Chapter 13

Arthur was down to breakfast early the following day.

He told himself that it was because he wanted to get out of the house quickly, that he wanted to make a start on the true part of his day. And maybe that did have something to do with it, but he wasn’t sure. He didn’t feel in a particular rush to leave the house. Once he was at the breakfast table, he found himself feeling relaxed and at ease.

He had beaten Isabella there, but he decided to wait for her arrival before serving himself. Fortunately, she didn’t keep him waiting very long.

Had she dressed for the occasion? He couldn’t be sure. What he did know was that she looked lovely in pale yellow, and he found himself wishing that he had occasion to show her off. If only this had been a breakfast party of some sort where all of society could have seen the lady who was now his?—

He shook his head. What was he thinking? He had never wished for parties in the past. That wasn’t who he was. And yes, he wanted to make an impression upon the members of the ton with her, but he had fully expected that to feel like a chore, not like something he wanted to do.

She sat down, and he tore his eyes away from her, trying to ignore how tongue-tied he suddenly felt. It was almost as if he had been out running—that was how breathless he was in her presence. And the last thing he wanted was for her to realize that.

“Good morning,” he said.

“Good morning,” she returned.

“I trust you slept well.”

She looked up at him. “You don’t need to speak to me as if we’re strangers.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

She searched his gaze for a moment, and Arthur couldn’t help feeling as if she was staring straight into the depths of his soul. Being around her was so powerfully affecting. Had she known that when she had asked for daily breakfasts? Suddenly, he felt sure that eating with her every day was going to be a source of stress for him.

And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to regret agreeing to it. He was glad he had agreed to it. This was the most exciting thing that had happened in his life in a good long while. And unlike most of the other things in his life, it was entirely positive. Nothing about the time he spent with her was painful to him.

“No,” she said. “Perhaps you’re not. I haven’t gotten used to you yet, Arthur.”

“What’s to get used to?” he asked her. It was a sincere question. She looked as if she was making a study of him, and he couldn’t figure out what it was she wanted to know.

“I just feel as if you’re a puzzle I can’t solve,” she explained. “I don’t know anything about you, and I feel as if I should. Even though we’re not having a normal marriage, we are still husband and wife. We’re going to spend our lives together. I want to know you.”

This wasn’t what he had expected. “You already know me,” he said.

“I hardly know anything about you.”

“Well, what do you want to know?”

She thought for a moment. “Your favorite thing to eat for breakfast,” she decided.

Arthur couldn’t help laughing. “That’s why you wanted to have breakfast with me? You wanted to find out what my favorite meal was?”

“Among other things. Is there some reason I can’t know that?”

“No, of course you can. I’m just surprised that that’s the question you wanted to ask me.” He thought about it for a moment. “I suppose I like bread and chocolate best of all.”

She smiled. “I do too,” she said. “But I was never allowed it at home—at my father’s house, I mean.”

“Why not?”

“My half-sister, Rosalind, is very vain and concerned about her figure,” Isabella said. “She refuses to touch things like bread and chocolate. She says they’ll make her lose her looks.”

Arthur laughed. “Of course, they wouldn’t. You eat them every day, and you’re the most beautiful lady I’ve ever seen.”

Isabella blushed and smiled. “Well, she gave orders that any food she didn’t want to eat be banned from the table, and my father supported her because he gives Rosalind anything she wants.”

“I see. What did you have at breakfast?”

“Tea. Sometimes an egg.”

“Well, that isn’t very much.”

“No,” Isabella said. “By comparison, the breakfasts you serve here are wonderful. It’s been one of my favorite things about coming to Windhill—the meals.”

“I’m glad to hear it hasn’t all been terrible.”

She laughed. “I never said that any of it had been terrible,” she told him. “I’m sorry you thought I felt that way. I’ve been lonely, that’s all. And you can understand the reasons why, I think.”

“I can,” he agreed. “I’m sorry you’ve felt that way.”

“What’s your favorite color?” she asked him.

He set down his fork. “My favorite color?”

“I’d like to know.”

“What could you possibly need to know that for?”

“If I’m going to continue making changes around the manor, it would be appropriate for me to know what colors you like.”

“Is that really why you’re asking me this? Because you don’t trust in your ability to select curtains that will make me happy?”

“Partially,” she said. “And partially because you’ve limited what I’m allowed to ask you. I don’t think you’ll welcome any questions about your work.”

He said nothing. She had judged that correctly.

“But I do want to get to know you better,” she continued, “so I’m asking questions I think will be safe. Your favorite food. Your favorite color.”

