But her face was stark white.
She froze when her gaze collided with his.
Her eyes were hunted. Questioning.
He wasn’t even aware that he’d been moving toward her through the crowd until he stood right before her. He could not seem to help himself.
She remained still as she waited for him to arrive.
He put his back between Isolde and the ballroom, so that she would at least be partially hidden.
“Is it true you’re going to propose to Miss Tarbell?” she said without preamble.
He nearly reared back. Bloody fucking hell.
Instantly he was breathing like a trapped animal. As tongue-tied as he’d ever been when he was a boy.
If his silence didn’t incriminate him, his expression surely did.
“Oh, God, youare,” Isolde breathed, recoiling, horrified. “Isaiah, are you—are youengaged? Have youbeenen?—”
“No! Dear God, no. I swear to you on my life that I am not!”
“But…” Her confusion was a torment to witness. “You loveme.”
Her hands flew to cover her mouth. Her eyes were stricken, as if she was appalled the words had escaped.
But she slowly lowered them when she saw his expression.
She understood she had the right of it.
He loved her.
Oh God. The stupid miracle of this love momentarily transfixed him. It was as though they’d gone and planted a flower on a battlefield. It didn’t have a prayer of surviving its circumstances.
“We love eachother.” She said more gently. Still urgently.
His voice shook when he said, “What of it?”
Her eyes flared in shock.
“What possible bearing does that have on our futures, Isolde? Mine was written for me long ago.”
The blood drained from her face.
Hurting her was torture.
“But Isaiah...you won't behappy.”
Of all the things to say. It sounded like both a furious accusation and a terrified realization. As if she could see his future, a wasteland without her and without feeling, and the notion destroyed her.
She stepped closer. Her words were low and swift and pleading. “Don't do this. Don't do this to yourself. Don't do it to Miss Tarbell. If you can tell me that you love her…but I don’t think you do.”
It was yet another thing of which to be ashamed: he didn’t deny it, because it was true.
His voice was quiet and tense, his delivery staccato. “I am not doing ittoanyone. It's my duty and my honor—myprivilege—to make the kind of marriage that brings pride and fortune and security to my entire family. I cannot stop what was already underway before I met you without bringing great shame to everyone.Thisis love, too, Isolde. My place in my family is not something within my control and—Oh God, I can never make you understand.”
Her chin jerked up and her eyes flashed with anger. “Perhaps my comparatively lowly birth has so thickened my wits such that I cannot possibly comprehend why you would consign yourself to a life with...a life without...”
