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“No—”

Elijah smiled at him, but his eyes were shadowed. “You have to be there for her, Leo. I need to think you will.”

“You want me to continue to woo her so that…”

Sometimes even an English gentleman feels sorrow catch him like a wicked pain in the back of the throat. At times like that, he might walk to the window and look out at a garden in the first stages of spring.

Until he was sure he wouldn’t be unmanly.

But then, being English, he would eventually turn around and find his oldest friend sitting in the same place, waiting. And he would pull over a chess table and start laying out the pieces.

Chapter Thirty-two

The Dower House

March 3, 1784

As the dowager’s carriage drove away, Isidore walked back to the Dower House with one thought in her mind. She was a fool. Simeon may not love her, but he was the man she had. And she could not allow him to be in this fetid, empty house by himself. He could learn to love her. She thought of the way he whirled and struck, and knew the feeling in her heart for what it was. She was halfway to being hopelessly in love with him, for all the same reasons that drove his mother to despise him: for his strength, for his uniqueness, for the Simeon-ness of him.

Simeon rose from the desk when she entered. “You entered Revels House without my permission,” he stated, by way of greeting. “I asked you to wait for me because I knew those men posed a danger.”

“I thought you were accompanying me in order to add your voice to my entreaty.”

“And you thought that my participation would be a disadvantage,” he said. His jaw was set, his shoulders rigid.

“Yes.”

“I commanded you.”

“I don’t recognize commands,” she stated, making sure that he knew exactly what she was saying.

“I didn’t want to frighten you by mentioning the Dead Watch.”

“I don’t frighten easily.” But she didn’t feel like squabbling, so she said, “Simeon, I just want to say that you were magnificent!”

“That is very kind of you.”

“I think your mother was flustered by the shock, the horror of all that had happened,” Isidore said, galloping on without any encouragement from his expression.

“She was horrified by my exhibition of foreign skills,” he said. But his voice was dry, and not wounded.

“I thought the way you whirled and struck was amazing.”

He met her eyes, and she could read them, if no one else could. “She’ll never like me.”

“That is her weakness and her loss,” Isidore said firmly. “As Honeydew may have informed you, she left to stay with her sister. I think she will be much happier for a visit.”

“Honeydew does not believe she is ever coming back. She asked for all her things, including the furniture in her bedchamber.”

“Then we will be happy to send it along,” Isidore said. “That will save it a trip to London, though it may fall apart on the journey, of course.”

“If you entered my aunt’s house, you might think you’d stepped back two hundred years.”

“In that case your mother’s furniture will feel right at home.” Isidore drifted closer. Yes, she deserved love and courtship. But sometimes a woman had to take what she could get, especially if it came in a muscled, beautiful, and entirely desirable package.

“Doubtless.”

Isidore took a deep breath, remembering Jemma’s various lessons regarding men. Then she reached down and pulled off one of her slippers. Simeon watched as she dropped it on the floor. She pulled off another and placed it precisely next to the first.