hanging blue of the woods.
“It behaves like one,” he said. “Everyone aboard expects the man at the helm to know where every rope is tied.”
“Except that people have feelings, not ropes,” Isla murmured.
He did not answer, which was answer enough.
