“Wasting the stable master’s time,” Edward finished, more sharply than he had intended. “Discussing broodmares.”
Isla’s eyes cooled at once. “I was doing nothing of the sort. Merely killing time until I was allowed a window in my husband’s diary.”
“You have not asked for a window.”
“The Dowager Duchess is a high wall to scale.”
“So, you have taken up nearly an hour of my stable master’s afternoon.”
Godwin shifted uncomfortably. “Her Grace was advised to conf …”
“I am speaking to the Duchess,” Edward said, without taking his eyes from Isla. “Godwin, you may leave us.”
The stable master hesitated, plainly reluctant to be dismissed, then tugged his forelock and retreated down the aisle, muttering something about checking the latch on the far stall. Silence dropped between them, filled with the quiet sounds of the horses and the distant clatter of a dropped bucket.
Isla lifted her chin. “If you have a grievance, Your Grace,” she said, “you may as well state it plainly.”
He held up the ledger. “My grievance, madam, is that you seem determined to occupy every person in this house with your diversions. My mother with your attempts to rearrange her parlor. Mrs. Hargrave with your innovations in the servants’ schedules. And now Godwin with your hobbies.”
“Horses,” she said, “are not a hobby. They are the backbone of your estate. Or have you forgotten that nothing moves without four legs and a saddle?”
“You forget nothing,” he said coldly. “Except, perhaps, that your own home in Scotland lies blackened.”
It was a low blow. He knew it even as he delivered it. Her face changed as if he had struck her. Color drained from her cheeks, her eyes flashed with hurt before the familiar anger came up to cover it.
“You think I don’t remember?” she said, voice tight. “That I somehow failed to notice the fire that ate my childhood? Are ye mad or just stupid?”
“You find time enough to advise my stable master on breeding plans,” he said. “Forgive me if I wonder how your grief permits such leisure.”
He regretted it the moment it left his mouth.
“I would like nothing better,” she said, each word very clear, “than to be in Perthshire where my brother has gone, walking through the smoking ruins of my house, speaking to every tenant whose cottage lies in the shadow of our walls. I would like to see for myself that Moira’s roof still stands, that old Angus did not fall on the stairs, that the children who played in the south courtyard had time to run.”
She took a breath that shook.
“But I must keep up appearances. That the new Duchess of Wexford should not be seen returning post-haste to the land she has just traded away. Am I not to play the ornament?”
Her fingers tightened on the sheaf of papers until the edges bent.
“So do not tell me,” she said, low and fierce, “that I do not care. I care for every stone of Strathmore. For every person who drew breath beneath its roof. I sit here in Hampshire with my hands idle and my mind full of what might have happened to them. If I spend an hour in your stables, it is not because I am frivolous.It is because the smell of hay and horse reminds me that not everything I love has turned to ash.”
The rawness in her voice cut neatly through his anger.
He looked at her properly then, past the sparks and the sharp tongue, and saw the fatigue at the corners of her eyes, the way her shoulders sat too straight, as if she was holding herself upright by force. He heard, too, the thing beneath the words. A woman who worried not for portraits and paneling, but for servants and neighbors and the ordinary people whose lives had been wrapped up in those walls. His throat tightened.
She cares for those people the way I learned to care for the sailors under my command. To see them as family.
“Isla,” he said quietly, the ledger feeling suddenly vulgar in his hand. “I spoke unjustly. My remark …”
“…was cruel,” she said. “And beneath you.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It was.”
She blinked, taken aback by the swiftness of his agreement. The air between them shifted, fractionally.
He drew a breath. “What were you discussing with Godwin? Truly.”
She hesitated. He saw the moment where she could have retreated into pride, refused to answer. Instead she exhaled. A mare nudged her shoulder and she smiled, absently rubbing its nose.
