No doubt that was why his ego had taken such a beating at Isadora having gone over his head to marry another man of greater social standing.Hehad essentially rejected her, and she had secured a better match. No one who compared the two could doubt it. She had humiliated him, and once he had ascertained that she would not betray her new husband, he sought to weaken their bond instead.
Well, Isadora had no intention of permitting it.
She threaded her hand through Nicholas’s arm and nestled close into his steely warmth. “There you are,” she said, beaming up at him.
“Ah, the lady reunited with her lover.” Mr. Windham’s smirk returned in full force. “I confess, Your Grace, I have often wondered how she persuaded you to marry her. You never courted—indeed, you scarcely appeared to exist until you arrived without warning to announce your intentions. Such…circumstancesdo invite speculation.” He regarded them both with an expression that mimicked civility while concealing something poisonous beneath it.
Nicholas’s arm tensed, and she gripped his bicep. “Say that again,” he growled, his voice low and thunderous.
“Nicholas,” she whispered. “No, please.”
“No, no.” His chest rose and fell with one deep breath, and she saw the cracks in his armor, the anger peeking through. “I beg Mr. Windham to repeat his insinuation so I may call him out for it.”
Mr. Windham brushed an invisible speck from his coat sleeve. “You may try, Your Grace, but I have no intention of meeting you. It would take more than a disappointed husband’s ire to entice me into arriving before dawn, that’s for certain. And I would never dream of doing such a thing over Her Grace.” He smirked at Isadora. “
“You mistake me for a man who would wait until dawn.” Underneath Isadora’s arm, Nicholas felt as though he was straining at an invisible leash—as though any second, he might break through entirely and launch himself at Mr. Windham.
She turned into him, placing her other hand on his chest. She knew the truth of how they married, and so did he, and few people would credit Mr. Windham’s record of events when he was so obviously the injured party.
“Nicholas,” she murmured, looking up into his face. “Please. Not here, and not like this.”
His hand came to rest on hers, and he looked down at her, inhaling as though he was taking in her scent for the first time. His body relaxed, slowly. When she thought she might have a chance of taking him away, she tugged at his arm.
Elizabeth—Eliza, Nicholas’s sister—chose that moment to descend on them, her arms outstretched. “Sophia,” she chimed with a radiant smile, giving no heed she had so much as noticed Mr. Windham standing there. “I have not seen you in years, it feels like! Have you grown in that time?”
Sophia giggled, also ignoring Mr. Windham, and accepted her aunt’s embrace.
This was the moment for Isadora to take Nicholas away and calm him down before he did anything rash he might regret.
Protecting her was one thing, but calling another gentleman out on her behalf, and on her honor, suggested there might be truth to the claims, and she could not allow Mr. Windham to win.
She guided him behind the shelter of a wooden stall. The instant they were concealed, Nicholas caught her by the hip and drew her against him. He lowered his forehead to hers, his breath coming faster than it ought.
“Something about that odious bounder makes me want to do him harm,” he muttered, his voice dark and dangerous. Perhaps the revelation should have shaken Isadora, but instead, she felt an inappropriate flutter of pleasure.
“You can’t,” she said.
“I am aware of that.” His other hand came to rest at the back of her neck, possessive enough to make the flutter considerably worse. “The way he looks at you makes me so mad I can scarcely breathe.”
“That is precisely what he wants. A reaction.”
“He wants you too, Isadora. I can see it.” Nicholas’s mouth hardened. “Perhaps only because you were denied to him, and his vanity has never recovered. But he wants you. When he stands there speaking as though he has some claim upon you, what am I supposed to do? Smile politely?”
“No one has ever accused you of smiling politely,” she giggled, reaching up to rest her hand on his cheek. His jaw worked under her fingers, and she marveled at the feel of the muscles. “But if you pay credence to his rumors, don’t you see that you’re giving them fuel?”
“I know that,” he said with obvious reluctance.
“And by speaking to me, he isn’tlaying claimto me,” she noted, wrapping her other arm around his shoulder, holding him to her as he held her to him. “You have laid claim to me in every way that matters. Think of him as a hound, snapping at your heels. All he wishes is to find a way to get between us, but we shan’t let him. That’s the end of the matter.”
The fingers at her nape squeezed, and he tilted her head back, bringing his mouth to hers with savage intensity. If he recalled they were still in public, he showed no signs of it. And Isadora could not bring herself to mind. Eliza had Sophia, and they were out together, and Mr. Windham had not succeeded in separating them.
Nicholas wanted her. He defended her. Even if he didn’t love her, this was more than enough.
Pressed against his body as she was, she felt the way he hardened as the kiss deepened. His tongue plundered her mouth, and she made way for him, offering him everything. In this, she was reminding him once again that she was his; he was the only man to have ever claimed her.
There was no Mr. Windham, no plots to fracture their marriage, nothing but them and this moment.
He broke away and rested his forehead against hers. “The things I want to do to you,” he said, his voice a growl.
