She smiled at the dowager. “Thank you, Your Grace. If you could be so kind as to see my assistant settled somewhere that will not disrupt the household?”
“Do not give it another thought,” she said. “I’ve put the two of you in a suite of rooms on the third floor, dear. I’ll send up tea. It is our great hope that you will stay with us a day or so, if you believe there’s any good for it.”
“Thank you,” was all Isobel could say.
“Lovely,” said the dowager. “And the ball tonight—ofcourse you must attend. Reggie and his parents have traveled from Lincolnshire, and they’ll wish to thank you. I know we must keep the nasty business of the smuggling and the pirates a secret, but a handful of family members are aware of what happened and how very brave you were.”
“Ah,” began Isobel.
“Think on it,” she urged, reaching for the knob of a giant door.
“Yes, Your Grace,” said Isobel, staring at the door as if it opened to the edge of a sharp cliff.
“Very well, I will leave you to it,” said the duchess.
She turned the knob and pushed the heavy door open. “Northumberland?” she called.
Silence.
“You’ve a visitor...”
The dowager rolled her eyes and gave her head a shake. “He’s in there,” she whispered, backing away. “Good luck.”
Isobel nodded her thanks and leaned to peer inside the dim interior of the library. For a long moment, she hovered. She listened. She sniffed.
The feeling ofalmostseeing him, of knowing he was just beyond the open door, was burning her up from the outside in. Her skin tingled, her chest felt molten. She wiggled her fingers, trying to release nervous energy.
Oh for God’s sake, she thought, pushing the door open. She was anxious, but she was not a coward. She’d come all this way for a reason.
To her great shock, the scene inside the Syon Hall library was almost exactly as the baron’s daughters had described.
The duke, dressed only in a linen shirt, buckskins and boots, lay facedown on a vibrant Persian rug. Theopulent library was in shambles. A giant desk was awash with papers, open books were scattered on the floor, a globe had been turned on its side. Furniture was strewn with discarded coats and unfurled cravats. Hats had been lined up in a row, brim-up. Balls of wadded-up paper surrounded them as if they’d been thrown. Some wads filled the upturned hats, but most had missed their mark.
While Isobel took it all in, a gust of wind from an open window swept through, launching papers into the air, blowing cravats. A cat leapt inside the window from the garden and picked his way over the inert duke to the desk. Leaping, he made himself at home on the blotter and began grooming, one white paw pointed to the ceiling.
Isobel looked again to the prone duke. Her first instinct was to go to him, to crouch and gently prod and ascertain, but something held her back.
Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Get up,” she said, her voice brisk.
She watched the familiar lines of his broad shoulders for any sign of life.
Nothing.
“Northumberland,” she said sharply.
Unless she was mistaken, she discerned the tiniest twitch, a tensing about the bicep.
Her heart skipped like a stone on the surface of a pond. She said it again. “Northumberland.Get up.”
He turned his head, keeping his face averted. He had not shaved. His hair was long. He pressed his cheek to the rug.
“You,” he said. His voice was level—not loud, not soft, not hoarse. He did not sound ill. He did not sound mad.
“Yes,” she continued carefully, leaning a hip against the desk. “It is me. Get up. This library is a disgrace. Your family is beside themselves with worry. Gossip is rampant in London about what has become of you. Get up and tell mewhat has happened.”
She waited, holding her breath. Finally, the duke rolled his body from back to front.
