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The Duke’s eyes shifted to the left and there was a twitch in his jaw, and while Louisa waited for him to say something, the silence stretched on. Pressed to break the silence, Louisa added, “I try not to let the disappointments and heartbreaks I suffered to define me. It’s a lot to carry such pain in one’s heart.”
“I do wish…” Duke Westwood started, then after a pause ended,“That I had not asked you.”
Louisa’s head inclined to the right, havinga strong feeling that he had not meant to say those words but had substituted them for another. Even then she could not ask him about it. The questions he had asked her too were very thought-provoking and suspicious as they were questions that she had never expected to hear from him.
With no power to ask him, Louisa could only sit—uncomfortably so—under Duke Westwood’s gaze. His head had twisted just an inch away and he was staring over her head instead of upon her.
After a prolonged stint of discomforting stillness in the study, Duke Westwood rubbed his eyes.“Thank you, Miss. Stone, I can only imagine how strange and upsetting this was for you. I promise that I will not ask you such troubling things again.”
He had given her every reason to escape more personal probing. Still, Louisa felt, that for once, she had a way to use her past pain for good, so she said, “No, Your Grace—” Duke Westwood visibly startled at her refusal, giving Louisa more bravery to add, “—I would like to answer any questions you might have, so please, do not hesitate to ask me.”
“Are you sure?” He asked.
“Yes, Your Grace, I am,” Louisa replied, feeling a surge of happiness inside her.
He did not seem to believe her, and the emotion showed on his face; Louisa realized that his face, always stoic and staid, showed more emotion than she had believed, if only she looked in the right places. Duke Westwood stood, rounded the table to stride to the window, stuck his hands in his pockets, and stared out.
Again, he looked so alone, and while he stood, Louisa wondered why he was giving her glimpses into his vulnerability, something she never had, ever thought she, or anyone, would see.
He turned from it.“Thank you, Miss Stone. You may go back to your duties.”
On her feet, Louisa curtsied.“My pleasure, Your Grace.”
She left the room, feeling the weight of his eyes resting heavily upon the back of her neck. When she turned to close the door behind her—there was something more to his gaze, something that made a soft shiver run under her skin, and made her breath catch.
“Good evening. Your Grace,” she said.
“As to you Lou—Miss. Stone,” he said.
Pretending not to hear his slip, she closed the door, but her legs were a bit unsteady under her as she walked away. Her name on his lips was strange—but deep inside, she wished she would hear it more.
Chapter Four
Her face, titled up the sunlight—was there anything more gorgeous?
Alone in his late mother’s garden, as it dimmed to twilight, Isaac tried to reconcile the strange feeling inside him—that of attraction. After Helena had broken his spirit, right before his parents had passed away, Isaac had been sure that attraction to any woman would be a thing of the past.
Fancying the symmetry of a woman’s face, liking the wide eyes that showed her naïveté, silently judging if his hands could span her slender waist, were things Isaac had believed would never occur to him again—but they did when it came to Miss Stone. And it made something inside him curl-up and hide.
Sitting in the dark, he tried to find what that part of him was—was it his bravery, the part of him that had not been afraid to take chances? Was it his pride, long shattered and broken? Was it his affection, that had grown cold and bitter?
What was it that made him want to reach out and touch Miss Stone? She had told him about her past, growing up in an orphanage and that her placement in his house was the most important thing to her—and that made him wonder why.
As night fell and Isaac still had not found an answer to his questions, he left to go insideand to his quarters. There he rung for supper and after eating, called for bath water. Miss Stone was a puzzling to him, but even more worrying was this damned ball he had allowed William to cajole him into attending.
Two days passed with him dreading receiving the invite, and when it arrived, he stared at the filigreed card as if it were a rabid animal ready to snap his fingers off. Lady Crossgrove’s Estate was not that far from his home, and her son was someone he probably should know, but Isaac could bet half his estate that he did not.
Flicking the card away, he sighed, “I am going to be a pariah. All and sundry will be staring at me as if I were the newest oddity in the travelling menagerie.”
A polite knock came on his breakfast room’s door. “Enter,” he said.
MissStone came in, holding a tray with a kettle of coffee, his cup and ceramic bowls holding milk and sugar. Most days he took his coffee black, and his cook knew it, but she never failed to send up milk and sugar on the off chance that he desired something different.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” she said quietly.
He mustered a smile. “As to you, Miss Stone.”
She rested the tray on his table and curtsied.“Please call if you need anything more.”
