Chapter 9

This was a mistake, Isabella thought dismally.

She sat in the chamber she had been shown to upon their arrival at Windhill Manor. She didn’t want to believe that this marriage had been a mistake, but the only thing the Duke—Arthur—had spoken to her about had been his rules. Once that conversation was over, they had gone their separate ways.

She had expected to be called to dinner eventually, but that hadn’t happened. Just as her hunger had started to get the best of her and she’d been about to go looking for the dining room, there had been a knock on her door. Caroline, her new lady’s maid, had been there with a tray. “I’m sure you’re hungry,” she had said.

Caroline was the one good thing that had happened since her arrival at Windhill Manor. She had smiled at Isabella, welcomed her, and even joined her for the meal. Arthur might have been cold and forbidding, but with Caroline, at least, Isabella knew she could be herself. At least she would have one friend here in this hostile new environment.

But now Caroline had gone away for the evening, leaving Isabella on her own. At first, this had made Isabella nervous. She’d known there could only be one reason she was being left alone, and it must have to do with the fact that this was her wedding night. Any moment now, Arthur would come and knock on her door and take her to his room, and she would be called upon to perform the duties of a wife.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want that to happen. She knew it was a part of a marriage, and there was a part of her that was curious about it and viewed it as an adventure to be embarked upon.

But at the same time…she and Arthur were hardly able to carry on a conversation with one another. How would she be able to go to his bed? Of course, it was a bit frightening to think of. She supposed any maiden would feel the same way.

So, she waited, her nervousness mounting, wishing that he would just come for her so that she wouldn’t have to sit here thinking about it anymore…and he kept not coming. And finally, she thought, Maybe I’m supposed to be going to him. Maybe he’s waiting for me.

She had been given a tour of the estate upon her arrival, but she wasn’t confident she would be able to find her way around in the dark. Still, she couldn’t bear to face the thought of asking someone for help in this particular quest. She took a lantern, pulled on a robe, and set out into the hallway.

She meant to go to his room—she was sure that was where she would find him—but she found herself at his office first. There was light shining out from under the door, the flickering light of a lantern, and she knew that he must be inside.

She hesitated.

This was one of the rules she had been given. And there had only been three. She wasn’t sure how strictly she meant to adhere to them, but could she really be thinking of breaking one of the rules on her very first night?

But then, on the other hand…this was their wedding night. Surely, she was supposed to come and see him? There would only be one wedding night, after all. Maybe he had gotten so carried away, so distracted by his work, that he had forgotten about her or about the time. Yes, that was probably it. He would probably thank her for coming to find him.

Heartened by that thought, she reached out and knocked on the door.

There was a long pause. Then he spoke. “Who is it?”

He sounded gruff and tired, and she wondered whether she’d made the right choice. “It’s me,” she said. “Isabella.”

“I told you not to interrupt me when I was working.”

A shiver ran down her spine. She had always been bold, never afraid to stand up to her father or to Rosalind. The two of them disliked her, but they were known quantities. She understood how far she could push them safely. But with Arthur, it was different. She could tell he was displeased with her—was he angry? And if so, how angry was he, and how would his anger manifest? Not knowing the answers to those questions rattled her, and suddenly, she wished she was back in her bed. But it was too late. She had come this far, and the only choice she had was to go on.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I felt that I needed to talk to you…May I come in? Please?”

“I suppose you might as well,” he said, sounding as if she had asked for something entirely unreasonable. His voice was stiff and tight, and Isabella couldn’t help feeling as though she had wronged him in some serious way.

She opened the door, half afraid she would find him doing something illegal or disturbing, but he was sitting at his desk with a bunch of papers in front of him. He looked up at her as she came in. “What seems to be the problem?”

“Well…” She hesitated, not knowing quite how to say it. “I was in my room waiting for you, and…you never came.”

“You were waiting for me?”

“Yes. I thought you might have lost track of the hour or something.”

“Why were you waiting for me?” he asked.

She frowned. Could he mean that? Did he not understand why she’d expected to see him tonight?

Or maybe this was a power move of some sort. Maybe he wanted to hear her say it. That thought made her feel a little angry. This situation was uncomfortable enough—he didn’t need to play mind games with her.

Still, she was determined to see this through. “It’s our wedding night,” she explained. “I assumed you would come for me when…when you were ready…”

She flushed, realizing she could go no further. She had said all she could on the subject.

“Ah,” Arthur replied.

