He did not wake. His mouth parted just enough to draw a deeper breath. Her heart thudded in her chest, absurdly loud. No one saw. No one would know. She could have withdrawn, folded her hand back under the makeshift sheet, pretended she had never reached out at all. Instead she leaned down, very slowly, until her lips brushed that same lock of hair.
It was not a kiss, not really. Not the way it had been in the library, or the chapel. It was a private act of reverence, as much for the exhausted man who had scrubbed her brother’s floor as for the duke who had argued with her in front of that same brother. She closed her eyes, breathing in the faint scent of him.
“Fool,” she whispered against his hair. She did not specify which of them she meant.
Then she eased back, careful not to disturb him, and let her head sink into the thin cushion. The sheet rustled softly as she pulled it higher over her shoulder. Moonlight traced the room. Edward’s slow breathing kept its patient time. Isla watched the cracked ceiling for a little while longer, her hand still tinglingwhere it had touched his hair, and then sleep folded over her, swift and complete.
Chapter 16
Edward left Portman Square before Isla woke. He told himself it was necessity, not cowardice, that the solicitor’s appointment was urgent, and he was doing what any responsible husband would do when confronted with a spiraling family disaster. But as he walked down the steps into the cold London morning, he knew the truth.
He was glad to escape the room where she had slept inches away from him. Glad to escape the faint impression of her lips on his hair that he had half-imagined when he stirred toward dawn. Glad to escape the warmth of the quiet little makeshift parlor where, for a few hours, they had almost been something other than wary strangers.
Distance was easier. Distance let him think like a duke again. The hansom rattled through the waking city. London in the early hours possessed neither glamor nor menace. It was simply alive, heedless of dukes and their doubts.
By the time he reached Lincoln’s Inn, the fog had begun to lift. His solicitor’s chambers sat in a tall brick building near the square, brass nameplate which had been polished to a shine. Edward climbed the steps with the old familiar tightness in his chest, anticipation mixed with that prickle of dread that always preceded the uncovering of unpleasant truths.
Mr. Latham greeted him in a modest but well-ordered office. The man was thin, neat, exacting. His appearance was every inch the trusted adviser his father had sworn by.
“Your Grace,” Latham said, bowing. “You wished to hear the latest.”
“Give it to me plainly,” Edward said.
Latham motioned him to sit and opened a folder with a kind of solemnity that made Edward’s stomach turn.
“I have received a written response from Lord Deverell,” the solicitor said. “His lordship was, at first, unwilling to put anything to paper. Embarrassment, chiefly. He feared any written indication of the matter might become fodder for public gossip.”
Edward’s jaw flexed. “But he wrote.”
“Upon assurance of confidentiality,” Latham said. “And, I regret to say, upon the promise of a small payment.”
“How small?”
Latham quoted a figure. Edward did not flinch, it was barely more than one tradesman’s bill.
“And the substance?”
Latham hesitated. For a solicitor, that was telling.
“Speak,” Edward said.
“The trap,” Latham said carefully, “appears to have been quite real.”
Edward felt the world tighten around him, like a ship’s mast creaking before it splinters.
No.
“Describe it.”
Latham consulted the papers. “Lord Deverell was approached last year by a Scottish lord and his sister. They met him in town. Conversation was struck. A certain familiarity encouraged. The young lady was charming, by his account, and her brother … persuasive.”
Edward’s mouth dried.
“He believed the pair to be of respectable lineage—indeed they spoke of an old family seat in Perthshire and Deverell, being impressionable, perhaps overly romantic, formed an attachment. Before he could determine their intentions, the brother hinted that certain small debts weighed on them, the sort which might easily be settled by a gentleman of means.”
“How small?” Edward asked.
“Fifty pounds,” Latham said. “Not insignificant but not ruinous to a man of comfort.”
