Page 23

CHAPTER 23

I t was a time of more laughter. A time of much color...

T he drawing room had been flooded with sunlight, the windows thrown wide despite the spring chill. Elaine had been at the pianoforte, all impatient instruction and dramatic flourishes. And she—she had sat beside her, earnest and eager, fingers stumbling over the keys with laughter on her lips.

She had loved it. Not just the music, but the learning of it, the way her brow furrowed when she missed a note and the triumph in her smile when she played a melody through without pause. Almost as much as she loved her paints—her little watercolors scattered across the table, staining her sleeves, her fingertips, everything she touched.

She had brought color with her. Music. Life. She had trusted him with all of it.

And he had ruined it.

He had failed her, not in one great moment of catastrophe, but in a thousand small ones. He had not protected her, not as a brother, not as anything. And by the time he’d seen the cost of his absence, it was too late. The music had gone silent. The colors had faded from her world. And then she had gone too.

He had crushed her dreams as surely as he had crushed her spirit.

The music from the present wavered, and a missed note pulled him back. He blinked, the drawing room returning in pieces—the polished pianoforte, Fiona’s laughter, Elaine’s hands still moving across the keys. But the warmth was gone from his chest.

Isaac sat straighter, drawing in a shallow breath through his nose. The pain in his ribs was sharp, as if knives had slipped between them. He pressed his palm lightly to his side, steadying himself.

You are here. She is gone. You cannot change it now.

Still, it hurt. It always would.

“My, I haven’t played a duet this fine in years.” Elaine pulled her hands away from the keys. “Not since I played with Mary.”

Isaac froze.

Every fiber of his body tensed, as if the very name had pulled a cord tight across his chest. The air in the drawing room seemed to still.

“Who is Mary?” Fiona asked.

Elaine turned to him then, her brows lifting in visible surprise. “You didn’t tell her, Isaac?”

He said nothing. His gaze was fixed on the fire, the flames offering no warmth.

Elaine tried again. “Isaac?—”

“It’s nearly time for dinner,” he said, cutting across her gently but firmly. “You ought to be heading home.”

Fiona’s head shifted from one to the other, her confusion etched into every line of her face. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, as though unsure if she had the right to speak.

Elaine stood slowly from the bench. The cheer that had lit her features earlier had dimmed into something more subdued, her expression soft with understanding but shadowed by disappointment.

She reached his side, pausing just long enough to murmur, “She has a right to know, Isaac. She is family now.”

And with that, she left the room, leaving only the faint echo of the duet behind and the tightening silence between him and his wife.

Family, he repeated silently. God help me.

Fiona spent the remainder of the day with a name echoing in her mind—Mary.

The music had long faded, the pianoforte lid now shut, but the questions remained.

Who was she?

The name had lingered in the room like smoke, and the effect it had on both Elaine and Isaac was undeniable. But especially Isaac. At the very mention, he had gone still—no, rigid. And then he had vanished without so much as a glance, sending Elaine off with a clipped farewell and leaving Fiona with nothing but silence and speculation.

She had eaten dinner alone. That, she had half expected. It was becoming something of a pattern. Yet the sharp twist of disappointment in her chest still surprised her.

She had not asked for his company. Had not expected warmth. And yet, the absence of it stung.

She had picked at her food. The roast, untouched. The wine, watered by disinterest.

By nightfall, the house had grown still, and sleep did not come. She lay with the sheets tangled around her legs, eyes fixed on the ceiling, the candlelight flickering its pale shadows across the plaster.

Isaac’s face haunted her. The tight line of his jaw. The refusal in his posture.

What had that name done to him?

At last, she rose, wrapping her robe tight around her as she slipped quietly from her chamber. Her bare feet made no sound on the carpets as she passed through the darkened hallways, her fingers trailing against the cool stone of the walls as though they might offer some sense of direction.

She wandered without aim until the hallway opened onto a terrace—one she had not yet seen.

The night air greeted her with a soft chill, brushing against her skin like a whispered secret. Above her, the moon hung full and luminous, and the stars shimmered like a thousand watchful eyes. The view from this height was breathtaking, the estate stretching out below, ghostly in moonlight.

“What are you doing up this late?”

She started. Her hand flew to her chest.

A voice. Familiar. Close.

