Page 56 of Her Beast of a Duke

“Relatively?” Alicia questioned, shaking her head.

They rounded onto one of the entrances to Hyde Park and set down one of the main paths. Isabella’s eyes cut around, thinking of running into Lord Stanton the previous time she was there.

“You are the mistress of the house. You ought to havefullfree rein,” her youngest sister added.

“It is still a shared home, Alicia.”

“As long as itisa home,” Sibyl piped up. “That is most important. A home is a feeling, you know. Do you see Rochdale Castle as your home?”

The question caught her in a way she did not expect.Didshe see it as such? Now that she thought of it, Isabella was not entirely certain anywhere had ever felt like home. Not with the way her parents had been, absent and dismissive unless she could perform to their benefit. Wickleby Hall had been tainted with too much bitterness and accusation, so that was neither use to her in terms of home.

“I…” She hesitated. “I sleep there, after all.”

It was a terrible answer, and one that would not satiate her sisters’ curiosities.

Still, she pushed on. “Hermia would have had a rather different marriage by now. No doubt she would have been commanding her entire household with enough grace to woo a ballroom of guests at once.”

“Oh, I am certain you are doing the same,” Sibyl giggled.

Isabella thought of little Thomas, the boy who had not surfaced since Oscar had scolded him. She really ought to seek him out again.

“Ah, I am doing my best.” She smiled. “Although Morris is taking to me most well. That is His Grace’s dog.”

“The Duke of Rochdale owns adog?” Alicia asked, laughing. “I do not know why, but such a notion amuses me, given what the ton calls him.”

“Every dashing hero needs a canine friend,” Sibyl countered. “All my books say so.”

Isabella smiled down at the pathway they traversed, thinking of Oscar as her hero. In a way, he certainly had been, even if he was rough around the edges and more rugged than gentle-worded.

“What sort of dog is he?” Sibyl asked, her eyes lighting up at the prospect of a dog to befriend.

She had always been a friend to animals, yet their parents had never let them get a pet, not even a caged dove, despite Hermia’s endless begging for one ahead of her debut.

It could be a gift!Isabella recalled her older sister pleading.A debut gift. Please, I will take such good care of it.

Still, there had been no pets allowed on any Wickleby estate, and now Sibyl looked so hopeful at the prospect of meeting one.

“He is a very well-mannered bloodhound,” she told her sister. “And an excellent guard dog.”

“And from whom are you being guarded, exactly?” Alicia frowned, turning to meet Isabella’s gaze with questions she didn’t ask in front of their more idealistic sister.

“Nobody,” she said quickly, but thought of Morris barking wildly at Oscar’s raised voice, and the evidence of his night terrors. “But he…”

He guards his master well and knows of his tempers, she thought, but decided to say differently.

“He is protective of anything he thinks is amiss. Sibyl, you may come to meet him if you like. He can be a little shy at first around newcomers, but he took to me well enough, and with your temperament for hounds, I am certain he will warm up to you in no time.”

“Oh, could I?” Her eyes sparkled so brightly.

“Absolutely.”

“I did not think your husband would be the sort of man to welcome visitors,” Alicia noted wisely. “Given his… reclusive reputation.”

“Isabella is his wife, Alicia! Of course, he would allow her to have visitors, such as her family. After all, Mama and Papa did not stop raving about visiting Rochdale Castle.”

“They did?” Isabella asked, surprised.

After how their visit had ended, she hadn’t expected them to mention it at all, although she imagined their narrative was not quite the truth.