Chapter 17

“Isabella? What are you doing here? I thought you had gone to bed.”

Isabella felt herself blush. “I’m on my way to bed,” she said. “I’m in the habit of borrowing a book from the library to take with me and reading a few hours before I go to sleep. I was hoping to find something good tonight to take my mind off my father’s visit, but I didn’t mean to disturb you. I didn’t know that you would be in the library too.”

“You can come in,” Arthur said. “There’s no rule against your presence in the library.”

“I know. Forgive me. I suppose I’m having a bit of trouble feeling clear in my mind about what all the rules are. There seem to be so many.”

“Well, that’s my fault,” Arthur admitted. “I did tell you that you should expect to live by only three rules, and I’ve certainly changed my tune about that.”

Isabella hadn’t expected him to admit it so readily. “It’s all right,” she told him. “You and I are both learning how to do these things. Living together as husband and wife for the first time. I’m confident that when you told me that, you truly believed you would hold me to only three rules.”

“So, I did,” Arthur replied. “I appreciate your willingness to understand that we can’t always anticipate what will happen as life goes on.”

She moved further into the room. “It was kind of you to have my family to visit today,” she said. “It was very thoughtful, and it meant a great deal to me.”

“I hoped it would,” Arthur told her, “but I fear, after seeing the way they behaved, that I might have only made things worse for you. That half-sister of yours is rather intolerable, isn’t she?”

“Oh, yes,” Isabella agreed. “But she’s always been that way. She’s so used to having her own way in everything. It must be absolutely tormenting her that I’m married to a duke and that Felicity is being courted by various gentlemen, and meanwhile, nobody has taken the slightest interest in her. I would feel sorry for her if she were anybody else, but I just can’t seem to muster up any sympathy for Rosalind.”

“No, I don’t blame you for that,” Arthur agreed. “She seems particularly difficult to sympathize with, but I’m surprised that your father allowed her to get away with acting the way she did. Didn’t he ever come to your defense?”

Isabella laughed. “I thought you had the measure of him. No, he always took her side, and I know that he always will. It’s not of interest to him to protect me from Rosalind. He’s more interested in making it up to her that she had to have me as a sister to begin with. I know he’s always felt guilty about that.”

“Guilty? But why? You’re older than she is. If he didn’t want her to have you for a sister, why did he have another child?”

“Oh, he never thought he would have to recognize me as Rosalind’s proper sister,” Isabella explained. “When we were younger, Felicity and I were left to the care of our mother. We weren’t considered ladies—we were members of the household staff. Of course, everyone knew who our father was, but that didn’t change anything. It didn’t make any difference to him. He was happy for us to grow up as maids and for our mother to take full responsibility for us. The only thing that changed as a result of his being our father—and I only recognize this now that I’m an adult and can see the difference for myself—was that a bit of money was spent on us. My mother was able to bring in physicians for us when we were ill, something my father wouldn’t have bothered with for the rest of his staff. That was why the staff at Cliffrows despised us. They saw us receiving special treatment because of the circumstances of our birth, and we were hated for it.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Arthur said.

“No, of course not,” Isabella agreed. “Just as it isn’t our fault now that our mother was a maid. That doesn’t stop society from shunning Felicity and me. Look at the lengths I’ve had to go to in order to make sure that my sister can have a reputable marriage. If I thought she could fit in and be happy among the servant class, I would probably allow it. Heaven knows she doesn’t fit in with the ton.”

“It sounds like she doesn’t fit in anywhere,” Arthur said gently.

“Yes, that’s right. And all I want is for my sister to have a place where she belongs,” Isabella replied. “Of course, a life of luxury, never having to worry about anything—I would love that for her. But as long as she is cared for, that’s what really matters. So, Rosalind can sit there and mock her for being courted by the second son of a viscount—I don’t care. That’s more than good enough to make me happy as long as he cares for Felicity and is kind to her.”

“One thing I still don’t understand,” Arthur observed. “It sounds as though your father wasn’t at all involved in your lives for several years.”

“That’s true,” Isabella said. “Or rather, he was on the fringes of it. Felicity was quite young then, but I remember it very well. I remember how it felt on the rare occasions that he chose to pay attention to us. It was like being visited by the king.”

“But that clearly isn’t the way things are between you now.”

