Page 67 of Her Heartless Duke

“Youare under my charge and alone in a room with a man. Without a chaperon,” he enunciated stubbornly, folding his arms across his chest. “And what sort of business did Langley have with you, anyway?”

“As I said earlier, that is none of your business!” she stomped her feet in frustration.

“Olivia, you are—”

But Olivia did not care to hear any more of his excuses. She knew he would only try to justify his petty high-handedness in dealing with Isaac.

And had ruined what had been to her a lovely afternoon, too! Heaven only knew how much of these she had left, and he had to go in and wreck everything!

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she let out a loud breath in extreme vexation, massaging the bridge of her nose as her headache pounded painfully.

Briefly, she summoned Jane and asked for another cup of rosemary tea. Lately, it seemed like the usual cure for her headaches was hardly working anymore, but she was also parched from her verbal duel with her obstinate brother.

Moments later, she was sitting on her favorite window seat, with a cup of rosemary tea cradled in her hands as she looked out the window, her features softening as she thought of Isaac.

He claimed that he had called on her out of a genuine concern for her well-being and she supposed that shewasa little rude by not sending word out to him the past few days.

With the dance competition looming over the horizon, it would soon get rather difficult for her to find any other excuse to see him. She doubted that she would live long enough to see another Season.

She sighed and pressed her palm against the windowpane as tears clouded her eyes. If only she had more time, how she would have loved to spend it all with him!

If I was blessed enough to be Lady Vivian, I would have treasured every moment we had together and taken none of it for granted, she thought to herself as a tear rolled down her cheek.I would tell him how wonderful he is and how kind and brave… and how he is nothing at all like what they claim. That he is nothing like the monster he thinks he is…

But then, a sudden realization struck her—shecouldsay those things to him as Lady Vivian! She could write to him through a letter and let him know just how wonderful he was.

Olivia quickly dashed the tears on her cheeks and walked over to her writing desk as a smile began to blossom on her face once more. A few minutes later, she folded up the paper and sealed it with some red wax, a heavy smile playing on her lips.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX

It would seem that the grand ballroom of Anderleigh Hall was once more furnished specifically for their needs by the meticulous Horace. When Olivia laid her eyes on the samechaise longuethat she and Isaac had lain on more than a week ago, she felt the warmth creep up in her cheeks.

“Does the chaise interest you so much?”

She nearly jumped at the sound of that low, mesmerizing baritone with its rare mischievous lilt. She swiftly turned around and found Isaac standing behind her, his eyes dancing in amusement.

“Your Grace, I do not think it is appropriate to discuss such topics,” she reprimanded him softly.

Almost immediately, the light in his eyes went out.

“You are right,” he said in clipped tones. “My sincerest apologies, my Lady.”

She felt a pang in her heart that had nothing to do with her illness whatsoever. She disliked this distance between them, but what else was she supposed to do? He desired the company of another. She desired his company, but had intimated to him something else. And confessing the truth might put that special night she was working toward in certain jeopardy. Not to mention, even if the stars aligned and he felt the same way toward her, she would not live long enough to build any meaningful relationship with him. The situation between them made a relationship wholly untenable!

To wish for something beyond my grasp is only inviting heartbreak, she reminded herself fiercely.

And yet, she could not help the flutter in her heart when he bowed to her, signaling the beginning of their practice—the very last one before their competition.

In a way, it filled her with a bittersweet melancholy, how it was now all coming to an end. After the competition, there would be no more practices, no more excuses for them to meet privately.

She did not know how long she had left after that, either. Her body felt like it was getting weaker by the day, although she did her best to hide it from everyone by keeping her spirits up and applying some rouge to hide the pallor in her cheeks.

She sucked in a deep breath when she felt him press her against him so subtly that she might as well have imagined it, their bodies swaying to a music that existed in their minds and echoed in the spaces between their heartbeats.

He urged her to twirl until she was rising on the very tips of her toes, his hand holding hers above her head the only thing keeping her from spinning out of control.

Oh, how she loved this part of the dance! How it allowed her to let herself go with only his stable presence anchoring her from drifting away…

It was also one of the more difficult aspects of this particular dance, but Isaac made it seem so easy. Healwaysmade things seem easier for her, even if conventional wisdom dictated them to be near impossible.