She turned, her eyes adjusting to the shadowed figure in the far corner.

Isaac.

He sat on a thick carpet near the edge, his back against the stone wall, legs crossed at the ankle. A book rested in one hand, his index finger lodged between the pages.

“Isaac,” she breathed, heart still thudding. “You frightened me.”

He gestured to the empty space beside him. “Sit.”

For a moment, she hesitated, watching him. There was no tension in his posture now. No armor in place. So she stepped forward and sat beside him.

She sat, smoothing her robe beneath her as she drew her knees close and folded her hands neatly atop them. The stone beneath the carpet still carried the chill of night, but she found it oddly grounding.

Isaac had not moved. He sat as he had before, legs crossed and back against the wall, the book still in one hand, forgotten.

She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Does he do this often? Sit here alone while the rest of the house sleeps?

“What are you doing up this late?” he asked again.

His expression held no edge, no warmth either. Placid. Unreadable.

“I could not sleep,” she answered, though the truth sat heavier than the words.

She opened her mouth—then closed it again. The name pressed at the back of her throat, begging to be spoken. Mary. But she remembered the way he had turned to stone earlier. The look in his eyes. It had not been pain so much as a shutting down, a door slamming shut with practiced precision.

Now was not the time to pry it open.

She let the silence settle between them, hoping it might soothe her thoughts. But instead, they turned darker.

What if Mary was a wife? A dead one. One he had loved?

The idea bloomed fully formed and thoroughly unwelcome. Her chest tightened.

Or a lover. One he still pines for. One who had the parts of him he now keeps hidden from me.

She pressed her fingers into her lap.

“That familiar bitterness again,” she muttered under her breath.

“What was that?” he asked, glancing at her.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. “What is this place?” She tilted her head to take in the stretch of terrace—the carved stone balustrade, the ivy that trailed along one corner, the sweeping view of the moonlit grounds.

He looked at her with an arch of a brow. “It’s a terrace, Fiona.”

She rolled her eyes, thankful for the shift in conversation. “Yes, Isaac. I am aware. I meant?—”

“How often I hide away here?” he finished for her.

She looked at him, waiting.

“Quite often,” he said after a pause. His eyes drifted out into the night, and something in them shifted—softer, more distant. “It’s always been my favorite hiding spot. Since the days I was confined to the schoolroom. I used to slip away from the governesses when I could. No one ever thought to look for me here.”

She blinked at the image. Young Isaac, brooding even then, skirting lessons and tutors to escape into the night air.

She laughed softly, the sound catching her by surprise.

He turned to her, puzzled.

“I’m imagining you as a boy,” she said. “Sulking out here to avoid French verbs.”

His lips quirked, just slightly.

And just like that, she saw it. Not the Duke. Not the solemn man she had been forced to marry. But a boy who had hidden from governesses and found comfort in the stars. A man with a heart. With memories. With wounds.

He is not what I thought.

“Well, you may be disappointed to learn that its days as your hiding spot are numbered,” Fiona said, her lips curving as she leaned back on her palms. “Not since I have discovered it too. I believe I shall claim it henceforth as my sanctuary.”

His brow lifted with a feigned solemnity. “My, then I shall begin to prepare my strongest defenses against your siege—now that you have so tactlessly declared your intentions.”

He chuckled, and the sound—deep and warm—rippled through the quiet. She felt it rather than heard it, a gentle vibration in the air between them, and she could not help but notice how it stirred something soft and absurdly pleased within her.

You laugh, and I forget to be cross with you.

She exhaled slowly, allowing her shoulders to settle as a sense of ease crept in. They sat in companionable silence for a moment, and Fiona decided it was as good a time as any.

“There is something I’ve been meaning to discuss,” she began, choosing her words with care. “I thought it might be worthwhile to consider a few improvements to the house. Some small renovations. Nothing drastic.”

No response.

She turned slightly toward him. “I do believe it would do well for your image—particularly when we begin to entertain guests.”

He stiffened beside her. When he turned to her, his expression was no longer open.

“And what makes you think I give a morsel of regard about my image?”

The words struck harder than she expected.

Fiona recoiled, just a touch. Her spine straightened, her fingers curled against the folds of her robe.

That was not warranted.

