Page 5

CHAPTER 5

I saac sat in the soft golden wash of morning light, his fingers suspended above a narrow gear that refused to fit. Sleep had eluded him again, though he had not truly expected it to come. It rarely did when thoughts clung so stubbornly—and today, they clung with the scent of garden roses and the sharp taste of desperation.

Lady Fiona Pierce.

She had appeared like a phantom on his doorstep, cloaked in midnight and trembling resolve. Reckless, certainly. But beneath the recklessness, he had glimpsed something else—something too familiar to ignore.

Not boldness. Not defiance. Desperation.

Perhaps that was why her request struck a chord he could not ignore. Not because she reminded him of someone. But because she reminded him of himself.

He adjusted the magnifier resting over one eye, guiding the brass pin into place with careful precision, though his thoughts remained elsewhere. The gear slipped, skittering across the workbench.

With a sigh, he tightened a screw more forcefully than necessary.

“This is not about her,” he muttered, but even as he said it, he knew it was not true.

No, it was not entirely about Lady Fiona. It was about failure—his own—and the price someone else had paid for it. The kind of mistake a man might spend a lifetime trying to rectify.

This time, he would not stand idle. The workshop door creaked open.

“I knew I’d find you in here,” Elaine said, her voice warm and light, as though it had been summoned by the very weight of his thoughts.

She entered without hesitation, her skirts whispering over stone as she crossed the room with all the ease of someone who had never been denied entry.

“You are forever hunched over that contraption,” she went on, coming to stand beside him. “Do you never tire of squinting through that blasted glass?”

“Do you ever tire of writing sonatas no one but you can decipher?” he returned, not lifting his gaze from the delicate mechanisms before him.

“Never,” she declared with a toss of her head. “I shall compose until I am buried with my quill.”

“There it is, then,” Isaac murmured, allowing the faintest smile. “I shall set aside my screws and cogs the day you abandon your music.”

Her laugh was soft, genuine—a sound he rarely heard from anyone but her. “A fair bargain,” she agreed.

A quiet settled between them, companionable and full of memory. He could feel the shift before she spoke again.

“I heard you had a caller last night.”

His fingers paused, though only briefly.

“A woman,” she added, the word stretched with deliberate mischief.

“How is it,” Isaac asked, keeping his gaze steady on the gear he no longer saw, “that you know more about this household than those who reside in it?”

Elaine perched on the edge of a stool, hands folded neatly in her lap. “Because someone must keep an eye on you.”

“And do I truly require such vigilance?”

A shadow passed over her face then, a familiar flicker that caught in the corner of her eyes. “I must do right by my brother at least.”

He didn’t press her. He never did. He understood too well the weight she carried—the guilt that never quite left her voice when it turned soft like this.

He reached for a new spring, fingers steady, gaze averted.

“So,” she said after a moment, “who was this mysterious lady who found her way to your doorstep in the dead of night?”

“My, I am astonished your sources failed to uncover her name,” he said, the words delivered with mild amusement.

“She seems to have gone to some trouble to remain unseen,” Elaine mused, arching one delicate brow.

A flicker of relief stirred within him. At least Lady Fiona’s name had not yet become another thread of gossip.

“And what, pray, would bring a gently bred woman to a man’s house unchaperoned?”

He said nothing.

Elaine gasped. “Do not tell me I have finally worked a miracle and you are considering matrimony.”

He snorted. “You give me too much credit.”

“And you give yourself none,” she retorted. “But then again, no proper lady would visit you unannounced. Not unless?—”

“You would be surprised,” he said, his voice quiet, unreadable.

Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

He only shrugged, watching her simmer with curiosity.

“Oh, do not be cruel,” she groaned. “At least tell me who she was.”

“She was a caller. Her name, however, is not mine to give.”

Elaine’s smile faltered, replaced by something weightier. “Should I be concerned?”

Isaac finally met her gaze. “You need only trust me.”

“I always have,” she said softly. “It is myself I no longer trust.”

He straightened and crossed to her, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. Her breath caught, just slightly.

“We cannot undo what has passed, Elaine. But perhaps, by moving forward, we can begin to mend it.”

She looked up at him, her eyes shimmering with the ache of a wound too old for salves and too fresh to forget.

And in that instant, Fiona’s voice echoed through his mind— The Earl of Canterlack is my betrothed.

Not for long.

He drew Elaine into an embrace, holding her tightly as her composure gave way and the tears slipped free. She wept against his coat, and he said nothing. Only held on. Because she needed to be held. Also because he did not know how to stop failing the people he loved.

But perhaps, if he helped Lady Fiona now—if he prevented Canterlack from doing what he had done before—perhaps it would be a start.