Mr. Vance did not answer, but she could feel the heat coming from him, as if he would explode.
It was terrible and terrifying, and she had done it. She had wrought this. She should have been more firm in pushing him off all along. It was her own fault that she’d been not firm enough, that she may have given him the idea that there was a chance, even if only a small one.
She’d not been able to be so firm. The regret she anticipated as a result of making the sensible choice washed over her like a rogue wave that could sink a ship. She could hardly catch her breath.
This was the moment. This was the moment she had chosen a path to follow and she would leave her heart by the side of the road, never to be examined more.
“Nobody could love you more and instead you will run and hide. Your entire life will be guided by your fear. You will end up regretting it,” Mr. Vance said gruffly.
Isabel recoiled from his words. She had thought he would protect his dignity by acting as if her refusal was no great matter. She’d understood that was what a disappointed gentleman did. He had not though. He spoke of her future regret. It was perhaps not the most appropriate sentiment, but there could hardly be a truer one. She regretted it already.
Though her mind was being battered from all sides from her heart’s urgent signals, she was at least clear on one thing. She could not dine with Mr. Vance as if nothing at all had happened.
She pinched herself to stop from blubbering on the ballroom floor. Gathering all her resolve, she said, “In light of the…circumstances, it may be well for me to develop a headache and retire.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Vance said sharply.
His anger nearly took her breath away.
The dance came to an end.
Everything came to an end.
Isabel curtsied and hurried away to find the duchess. She must leave this place before she could no longer contain herself and made a very great and hysterical scene.
*
Harry crashed throughhis front doors, not waiting for a footman to open it. His butler took one look at him and stepped aside. He jogged up the stairs and stumbled into his bedchamber.
Smith was on his heels, his valet hearing the commotion. The man went right to the decanter of brandy and poured him a large glass. “I do not know what has happened, but it is surely terrible. Please tell me you do not have some appointment at dawn lined up.”
“She refused me,” Harry said, draining the glass of brandy and slamming it on a dresser. “She still cannot see that she is preventing her own happiness!”
“Then, you are convinced that she loves you, but not enough to overlook your rather recent entry into theton?”
“It’s the connections,” Harry said. “Her father has been bailed out who knows how many times by his network of deep-pocketed relatives.”
“So she wishes for the same guarantees,” Smith said. “Perhaps there will be another lady some time in future who will not come with such a damaged psyche?”
Smith said the words in a hopeful tone, though Harry knew well enough that neither of them held out such a possibility.
“There will not be another lady of any sort of psyche,” Harry said. He knew it to be true. He’d been looking for her and had found her and that was that.
“What shall you do, then?” Smith asked. “You must have an heir, or your cousin—”
“Yes, I know. My idiot cousin will run the estate into the ground until it is worth nothing,” Harry said.
He paused. Why was he giving up so easily? Did no gentleman ever make a second run at it? Certainly, they must have.
“I could ask again. And then again. And again if necessary.”
“Ah, wear the lady down,” Smith said.
“Yes. No. I don’t know. No, it won’t work. The only thing that would work would be to fix the underlying problem.”
“Which is?”
“Her damn father!”
