Which made the threatening letter he’d received even more disturbing. If Grace had been an eager lover, and if their marriage had been less fraught, then perhaps he might have dismissed it out of hand. But if she didn’t want him because she loved another—
The thought no longer stung the way it once might… but the nagging prospect it had started to usher in over the past weeks, the very notion that Sophia might not be his by blood, persisted, a thorn in his mind that he couldn’t pull himself free from, no matter how hard he tried.
Isadora stirred on his lap, raising her head to look at him with soft, limpid eyes. She reached up a hand to brush across his cheek, and he caught her wrist before she could. He didn’t deserve her affection.
“I think,” he said as gently as he could, “I ought to leave.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was as though that afternoon had been a figment of Isadora’s imagination.
After embracing her so tenderly, after showing her a little of the pleasure he’d denied her, Nicholas retreated back into avoiding her so thoroughly she might have believed she and Sophia lived alone.
She tutored the girl at the pianoforte, and encouraged the young girl to embrace her childhood, dashing around the house and hiding so Isadora could search for her. They raided the kitchens under Cook’s indulgent eye, and walked by the lake where Sophia fed the ducks and spoke dearly of her few memories of her mother. Isadora asked no questions about Nicholas.
To her relief, Sophia noticed nothing amiss, chattering about her dreams for their little family. Trips to the sea together, exploring all the places in her enormous Atlas. London, when she was older.
“Or now?” she asked hopefully.
“Not now.” Isadora flicked the tip of her nose. “But thereissomething in York.” Her mind raced past every invitation she couldn’t bring a child to. “A picnic.”
Sophia’s eyes widened. “I could go to a picnic?”
“I don’t see why not. So long as you’re good.” Isadora lay back. It would do her good to get out, too; the house only reminded her of all the ways Nicholas didn’t want to be near her. That had never been the terms of their agreement, yet the sadness came anyway. Had she never tasted what thingscouldbe like, she might have borne it better.
But he had shown her, and that struck her as cruel.
Unfortunately, she was not to avoid him as much as she’d hoped. Hearing the plan, Sophia had gone straight to persuade her Papa, and as Isadora drew on her lace gloves, Nicholas came down the stairs in a pale blue coat and Hessians polished to a shine.
“Papa!” Sophia cried, running to take his hand in a way Isadora fancied she would not have done a few weeks prior. “There you are.”
He watched Isadora with as much caution as she felt. “Here I am,” he said—to Sophia, not her. “Is everything ready?”
“The servants have it prepared,” Isadora said, willing her heart to calm. “I hadn’t known you meant to join us.”
“Sophia informed me I would ‘regret it greatly if I missed the chance of picnicking on a perfect June day.’“ He glanced at the cloudless sky as though to prove the point. “Do you object?”
Under Sophia’s eager gaze, she forced a smile. “Of course not. We’d be delighted.”
“See, Papa?” Sophia hung off his arm. “I told you.”
His gaze flicked to Isadora, then away, but he offered his arm to the carriage and, with Sophia’s help, made idle talk on the road to Dean’s Park behind the Minster. The tension gradually left her. This would not be so bad; he seemed set on being his most charming self today.
Then his knee brushed hers as the carriage rocked, and she remembered painfully the last time they’d been so close—how it had felt to have those thick, muscled thighs beneath her.
Her breath hitched, and he glanced over, blue fire in his eyes.
So he remembers, too.
At least she wasn’t alone in it.
She shifted back, but another sway pressed her against him again. He steadied her with a hand on her arm.
“Here. Let me help you.”
Such simple words ought not to have weakened her knees so.
“I’m all right,” she managed, sitting upright. His fingers lingered a fraction too long before dropping.
