Fingers fumbling at the tie, Isabella pulled her wrapper around her, cinching the quilted flannel tight at her waist. Her bare toes peeked from beneath the hem, pale against the threadbare carpet, cold prickling up through the nap, a draft nipping at her feet and ankles. She was by no means ready to be seen by a visitor, but etiquette lost value beneath the weight of her concern. She opened the door and inched out onto the landing as footsteps pounded across the floor below. The front door creaked open, then slammed.
Papa muttered under his breath. Then he fell silent, the sudden lack of sound more jarring than his tirade had been. As Isabella set her bare foot on the top stair, her father yanked the door open once more and stormed out. The door slammed behind him, rattling in its frame.
Intent on following him outside, Isabella rushed back to her room, grabbed her boot and tried to force it onto her bare foot, heel skidding along the lining.
Then Papa’s voice came again, this time carrying from the street below her window, loud and rough. Kicking free of the half-donned boot, she then ran to the window and pulled aside the heavy gold brocade drapes. The glass was cold against her fingertips, a stark contrast to the firestorm of her father’s fury.
Papa stood on the front walkway, hatless, coatless, his chest heaving with his rapid breaths. His right arm was extended, index finger pointing at a man Isabella did not recognize.
The stranger was tall, the fine fabric of his well-tailored black coat accenting the broad, powerful set of his shoulders. His legs were encased in fawn-colored trousers, his shiny black boots planted firmly apart, a stance that suggested a refusal to yield. He stood like someone accustomed to wielding control, someone to be viewed with caution. Even the morning mist curled near but did not touch, as though it too was wary of his presence.
But Papa showed no such hesitancy.
“Begone!” he cried, his outstretched arm shaking with rage, head jutting forward, shoulders hunched with a fury never meant to be felt by a man of his normally mild disposition.
A pulse of fear throbbed in Isabella’s breast. Papa was not well. His heart was fragile, his breathing often ragged. She had never seen him so enraged. A whisper of dread coiled through her, and she gripped the window frame so hard that her nails ached. What if this fury was the thing that ended him?
She undid the latch and opened the window just as her father snapped, “You are a trickster, a would-be thief. I will not part with?—”
Papa cut himself off, his face twisting with something more than anger.
Fear.
But the stranger did not move, did not speak. He simply existed, tall and solid, his stillness unnerving.
Papa’s hand went to his chest, fingers splaying wide. Isabella’s own heart lurched with concern.
“You do not understand what you are asking,” Papa rasped, the words wrenched from him, harsh and discordant. “It is not safe. You would open a gate that can never be closed. One that might well swallow her whole.”
“You speak of safety,” the stranger said, low and smooth. “But leaving her in ignorance is a danger of a different order.”
Isabella stiffened. Her.
Were they speaking of her?
The moment stretched, tight and brittle.
The man lifted his head and turned toward her window. From this angle, the brim of his hat concealed the upper part of his face. Though she could not see his eyes, she felt his gaze search her out, piercing through the crack in the curtains.
The breath left her lungs in a sharp exhale.
His attention was neither the polite glance of a gentleman nor the flickering assessment of a stranger. It was something deep and heavy and knowing, stripping away her layers, searching for something beneath her skin.
A slow, suffocating sensation unfurled inside her, a certainty that he could see past her carefully constructed composure. Past her mask. Past the lie of normalcy she maintained.
She did not know this man. And yet, she felt as though his gaze had plundered her secrets, laid her bare. As though he knew her, and all she fought so hard to hide.
Her heart kicked hard against her ribs. She should look away. She should break the moment before it consumed her whole. But as the seconds ticked past, she did not move.
Then Papa twisted to look up at her, his skin gray as ash, slick with sweat.
She forced herself to step back, letting the drapery fall…but not all the way. A thin sliver of space remained, just wide enough for her to see the stranger below. He stood motionless in the street, tall and unwavering, his presence like a jagged rock just waiting to gouge the hull of any ship that drifted too close.
The tilt of his head revealed the hard angle of his jaw, the hollows beneath his cheekbones, the line of his mouth. His hat cast a shadow over his forehead and eyes but did little to obscure the severe handsomeness of his face, all sharp planes and unyielding strength.
There was no softness in him. Only calculated precision. Deliberate stillness.
She swallowed, disconcerted, his attention unfamiliar, unwanted. Unbearable.
