Isobel tensed. Her amber eyes locked onto his as her lips parted like she was about to offer herself to spare her sister. She took a step forward, her eyes misting. Lips pressed together in a tight line and she stood taller with her gaze locked on his. It was as if she was daring him to do anything other than choose her.
Little did she realize it was her that he wanted. His feral little darling.
“That one.” Andrew nodded to Isobel. “I’ll speak with her in the study.”
Six
“Foolish man!” Isobel snagged a cushion off the couch in Father’s study the moment the door was closed behind her and the Duke of Foxdrey. She whipped it at his head with all the force she could muster, disappointed when he batted it out of the air.
“Feral, just the way I like you,” he said, his tone smooth and teasing as he went over to the window, looking out over the garden.
Isobel reached for another pillow but he crossed the room before she could throw it at him, ripping it out of her hands and tossing it to the side. She glowered up at him, not caring about the fact that he was so close they were nearly touching. Nothing about the way his body heat radiated toward her made her feel like she was coming to life.
“You are nothing but a rake and this proves it! What did you do? Find out who Father was—how willing he is to barter me off—and then come here and think you were going to make a filthy deal?”
She stormed away from him, looking for something else to throw, hoping that getting some of her anger out would make her feel even a little bit better.
“And another thing.” She turned to face him, storming back over and jabbing her finger into his chest. “I will not be chatting with a man who runs a gambling house!”
“Chatting? Sounds like your father wanted to sell you to me for other purposes,” the Duke said with that charming smile of his as if it would take the bite out of the words.
“That’s not going to happen.” She shook her head, hands balling into fists, nails biting into skin. “If you think I would let you touch me, then you must have hit your head hard on the way over here!”
“Do you think another man would be willing to tolerate this anger you have?” The Duke leaned back against a cabinet, crossing his arms over his broad chest. He looked entirely unbothered by the situation at hand and that only ate at her more.
“You are an insufferable man and the source of my anger! Another man wouldn’t have to endure it because they wouldn’t be as entirely intolerable as you. Why, I bet you’ve been planning this from the moment we met!”
“You mean the moment when you tried to steal my dog?” The Duke chuckled as she snagged the pillow from the floor and threw it at him again. “This is a tumultuous start to our marriage, darling.”
“Call me darling one more time…” She sighed, running out of anger and sinking down into the plush chair behind the desk, looking at the papers scattered across the top.
She had snuck into the study on more than one occasion to look through the figures and see how horribly her father had hurt them but the pages that were tossed aside so carelessly all looked new to her now.
“Why do you insist on tormenting me?” She shoved one of her loose curls behind her ear.
“You wanted to leave theton, become a nun, and live close to your Lord and Savior, right?” He pushed off the cabinet and drew closer to her, eyeing her feet and taking a large step back. “What if that savior is me?”
Isobel snorted, shaking her head. And then the laughter took over. The thought of the Duke of Foxdrey being a savior to anyone was the best joke she had heard in a long time. He worked for the devil; she was sure of it. He was a rake and happily led people to their ruin. There was no salvation to be found in his arms.
The Duke gave an irritated sigh, rolling his eyes. “Are you done yet?”
“I could be, but that idea is absurd.” Isobel wiped a tear that escaped her while laughing. “Thank you. I needed that. I needed something to make me feel better after my life started to go up in flames.”
“Started?” The Duke hovered just outside of the range of her foot, eyeing her like he was certain she would kick him hard enough to rob him of the opportunity to father children.
And with the mood she was in, though she wouldn’t hurt him, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t give a few test swings just to intimidate him. If there was one thing she was tired of, it was allowing men to control her life, dictating who she was and what she would do.
Men created nothing but prisons.
“Would you let me finish?” The Duke asked, perching himself on the furthest edge of the desk before clasping his hands in his lap.
“No.” Isobel smirked, for once feeling like she might have a little bit of an advantage in her verbal sparring with him. She was too angry to be flustered by him. But she was… more than flustered. “Fine. Finish.”
“I love it when you speak like that to me.” He shifted to the side, dodging a crumpled up piece of paper she threw at him. “You want freedom, and this is a chance to have as much of that as a woman can get in this world. Within reason. I need to look like a good member of Society?—”
“Which is going to be difficult when you keep bedding any woman who looks at you the right way.”
The Duke shot her a dry look. “I simply bed the women who want to be bedded. It is they who come to me. Why should I deny them the right to feel something they can’t get from anyone else? There’s something lacking in their marriages and they have come to me to help.”