A silence followed, heavy and awkward. Then he cleared his throat, his voice lower this time.

“That was uncalled for,” he said. “Forgive me.”

She gave a small nod, though the air around them had shifted again. The peace from moments earlier receded like the tide, leaving behind only damp sand and unearthed stones.

He is unpredictable, she thought. A man composed of quiet storms.

They sat in silence until he finally spoke.

“The late Duke was a man consumed by appearances. Obsessed with how he was seen. He built his life on that image. But behind it, he ignored everything else. His pride mattered more than his people. More than his family.”

His voice had flattened into what was closer to resignation than bitterness. Still, Fiona heard the strain beneath it, the quiet years folded between every word.

“I do not wish to be like my father, Fiona.” Isaac shifted his gaze away from her, his eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the terrace’s edge. “I do not wish to place my image above my responsibilities. Above the people I care for.”

She stared at him, caught off guard by the rawness of his admission. Her hands, which had settled in her lap, now tightened slightly into the folds of her robe.

There it is again, she thought, that glimpse of the man beneath the layers. The man who feels more than he lets on.

There was a reason for the way he carried himself, the way he shouldered so much without asking for help. And now she saw it with piercing clarity. It was not pride, but fear. Not vanity, but memory.

A moment passed before she found her voice again.

“What was he like?” she asked, cautiously. “Your father.”

His expression shuttered.

“He died when I was fifteen,” he said, and nothing more.

The set of his shoulders, the sudden stillness that took hold of him, told her the matter was closed. She nodded faintly and did not press him further. Some doors were best left unopened until he was ready.

She looked out at the night again, thinking the conversation had reached its end, when he stirred beside her, his next words breaking the quiet

“Was your father the one who struck you, Fiona?”

She blinked, the question catching her unprepared. It was not cruel. It was not even abrupt. But it was unexpected.

Her breath caught slightly before she responded. “He was not always so violent,” she said, managing a faint laugh that died far too quickly. “I suppose I must have provoked him too much this time.”

She turned to him with a crooked smile, attempting to disarm the memory with levity.

But he did not smile. He didn’t even blink.

His gaze held hers, unwavering and strangely still.

“I disagree,” he said. “No man has a right to lay a finger on you, Fiona. And you did not deserve the scorn he gave you. You did not deserve any of it. You should never have had to endure that.”

The words startled her—not because of their volume, but because of how deliberately he looked at her when he said them, as though the truth had long been settled in his mind.

Her throat tightened. You see more than I wish to show.

His hands moved, slowly and deliberately, until they reached her face, cupping it with the gentlest pressure. His touch was warm, steady, and completely unexpected.

“You’re safe now, Fiona,” he said. Her breath caught.“ You’re safe with me.”

Her own hands rose as if summoned by something unseen, covering his. Her fingertips brushed the backs of his fingers, unsure, but unwilling to let the moment pass without anchoring it somehow.

One of his thumbs brushed along the curve of her lower lip, soft as breath. She stilled. Her body thrummed with heat, every nerve straining toward the closeness between them.

His gaze lingered on her mouth. She felt it more than she saw it.

And when he began to lean in, her eyes fluttered shut of their own accord. Her lips parted just slightly, the barest invitation.

But nothing came.

He pulled away.

So swiftly, so completely, that she felt the absence of him like wind snatching a flame.

“You should return to bed,” he said, already rising.

Her lashes lifted slowly. She watched as he stepped back, his movements too brisk, too pointed.

“Goodnight, Fiona.”

And just like that, he turned and disappeared into the house, leaving her alone beneath the stars. She remained where she sat, the chill of the stone returning to her skin now that his warmth had gone.

By morning, the drawing room was empty.

Again.

She crossed to the table, forcing her thoughts into order, but before she could settle, the butler appeared with an envelope in hand.

“A note, ma’am.”

Her brows lifted. It was addressed in a strong, neat hand. She unfolded it and read:

Fiona,

I have departed for Scotland on business. I expect to be away for a fortnight.

Isaac

She stared at the final line. It was not signed with affection. Not even with familiarity. Just a name. As if that were enough to explain his absence.

A fortnight.

The word curled in her mind like smoke. Cold and uninvited. So, he had gone. Without a word the night before. Without mention of plans, of goodbyes, of reasons.

Without her.