“Hedoes.”
“If he truly does he would not sit idly by while I become engaged to another man.”
“Perhaps he needs a bit of pushing.”
“Into the nearest duck pond.”
Victoria burst out laughing as Isabelle dropped her hands and blushed at her own outburst. She was unsure how to entice the duke into admitting and declaring his love for her. He was a gentleman. If he could not admit his feelings for her and to her, then there was little she could do to force him.
Perhaps it is for the best if I call off my engagement to Lord Milton and return to America.
She would never be what Lord Milton wanted, and he would never be who she needed.
Not as long as Windham was still nestled firmly in her heart.
Twenty-Five
Felix stared at the greenhouse, wishing that Miss Alden was there and working on her paintings. It would be the only time he would be allowed to admire her before she got married. It would be from afar. She would be none the wiser and he would do everything he could to put her from his mind.
But she wasn’t there that morning.
He had grown so used to seeing her and the dog working together in the early morning that he hadn’t thought there would be a day that he didn’t.
If he were honest with himself, he could admit that he never thought there would be a day when she left him.
Perhaps it had been a foolish hope. One that was born out of Felix finally finding someone who saw him as he was, and not just as the duke of a duchy.
It did not matter anymore. Isabelle would be married to that odious man and she would leave.
Even publishing Lord Milton’s crimes to the scandal papers may not be enough to show Miss Alden that she couldn’t trust Lord Milton, but Felix had to try. If she heard others speaking about the scandal, she might realize how truly terrible her life would be with a man like that.
The loud knock on the door drew Felix from his study. He stood and rounded his desk, striding across the room and hauling open the door, only to be met with Lord Milton.
Felix sighed. “Why are you here?”
If it was to gloat, then Felix had no interest in hearing it. He would rather spend the rest of the day looking over the books for his duchy and trying to find a way to convince Isabelle that she didn’t need to go through with the wedding.
Lord Milton scowled and stormed into the room. “You’ve ruined my life!”
“I’ve done nothing to you, Lord Milton. Nothing that you didn’t deserve.”
“If you had truly done nothing to me, you would’ve kept my gambling to yourself! You wouldn’t have sabotaged my marriage to Miss Alden, yet it seems that you’ve done everything you possibly could to ensure that we wouldn’t be married!”
Felix’s brows pulled together, and a thin thread of hope formed in his chest. “She left you?”
“She left her ring with a note. She couldn’t even tell it to me herself.” Lord Milton scoffed and stepped closer to Felix. “You’re behind this and I know you are.”
“She just came to her sense,” Felix said, smug and already leaving the room in search of her.
“You are nothing but a ruthless cad doing everything you can to ensure the money comes to you.”
“Ruthlessness would have been marrying a good woman like Isabelle to pay off your gambling debt.” Felix spat the words at him as if they were daggers plunging deep into Lord Milton’s loathsome body. “You would do well to make yourself scarce around London. The truth about you will be known once the morning scandal paper has been distributed.”
Lord Milton wasn’t worth his time. One of the servants would see him out.
In the meantime, Felix was going to find Isabelle.
He stormed up the stairs and to her room. His heart hammered in his chest as he rushed down the hall to her room and knocked on the door.
