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“I am sure that you hope he is.”

“I know him well enough to know otherwise.”

“Clearly that is not the case. Although...” She shrugged. “I must say, there is more fire in you than I suspected. A shame that my son does not see it.”

Isabella’s leg was still shaking. Her blood was still pumping. Her anger was still mounting. And so, as was predictable, she openedher mouth and found herself once again speaking before she could stop to think.

“Well then, you might be shocked to find out that...” She glanced at the Duke who was glaring a warning at her that earlier would have had Isabella shaking but now she hardly even took notice of. “That earlier, your son asked me if I would marry him.” She heard the Duke groan. “And I said yes!”

One could hear a pin fall, such was the silence that followed.

The Duke looked as if he could not believe his ears. Caught between anger and shock as he tried to work through his emotions.

The Duchess almost looked proud, as if she had seen this coming or, most likely, had baited Isabella into saying it.

Isabella, the adrenaline leaving her, blood filling her ears, suddenly realized what she had said, only to know it was too late to take it back, looked everywhere but at the Duke.

And then...

“He did? Oh, that is wonderful!” Lady Martell was on her feet, clapping her hands together, tears streaming down her face. “Duncan! Is it true! I knew you would one day! I just knew it!” She hurried around the table with far more agility than one her age should have possessed and wrapped her arms around hergaping grandson. “I am so happy! And your grandfather, if he was alive... oh! I am so happy!”

“Duncan, what is the meaning of this?” the Duke’s mother, the Duchess, asked as his grandmother hugged him incessantly. “How have you kept this from me? Well!”

Lady Martell’s cries of joy drowned her out, such was her happiness. She hugged her grandson, who hugged her back and smiled apologetically at his mother, because what other choice did he have?

Then he turned his sights on Isabella, and fixed Isabella her in a glare so cold that she felt it in her bones. Again, that sense of fear that he so often instilled in her rose through her body, and she couldn’t help but wonder why he hadn’t done so sooner. Then, at least, she might not have acted so brashly and foolishly.

“Yes, it is true,” Duncan said with much control as he pried himself from his grandmother. The side of his mouth twitched but he tamed it. “And Mother, I am sorry for all the subterfuge.”

“Subterfuge, he says!” the Duke’s mother cried out. “That is not the word I would have used!”

“Be that as it may…” Duncan was back to staring at Isabella and the look in his eyes made her stomach drop. “Before we continue this evening, I would like a word alone with my betrothed. If she does not mind?”

Isabella swallowed the lump in her throat as she wondered if now might be a good time to turn and flee, and then perhaps to make her way to London where she could join a shipping crew of some kind and sail as far away from here as possible. Anything to escape the wrath of the Duke… her fiancé.

“Ye – yes, that is fine,” she stammered. “Whatever about?”

“Just be quick,” his mother said. “We need to celebrate!”

“Oh, do not worry mother…” He did not look at her, his cold gaze still fixed squarely on Isabella. “This will not take long.”

Chapter Three

They walked through the manor in silence.

Isabella walked ahead, her mind racing, her body shaking as the adrenaline from earlier left her, replaced now by fear as she was forced to reckon with the consequences of her actions. She did not know the Duke very well, but she knew enough. Enough to know that what she had just done, what she had just said, was bound to make him angry.

And this anger... a part of her wondered if it might be worth fleeing now before he had a chance to unleash it.

"I am so sorry,” Isabella began as soon as she stepped through the door and into the drawing room. “I don’t know what happened. I just started talking and – woah!” The Duke’s hand wrapped around her arm, pulled her back, and shoved her against the door.

It wasn’t violent. It wasn’t aggressive. But it was done with command, power, a level of control that was useless to fight against. Isabella felt herself stumble as her back pressed against the closed door and before she could fathom what had happened the Duke was on her.

One hand on either side of her face, trapping her against the closed door, he stood over her like a wolf might its cornered prey. She was so small compared to his hulking frame. So helpless. And where she might have liked to have stood up to him... well, one look at the demented rage that took his visage, and she cowered back like a lamb.

His eyes were bloodshot. His teeth were beard. His body trembled. She had never seen such rage! More than that, she had never found herself trapped before it.

“What. Were. You. Thinking!” He bit each word off as if tearing raw meat from a freshly slain carcass.