Isolde studied him, puzzled, sympathetic, searching, her dark brows drawn together.
“I often wonder if the way other people see us is more charitable than the way we see ourselves. It's not a weakness to care. It's a vulnerability, perhaps, not a weakness. You needn't allow it to be, anyway.”
She said this gently. But it was also such a stubborn, definitive, astute assertion that it jarred him. In part because he was unaccustomed to being countermanded by a woman. He both did and did not like it.
She’d said it as though she saw in him qualities that made him worthy of being gazed upon by her lovely eyes. Qualities he had perhaps dismissed as of no worth.
It made him want to be the person she thought he was.
Perhaps he alreadywasthat person?
What if he was only this person with her? A strange panic clawed at him.
His throat felt tight. “Youare a good person,” he said quietly and firmly. As if correcting a fine point.
Her cheeks pinkened. “You ought to know. You were the top boy at university, after all.”
This time his laugh was pained. As if his spirit had to stretch to contain the sheer magnitude of all he felt about her.
“I have worries, too, Mr. Redmond, and some are frivolous and admittedly selfish. I am not at all perfect and I do not always feel like a good person, either.”
“If I could, I would take all your worries away.”
He’d said it without thinking, and too fervently.
Which shocked both of them.
Because that little catch in her throat was the sound of him taking her breath away.
Her eyes had gone stunned and starry. Her hand flew to her heart.
She looked to him like precious softness itself and it seemed absurd not to gather her into his body to protect her, to be as close to her as possible. Suddenly, at the mercy of his reflexes, he was moving toward her to do exactly that, and she was moving to meet him.
“Isaiah!”
He froze, jolted.
Then spun about.
His sister stood in the doorway of the town hall, beckoning him with swoops of her hand.
What thedevil? Isaiah shaded his eyes. The curricle the Redmonds used for short drives in good weather waited outside the town hall, a pair of matched grays in harness.
Why on earth had Diana driven into town when the picnic was due to begin in less than an hour?
“Isaiah, will you come and help me adjust the bunting?” she called.
He closed his eyes and swore softly. “If you’ll forgive me, Miss Sylvaine.”
He pivoted, and went.
Damnedif Isaiah could see anything wrong with the bunting, but he gamely climbed the ladder beneath the swag at which his sister pointed. They were alone in the town hall. It was redolent of newness: paint and plaster and fresh-cut wood. The building ought to last for generations.
“Why on earth are you here, Diana? Shouldn’t you be home preparing for the picnic?”
“Isaiah...what are you doing?”
“I thought I was meant to adjust the bunting,” he said dryly.
