Charlotte’s gaze flicked to Isla with undisguised loathing. “She wants to destroy your legacy. To steal what is yours.”
“That diary,” the Dowager Duchess snapped, “belongs to the Ravenscroft line.”
Charlotte seized on that. “Then perhaps it should be destroyed before she twists its contents against you!”
Isla opened her mouth in outrage, but Edward silenced her with a touch to her wrist.
“Charlotte,” he said, “put the book down.”
She stepped closer to the fireplace, brandishing it higher.
“Make me.”
She tilted her wrist, hovering the diary above the hungry flames. The look she gave him then was triumphant. Edward exhaled once. Slowly.
“Burn it,” he said.
Both Charlotte and his mother froze.
“E-Edward,” the Dowager Duchess whispered. “You cannot—”
“I said burn it,” he repeated. “If destroying my father’s words is how you believe you will control me, then you may as well strike the match.”
Charlotte faltered. He felt Isla move beside him. Quietly. Purposefully. She crossed the room. Picked up the old bucket sitting beneath a leak. And dumped the entire contents of cold, stale water over the fireplace.
The fact that Lady Charlotte stood before the fireplace meant that she received as much of a soaking as the flames. The shriek Charlotte released could have curdled milk. She stood dripping, soaked from head to toe, hair plastered to her temples, gown sagging, every inch a drowned cat in silk.
“There will be no burning without a fire,” Isla said, calmly.
Edward’s lips twitched despite the tension.
Charlotte sputtered. “You … barbaric … uncivilized …”
“Give me the diary,” Isla said.
Charlotte clutched it tighter.
Isla simply reached out with one swift, decisive motion and plucked it neatly from her fingers. Charlotte gasped. Edward took the diary from Isla with hands he tried to keep from trembling. Isla looked up at him then, a small, private smile warming her face before she turned away. The Dowager Duchess could only stare between her soaked favorite and her unmovable son, realizing too late that her schemes had dissolved along with the fire.
***
Night fell before Edward opened the diary. He sat on the edge of the bed in his chamber, the room he and Isla now shared without hesitation and turned the brittle first page. His father’s handwriting leapt out at him instantly.
—Received dispatch from Admiralty. Edward promoted to lieutenant. Should have been sooner. Boy outshines half the men they keep aboard …
He blinked. He read the next.
—News from Argus. Edward engaged a privateer with remarkable courage. Men speak highly of him. He will be a fine commander …
And another.
—Wish he would write more. But I see him in the Admiralty reports. A steadiness of judgement. A touch of recklessness, very like his mother there …
Edward’s eyes blurred.
His father … proud? His father … admired the very qualities Edward had believed he despised? Page after page dismantled the narrative Edward had built around the man. The fear. The shame. The belief that he had run from duty, disappointing the duke beyond repair. His father had followed his career. Had boasted of him to correspondents. Had spoken of him with warmth Edward had never heard in life. A hand touched his shoulder.
Isla. She had not said a word since he began reading. She simply sat beside him, waiting, steady as a harbor light. He closed the diary slowly and looked at her.
