Yet, he was so caught off guard that he could not summon a playful retort or even a simple deflection. All he could do was stare blankly into the distance.
“Oliver,mo chridhe,” Isla said, her voice warm as she wrapped an arm around him. “Look! Matthew has a wooden soldier, does he nae? Go ask him if ye can see its sword. Quickly now, make a game of it!”
Oliver, distracted by the mention of a sword, scampered back to his friend. Isla turned to Benedict, her expression unreadable. Yet, she offered him a tiny, almost imperceptible shake of the head before she smiled brilliantly, turning her attention back to the maid caring for Baby Fiona.
“What a lovely basket. Tell me, is that Irish lace?” Isla asked.
As the women spoke, Benedict could only stand there, mute and still as a statue. He dared not look at the Duke and Duchess, afraid of what their eyes would say, how they would judge him. He was acutely aware that his wife had just saved him from exposing a weakness he had not known she could see.
“Your Grace,” Isla said, bringing his attention back to the present moment. “Would it not be a grand time to have their graces and their lovely children over for breakfast before we return to the Manor?”
“Oh, what a splendid idea,” Elspeth said with a smile to them both, saving Benedict from whatever haphazard response would come out of his mouth.
“It is settled then,” Isla said. “I will send an invitation over with the details when we return to the townhouse.”
“Can I play with Matthew?!” Oliver said as he hopped over to Benedict, looking up at him with bright blue eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Later that night, long after Isla had retired to the master suite and the Ealdwick townhouse had settled into its nighttime stillness, Benedict was awake. He had dismissed his papers and his claret, finding neither provided the distraction he sought. He paced the length of his private study, lost in his spiraling thoughts.
He stopped at the window, staring out at the London streetlights below. He thought of Isla’s quick response when he had frozen, her immediate deflection to save appearances. There had been a tenderness between them lately, an unexpected, fiery connection even he could not deny.
How can this arrangement work for a man like me? Can we truly build a family, one that is not cold and transactional? How can I give something that I never received myself?
The idea sickened him, and not because he disliked Isla. Quite the contrary, he was impossibly conflicted by the way he wasdrawn to her. Against his better judgment, he grabbed his decanter from the study bar and poured a small glass of brandy. He swirled the contents, holding up the amber glass as he sniffed it.
Isla’s wit, resilience, and genuine warmth were attractive. He sipped the brandy, trying to organize his thoughts when they drifted once more.
Cecelia…
He remembered his first wife. A delicate woman, she had been delighted when she learned she was expecting their first child. It was a marriage he used to his social advantage, to pick up the pieces of the duchy his father had ruined with his drinking and squandering. While it was not a tender marriage, there was mutual respect. With the child, Benedict had allowed himself a flicker of hope then for his life. Even in spite of it all.
That hope had been extinguished with brutal force when she died shortly after childbirth, as if in response to a curse that was placed on his household.
Mother.
The real wound, the one that never scabbed over and healed, was his mother. Benedict was worn down by the constant cruelty of his father, if he could even call him that. The former Duke made it clear that love was a weakness, and children were only instruments of succession. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“You will fail, boy,”his father’s ghost seemed to snarl inside his head.“You are weak. You will destroy her, just as you destroyed the last one.”
Benedict closed his eyes, his knuckles white against the cold glass of the windowpane as he leaned into it. He could not fail his house, and to do so, he must ignore his heart.
I will protect her… even if it is from me.
He would not doom anyone who dared to love him, especially not Isla.
Isla, also unable to sleep, put on her heaviest dressing gown and left the master suite. She grabbed a taper and walked down the empty hall, her bare feet silent on the cold marble floor. She knew exactly where Benedict would be.
His private study was dark, save for a single lamp casting a circle of gold over the polished desk and the smoldering fire. An unmistakable figure stood rigidly by the window, looking out into the dark night. He had not changed from his daytime attire, except that his greatcoat and waistcoat had been discarded. He was left in a crisp white shirt that looked stark against the darkness, accentuating his impossibly broad shoulders. There was a glass of dark liquor, though it remained untouched on the sill.
“You should be asleep, Isla,” Benedict said, his voice flat, not bothering to turn around. “Go back to bed.”
“And ye should be restin’ as well,” she said softly, walking toward the fireplace to warm her cold hands. “Come to bed, Ben, where it is warm and comfortable. Let me hold ye.”
“I am busy,” he said quietly.
“Busy?”
