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Juliet was apparently in love with him. Isabella was seeming less content than usual. Duncan was happy but knew that happiness to exist on a razor’s edge. All that was to say that the honeymoon period that was this marriage looked as if it was set to end.

What might come next... Duncan was up late into the night worrying about just that.

Their relationship was nowhere near as stable as they pretended.

On the surface, everything seemed perfectly fine. Better than fine. To those who might see them, they would surely describe the couple as happy and in a good place, nothing to worry about, moving in the right direction in all the ways which mattered.

Isabella wanted to believe this. She tried her best to, because she was happy and did not want to go back to the way things were. But as the days wore on and the splendor continued, her sister’s warning echoed in her head.

Surely, I am being ridiculous? Why am I trying to force something to happen that I do not even want? Why can’t I just be happy!

Isabella’s fear was that one day soon, Duncan’s true self would return and this perceived sense of happiness that the two were existing in would cease to be. And that once it did, there would be no going back.

Such a foolish way to think because outside of these darkest thoughts, everything was as good as it had ever been.

“A ride today?” Duncan asked the morning after she had forced him to agree to attending the Stoneside garden party. “I thought we might spend the day out.”

Isabella very nearly said yes without pause. With no plans today, spending it with her husband as they explored the countryside was as much as she could have hoped for. Plus, out in the wilderness, alone, who knew what might happen...

“Hmm?” She bit into her lip instead. “Maybe...”

He laughed. “Did you have something else on?”

“No...” She frowned to herself, knowing that what came to mind was the wrong thing to think, but she unable to keep herself from saying it. “It is just that... well, a whole day together? What if I get bored?”

Duncan blinked. Frowned. Looked at her as if she wasn’t certain whether she was being serious or not. “Of me or the ride?”

“Both?” she shrugged casually. “Pick one.”

Duncan eyed her curiously. For a moment, she thought she saw his lip twitch. For a second, she braced herself because two weeks ago such words spoken would be enough to send him down an anger spiral which would pull her along with it.

“What if I grow bored of you?” he said instead, laughing along. “In fact, perhaps I will take a book. Just in case.”

“So, you do not wish for me to come?”

He winked. “Oh, you might as well. In case I get bored of my book.”

He refused to take the bait. He refused to rise to her argumentative comments. He remained composed and jovial, amused by her rancor, seemingly enjoying it as if he thought she was playing with him!

Maybe he has changed? But if he has, does that mean that I am the problem?

There was something very wrong with Isabella. Happiness had found her, yet she refused to answer its call. She did not want Duncan to turn back into the man he once was, but she also refused to believe that it wasn’t inevitable and thus there was no point admitting that she was happy because the heartbreak that would then come might be too much to handle.

And so it was that the next few days played out on a razor’s edge.

Isabella and Duncan spent those days together. They laughed and joked and made love and existed in a state of happiness that had become the norm for their marriage. Isabella would occasionally pick at him, and he would rebuff it without incident. She would find herself getting a little too comfortable, and then pull away because she felt that she had to. She would imagine the two of them together in years to come and then push those thoughts down and refuse to consider such a thing.

Happiness was there for the taking and despite all the signs screaming for Isabella to snatch it... she simply could not.

Duncan would change soon. He had to! And when he did, Isabella knew that even as prepared for it as she was, it would still hurt. Despite her recent efforts to keep her distance from him, she was beginning to fall for the man whom she once despised.

That scared her more than anything, and if she stopped to wonder why she was the way that she was, why she refused to accept happiness as it was given to her, she might have wanted to start there.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"You seem nervous?” Isabella said to Duncan as they walked around the side of the Stoneside manor, arm in arm.

“Am I?”