“Things changed after my mother’s death,” Isabella explained. “In spite of everything, in spite of who she was, my father did care for her, and it was her dying wish that he would raise us and claim us as his own. You see, when Rosalind was born, he really didn’t expect that she would have to share anything with the two of us. He didn’t imagine that we would ever be considered her sisters. But after Mother died…well, he just couldn’t refuse her anything. I know he would have liked to. I know because he’s spent the years since then taking it out on us. He may have cared for Mother, but he’s never cared for us, and I know he would have been more than happy to be rid of me years ago if he could have figured out a way to do it.”

“I’m surprised you’re not angrier about all this,” Arthur marveled. “I think I would be if it had happened to me.”

“No,” Isabella said. “I can’t be very angry. At the end of the day, he did raise us. He could easily have denied that we had anything to do with him after Mother died. It was her wish that he care for us, but there was nothing making him agree to it. He could have put us out on the streets. Whatever he may have done to us, however unlovingly we may have been treated all these years, we have always had food to eat and a roof over our heads. We have always known that we would survive. There’s nothing Rosalind can say to me, no amount of rudeness, that can erase that fact or make me any less thankful for it.” She sighed. “Every time I feel frustrated with the pair of them, I remember what it might have been like to raise my little sister on the streets. How awful that would have been. We might not have made it. Rosalind can say whatever she likes to me.”

“Those shouldn’t have been your only two choices,” Arthur argued. “He is still your father. And I understand what you’re saying—that he didn’t have to do anything for you—but it was his responsibility to care for you, even if nothing was forcing him to do it. He would be a very poor excuse for a man if he turned his own daughters out onto the street. He deserves no special accolades for doing the bare minimum.”

Isabella regarded him. She had never heard it put into words like that before, and yet all the things he was saying now were exactly what she thought. His speech mirrored perfectly the way she had felt when she had watched her sister put on Rosalind’s old gowns, even though they never quite fit right. Yes, it was a minor inconvenience, and it was certainly better than starving, but…but it was so heartless. So unloving. How hard would it have been for their father to love Felicity? Isabella knew that she could be difficult and that she had never made her father’s life easy. But who could fail to love Felicity? She had always judged him for that.

“It’s nice to hear someone else say these things,” she admitted. “It’s nice to feel…validated in the way I’ve always felt about it. Everyone has always made me feel as if I’m too demanding, as if I want too much and should simply be thankful for what I have, but…”

“Wanting a father who cares about you isn’t being demanding,” Arthur told her. He rose to his feet and crossed to stand before her. “There’s nothing unreasonable about a desire like that. Everyone ought to have parents who love them.”

Just as he had the other day when he had come to her room, he reached out and cupped her cheek. This time, he ran his thumb along the line of her cheekbone and frowned slightly, as if he was struggling to make sense of something. She wanted to ask him what it was—what thoughts were going through his head—but she didn’t think she could have found words right now. Her heart was pounding, and her head was spinning, and she didn’t know which way was up. It would have been the most natural thing in the world to fall forward into his arms.

She looked up at him, searching his gaze, trying to make sense of everything that was happening between them. He had been so clear that he didn’t want romance or intimacy in their marriage. This was supposed to serve a functional purpose. Nothing more. So why did this keep happening? Why did they draw close to each other over and over when it would have made so much more sense to put up walls between them?

Was it her fault? He had tried to pull away from her. But all she had said was that she wanted to have breakfasts with him. That was something that should have been able to happen without bringing them this close.

Did she regret that it had? Well, that was a different question altogether.

All she knew for sure was that Arthur was touching her face, and she wasn’t pulling away from him. She didn’t know how to justify that, or even if she could, but she knew that she didn’t want to pull away from him. Not right now and maybe not ever.

She wanted to lean closer.

He cleared his throat and dropped his hand, looking uncomfortable, and she sensed that he too recognized that they had gotten in deeper than either one of them had intended to. “Perhaps you should get what you came for and get to bed,” he murmured. “It’s getting late.”

“You’re right.” She stepped back quickly and went to the shelf. Under ordinary circumstances, she would have taken her time here. She would have allowed herself to peruse the shelves until she found a book that really interested her. But right now, she couldn’t seem to focus on anything. She picked up the first book her fingers touched and hurried out of the room, feeling as if she was being carried away by a current of air.