“I am mistress here,” Isla said, swallowing the Scots. “You are a guest who has overstayed her welcome.”
“A guest?” Charlotte’s brows climbed. “My dear, I am here at Edward’s request.”
The floor seemed to tilt. Isla swallowed. “At his request?”
“He asked me to visit,” Charlotte said calmly. “To offer my support. To help him consider … options. Concerning his future.” She let the phrase hang between them.
Isla’s stomach turned.
“His future,” she repeated.
“Did you imagine,” Charlotte went on softly, “that a hasty ceremony in a chapel could erase all the years that came before? You are naive, Lady Isla. Men like Edward require more than a romantic impulse. They require stability. Advice. Familiarity.”
“And you provide all three,” Isla said.
“Naturally.” Charlotte smiled, thin and satisfied. “I know his habits. His tempers. His tastes.”
The implication in that last word made Isla’s skin prickle.
She lifted her chin.
I will not show hurt. This milk sop cannae hurt me! She wouldnae last a minute in the highlands!
“If he wished to discuss his future,” she said, “he might have done so with his wife. Instead he sends for you. That speaks of cowardice. Not affection.”
Charlotte shrugged. “Believe what makes you sleep at night.”
She moved past Isla, skirts whispering. The scent of her perfume something floral and cloying, drifted in her wake.
Isla stood for a moment, staring at the closed door. It had been left ajar when Charlotte emerged. Now it was shut once more, the lock gleaming innocently. Her hand lifted of its own accord. She set her palm flat against the wood.
“Is that true?” she whispered. “Did you send for her? Or did she send for herself?”
The door, stubborn, said nothing. Fury came to her defense first. How dare Charlotte walk Wexford’s corridors like a queen? How dare she imply that Isla’s marriage was a temporary inconvenience, a political bandage to be peeled away when the wound healed? How dare she make light of Strathmore’s humiliation, of Isla’s fear?
Under the fury, hurt. She had begun to believe, cautiously, foolishly, that the warmth between herself and Edward meant something. That the kitchen in London, the moonlit parlor, thehayloft, the laughter in the stables were not accidents but steps toward trust. Charlotte’s smugness lodged like a stone in that hopeful path.
Did Edward send for her? Has he been playing me? Confiding in that chit about matters he cannot share with his ain wife?
Isla could imagine it too easily. Edward, weighed down by responsibilities and ghosts, turning to the woman who had known him since boyhood, rather than to the inconvenient Scot he had married out of necessity.
You are a fool, Isla Drummond.
She turned on her heel and walked away from the locked door, spine held as straight as any sword. She passed a footman, who bowed.
“Your Grace,” he murmured.
The title scraped. In her rooms, she closed the door more gently than she wanted to. Edith looked up from the trunk she was airing.
“Is something wrong, m’lady?” the maid asked.
“Nothing,” Isla said. The lie tasted bitter. “Everything. I do not know.”
She crossed to the window and looked out. The view took in the south lawn, the distant shimmer of the training field where some of the younger horses were being put through their paces. No sign of Edward. No sign of Charlotte either.
“He is free to invite whom he wishes,” she said aloud, to the glass. “This is his house.”
“Your house too,” Edith ventured.