“Green,” he said.

“Green? Like grass? Or more like emeralds?”

“Like grass, I suppose,” he said though in truth he had been thinking of neither. It was her eyes that came into his mind when he thought of the color green—bright, beautiful, and piercing. He could get lost in those eyes, and he frequently did just that.

And yet, it was embarrassing to have admitted that his favorite color was the color of her eyes. It was sentimental and foolish and not at all the sort of thing he would have expected to hear himself say. He felt ridiculous. She could never know what he had meant by that statement.

“What’s your favorite animal?” she asked.

“I haven’t got a favorite animal.” Was that a thing people had? He had never heard of something so silly.

“Well, if you had to choose an animal as your favorite, what would you choose?”

“A wolf, I suppose, or a bear.”

“Why?”

“They’re strong,” he said. “Able to protect their packs.” It occurred to him that she might be learning more about him than he had anticipated from this little exercise. After all, one of the most significant facts about Arthur was the way he felt about the loss of his parents—the way he had never recovered from it. He was showing his cards more than he had intended to by relating himself to pack animals.

But if she picked up on that, she didn’t say anything about it. “I like wolves,” she said mildly, “but I think I prefer dogs. They’re strong too, and they protect their packs—but they also know how to welcome new creatures into their packs. A dog can be friends with another type of animal—a horse or a sheep or even a man. That’s what I love best about them.”

“Are dogs your favorite, then?”

“Yes, I think so.”

He wondered what that said about her. He supposed it spoke to her loneliness—but that wasn’t something he had needed pointed out to him as she’d never been particularly secretive about it. She had been upfront about the fact that she was feeling lonely.

Perhaps I ought to get her a dog. Maybe that’s what the answer to all this is.

He opened his mouth to propose the idea, but she was on to her next question. “What was your title when you were born?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Well, I know that you weren’t the direct descendant of the last duke,” she said.

“How do you know that?”

“Oh.” She raised a hand to her mouth. “You mustn’t be angry. The staff mentioned it to me.”

“Which member of my staff mentioned that?”

She regarded him for a moment. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“What do you mean, you’re not going to tell me? You can’t refuse.”

“Yes, I can,” she said. “You don’t have any way of forcing me to give you the name, Arthur, and I’m not going to make trouble for someone. Be angry with me if you must be angry with someone.”

“If you force me to, I will,” he said. “I would rather direct my anger to the appropriate person. My staff know better than to mention this.”

“I suppose someone thought I had a right to know the history of the dukedom, given that I am the Duchess now,” she said calmly. “Certainly, you couldn’t be relied upon to tell me anything.”

Arthur was steaming. No one in his employ should have given her information like that, and he was angry that someone had. But what could he do? It was clear that she wasn’t willing to give up the name of the guilty party, and unless he conducted some sort of witch hunt, it wasn’t likely that he would discover who it had been of his own accord. He was going to have to let this go. Still, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of betrayal.

Isabella was watching him, and Arthur recalled that she had asked him a question. He had to think back for a moment to remember what it had been. Then he shook his head. “I’m not going to talk about my family,” he told her. “That’s not something I’m willing to share.”

She hesitated for a moment. He thought she was going to insist. If she did, she was going to find out what happened when Arthur was pushed too far. He wouldn’t stay at the breakfast table with her if she refused to turn away from this topic. She ought to recognize his refusal to discuss it as what it was—a non-negotiable thing.

The trauma of his parents’ deaths was something that would never leave him. He knew that. It was also something deeply personal and certainly not anything he cared to relive over tea and bread. It would ruin his day.

“My family is dead,” he said brusquely. “That’s all you need to know about that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

He gave a curt nod.

She looked at her plate for a moment, then looked up. “My mother is dead, too,” she said quietly.

Did she mean to say it was the same thing? The idea angered him. He didn’t like other people comparing their personal tragedies to his.

But then he thought—why shouldn’t she? It was the same. Maybe not in every way, but she had lost her mother just as he had lost his parents, and that loss had gone on to shape her life in drastic ways. Of course, she saw a comparison.

Still, he wasn’t about to use his loss as a way of getting closer to someone. They weren’t going to bond with one another over the fact that they had each lost parents. He didn’t want to share those feelings. Not with anyone.

“New rule,” he said gruffly. “We don’t talk about my family.”

She regarded him. “The list of things we don’t talk about is getting long,” she told him. “And so is the list of rules for a man who told me there would only be three.”

He didn’t know what to say to that, so he rose from the table. “I’ll be home late,” he told her.

“I never doubted it,” she replied quietly.