“I didn’t think you would be working on our wedding night,” she said. “I know I’m not to come bother you while you’re working, but I didn’t think…I assumed tonight would be different.”

“I should have explained,” he apologized. “The fault is mine. Don’t worry, Isabella. I’m not angry with you.”

“That’s good,” she said, but she still wasn’t sure how to feel. Why would he be angry with her? Was it better hearing that he wasn’t—was that a relief to her? She hadn’t been worried about his anger. She was angry with him. Why had he kept her waiting alone in her room the way he had?

And what did he mean when he said that he should have explained? What could there be to explain now? He had said that there were three rules—surely, she knew everything she needed to know about life with him now. Surely, there couldn’t be more? He had told her that if she followed his three rules, everything else would be as she wished it. Uncomplicated. That was what she’d been promised. She couldn’t help feeling now as if he was changing the arrangement that they’d made.

She looked at him, waiting for some sort of answer.

“Come in and sit down,” he suggested.

She came into the room, but she didn’t sit. This didn’t feel like a conversation she wanted to be seated for. She felt awkward and embarrassed about her own presence here, and in spite of what he had told her, she couldn’t help feeling as if she had done something to be ashamed of. That wasn’t a feeling Isabella was used to. When there had been conflict at her father’s house, she could usually remain comfortably assured that he was the one who was in the wrong.

She didn’t feel that way now.

Arthur seemed to realize that she wasn’t going to sit. He folded his hands on top of his desk. “Ours isn’t going to be the kind of marriage you’re imagining,” he told her.

“What do you mean?” She truly didn’t know.

“You’re talking about a wedding night, and I know what you’re picturing, of course—but that’s not the way our lives are going to be,” he explained. “We’ll live together, and we’ll present ourselves as husband and wife when we go out in public, but we won’t be close to one another in that way. We won’t be intimate behind closed doors.”

“I see.” She felt as if a rug had been pulled out from beneath her, sending her tumbling backward, but she was determined not to let him see that she was so caught off guard. “You’re right…I hadn’t realized that was what you wanted.”

“You thought I was looking for a more traditional sort of marriage.”

“Naturally, since you never told me otherwise,” she said coolly. “If you had mentioned anything about this?—”

“Then what? You wouldn’t have married me?”

“I’m not sure I ever had a choice in that regard,” she said. “My father wanted me to marry you. You’re the only person in the world who has ever offered to provide for my sister. I don’t know how I could have made a different decision.”

“I’m surprised you’re bold enough to raise this subject with me,” Arthur said. “I didn’t expect that you would come and talk to me about it directly.”

“And that’s why you never bothered to tell me?” she asked. “That’s why you thought you could leave me in my room, alone, with no discussion of this whatsoever? You thought you didn’t owe me an explanation and that you could get away with not giving one because you assumed I would never be bold enough to ask?”

“Well, I didn’t think of it in those terms,” he replied, regarding her as if she was an interesting essay in a book—something he wanted to learn more about, possibly, but not a person who mattered to him. “But since you say it that way, yes, I suppose that’s why I didn’t tell you. It never occurred to me that you would want to know.”

“Of course I would want to know.”

“But you said yourself that it wouldn’t have changed anything for you. That you would still have wanted to enter into this marriage. What difference would it have made if you had known?”

“At least I would have known,” she said, unable to articulate why it would have meant so much to her to feel respected and why she felt so strongly disrespected by the current state of things. “Thank you for your explanation, Your Grace.”

“Arthur,” he corrected her.

She had used his honorific on purpose. If he could put distance between the two of them, so could she. She nodded now, but she didn’t use his name. “I apologize for disturbing you,” she said. “I’ll return to my bed and leave you to your work.”

She turned and fled the room before he had the chance to call her back. She didn’t know whether he would have done it or not, and she didn’t really want to find out. She didn’t want to give him the chance to disappoint her again. Not tonight.

Back in her room, she extinguished her lantern and sat in the dark, thinking about the way her life looked now. What the future held—and what it didn’t.

How she wished her sister was here to talk to! She would have given anything to discuss the day’s events with Felicity. Felicity would have understood the way she was feeling.

Even Caroline, the closest thing she had to a friend here, couldn’t really understand. At least, Isabella doubted she could. And Caroline was still too new to her for Isabella to want to turn to her in this.

She lay awake long into the night, pondering, trying to decide whether this marriage had been worth it, and when the sun appeared over the horizon, she was still awake and no closer to an answer.