Swallowing, she turned and trudged her way down to the drawing room on the ground floor, and nearly walked into a tall gentleman on his way to the same destination. Dark coat smelling of orange peel, severe tailoring, shoulders that made the ordinarily wide corridor seem abruptly narrow—
Her heart gave a violent leap.
The Duke of Winchester stared down at her impassively, and for the longest moment, she wondered if she had hallucinated theentire series of events where she had gone to his home and he had proposed her marriage.
“Miss Fairbourne,” he said with a stiff bow.
Isadora’s jaw dropped. No, surely she could not have imagined it—this was not a social call she could otherwise have expected.
“Your Grace! W-why are you here—”
He gave her an irritated glance, but her aunt had now reached them and gave a somewhat similar gasp.
“Your Grace!” Aunt Judith slipped neatly between Isadora and the duke. “Do come in! You must forgive us for receiving you in the passage.”
She ushered Nicholas into the drawing room before he had quite finished bowing.
The room suffered badly beside the memory of his library, and Isadora flushed in mortification. Her embroidery frame leaned drunkenly in one corner, still displaying three miserable leaves and half a blue bird, while Aunt Judith’s novel lay face-down upon the sofa with its spine cracked open.
“Oh, do sit,” Aunt Judith continued, clearing the book and waving the butler off in the direction of the study. “Thomas, fetch Mr. Chester at once. And send for tea.No—the silver service. Mind you, tell Cook.”
Evidently, this was to be a whole family affair. Isadora felt a little sick.
“That will not be necessary,” the duke said.
“Nonsense! A duke does not cross our threshold every afternoon. You honor our family.”
The duke’s gaze flicked to Isadora, a question in his blue eyes she had no clear idea how to decipher, much less answer. So, in return, she gave him a pleading glance.
His lips thinned, and he gave an almost imperceptible sigh. “Thank you, Mrs. Chester,” he said with that iron self-control Isadora had witnessed before. “But it is no great honor, I assure you.”
“Oh, but it is.” Aunt Judith caught the look and smiled broadly. “You have come to see our Isadora, I presume?”
Our Isadora?Isadora wanted to laugh.
Uncle Vernon entered, puffing and red-faced. He had always been a portly man, but age had done him no favors, and his waistcoat strained at the seams. “Your Grace,” he said jovially. “What can bring you to our humble home? Have you sent for some refreshments, Judith?”
“As I told your good wife, that won’t be necessary.” Although the duke did not speak with undue haste, there was definitivecommand in his words. “I thought perhaps we might take a stroll in Rowntree Park.Ifyou are amenable, Miss Fairbourne?”
“Yes!” Isadora said, a little too quickly. Yes, she wasamenable. Agreeable, affable, all the nice words, anything to get her out of this drawing room with her aunt and uncle practically salivating over the duke. “That sounds lovely, Your Grace.”
“Excellent.” He gave a bland, polite smile to her aunt and uncle, waiting for their inevitable agreement. One did not often deny a duke, it seemed, and her aunt and uncle were never ones to buck a trend.
“…Why, yes, of course,” Aunt Judith said with a saccharine smile.
Aunt Judith had her best bonnet tied beneath her chin before Isadora had even found her gloves, and Uncle Vernon appeared soon after, smelling of port and struggling into his coat. So much for a private stroll.
They set off four abreast, her aunt filling the road with cheerful nonsense while Isadora stole glances at the duke beside her.
He had come all the way to York for her.
Each time she remembered that silly notion, happiness fluttered warmly beneath her ribs. She hardly felt the road beneath her slippers. Even the trees seemed greener than they had threedays ago, when she had trudged home believing she might never escape the Chesters at all.
At the park gates, the duke offered her his arm and guided her toward the wider path. Aunt Judith hurried to keep pace, but after a quelling look from the duke, she fell back.
The moment Aunt Judith’s voice faded into the chatter of the promenade, Isadora loosened the breath she had been holding.
“Thank you,” she said, almost at once. The words had been pressing at her lips since they left the house. “For not revealing the reason for your visit. I did not tell them about my calling on you.”
