She stood on the deck of the boat, leaning over the side, her long hair blowing in the breeze. She looked as beautiful as the day she had first arrived. Rose sat patiently at her feet, enjoying the ocean air.
“Isabelle!”
She didn’t react. There wasn’t a single look in his direction, not a hint that she heard him shouting for her. He ran faster, nearly tripping as he dodged a woman with her two young children.
“Isabelle!”
As she reached down to pet Rose, Felix panicked and ran even faster. The sailors were already pulling up the gangplank.
Too late.
I was too late.
Twenty-Six
Isabelle stared out at the water as she scratched Rose’s head. Her heart was a lead weight in her chest as she waved the gentle rocking of the waves against the dock.
Soon, she would be home with her family where she belonged. She would leave the duchy and Windham behind. It hurt more than she ever thought it would.
Leaving was supposed to be the easy part. Easier than leaving Lord Milton the ring he had sent to her that morning, and the note she returned with the delivery boy, telling Lord Milton that she couldn’t marry him.
Returning home would be harder. There was a sense of failure that surrounded her. She knew that her mother and father would be disappointed, but she hoped she could persuade her father to hold up his end of the deal.
Windham and his family deserved to be paid for all their efforts in finding her a husband, even if they had been fruitless. She would get back home and she would plead their case for them.
It was the only thing left she could do.
Isabelle sighed and leaned against the railing, looking up at the fat white clouds drifting over the duchy as it grew smaller and smaller.
There was no turning back now. She had made her decision—though she was starting to feel as if it was the wrong one—there was nothing she could do about it.
Perhaps this was what she needed to let Windham go.
A clean break. Doctors always said that those healed the best.
“Why is my angry old goose taking flight?”
Isabelle spun around, half certain that she was hallucinating.
And yet, there was Windham standing in front of her, his hair windswept, his cheeks rosy, and his chest heaving.
Tears sprung to her eyes. “This isn’t real. You’re at home. I left.”
Windham swallowed hard, stepping closer to her. “I’m here, and this is real.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Did you think I was going to let you leave?” he asked, his voice gruff as he reached up to her hair, pulling loose the pins that kept it pinned back.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t look like you.” He tucked the pins into his pocket as her hair tumbled loose around her. “When I tell you that I’m desperately in love with you and can’t bear to lose you, I want you to look like yourself.”
Her breath caught in her throat as she looked up at him. “You love me?”
“I’ve loved you since that night in the cottage. I knew from that moment on that I wasn’t going to be able to live my life without you and I should’ve told you that before you ever thought about falling for Lord Milton.”
Isabelle’s cheeks hurt from the slow smile that spread across her face. “I didn’t love him. Not the way that I love you.”
