“My cousin,” he replied. “The Duke of Ashbourne.”
Isadora went still. “Is he?—”
“Dead.” He said it evenly. Too evenly, the way people said things they had just heard and had not yet quite processed. “Carriage accident. Some days ago.”
“James,” she breathed. “I am so sorry.”
He shook his head, a slight, almost reflexive motion. Not dismissing the condolence, but not knowing what to do with it either. He was looking at the garden. His hands, she noticed, had closed around the stone balustrade.
“There is more,” he added.
She waited.
“He was unmarried, but he left behind a child.”
She blinked. “A child?”
“A daughter.” He paused. “One year old.”
Her heart sank for the little child.
“Her mother?” she asked carefully.
“Also gone,” he replied quietly. “They were together in the carriage.”
“Who is caring for her now?” she asked.
James turned away from the garden. He looked at her with the stillness of a man who already knew what came next and hated it.
“As the closest male heir,” he said, “I have inherited the duchy.”
It made sense, but the shock still ran through her.
Of course, yes. If there are no direct heirs, the duchy would go to the closest male heir.
Then she realized the other thing he had not yet said. It had been making itself known since the moment he started speaking, waiting in the gap between the words like a held breath.
His eyes had not left her face.
“And guardianship of the child,” he added.
* * *
“I think,” Letitia announced, appearing in the doorway of the breakfast room with her hair only half-pinned and an expression of profound conviction, “that Lord Bellamy was looking at me last night.”
Isadora looked up from her book. “You were at Blackmoor last night.”
“Sorry, I meant last week.” Letitia crossed to the sideboard and began piling food on her plate with focused energy. “I meant at the Duchess of Fernleigh’s ball. Before we left. He looked at me twice from across the room, and the second time was definitely deliberate.”
“How do you remember such a detail from so long ago? Also, Lord Bellamy is fifty-three years old.”
“Not that Lord Bellamy.” Letitia dropped into the chair across from her with a decisive clink of silverware. “His son. The younger one. Thomas.”
“I do not know Thomas Bellamy.”
“Nobody knows Thomas Bellamy, which is precisely what makes him interesting.” She pointed her fork with conviction. “The ones everyone knows are dreadful. It’s the quiet ones you have to watch.”
Isadora looked at her sister for a moment—bright and sharp, still flushed from sleep, utterly certain that the world was arranged for her attention—and felt something warm and slightly tired curl in her chest.
