Page 50 of A Scottish Bride for the Duke
Just to ensure she did nothing that might endanger his family’s reputation, of course. If she was meeting with another young gentleman clandestinely, then?—
He broke off the thought before he could let it settle.
Somehow, he doubted that was the reason she had fled the ballroom.
He found the doorway to the balcony and brushed past the filmy curtains.
There, Isobel stood with her hands curved around the stone of the low wall, her shoulders hunched. He caught the slight, jagged inhale of breath, and every rational thought fled his mind.
She wascrying.
It only took him two steps to get to her. There, he turned her shoulders, so she faced him.
Tears glazed her cheeks, illuminated by the distant glow of the ballroom. Her eyes, a dark moss-green in this light and red-rimmed, found his.
“Ah—Yer Grace.”
“Who did this to you?” he growled.
His muscles flexed and relaxed. He may not have the freedom he’d once wanted as duke, but he had plenty of power. Whoever had driven her, of all ladies, to cry, he would find them. Make them pay. Make them regret ever drawing breath.
“Isobel,” he snapped when she said nothing, merely drawing in another fractured breath. “Whodidthis to you? A name.”
She shook her head. “It’s nothing. Ye don’t need to be here.”
“Nonsense. I?—”
“Please, Adrian.” Her voice cracked, and he felt as though someone had punched him in the sternum.
He hadn’t felt like this in?—
No, he couldn’t think in how long.
“No,” he said, tightening his grip on her shoulder. “Tell me what happened.”
“I need to leave. To go. I need…” She scrubbed a hand across her face and attempted to move past him into the ballroom again. “He came too soon,” she muttered, and Adrian stepped in front of her, halting her progress.
“Isobel,” he said, biting back his impatience and frustration. “You cannot go back in there in this state.”
“There’s naetime.” Her accent thickened in her distress. “I must leavenow.”
“What’s waiting for you in there?” he demanded, jerking his chin in the direction of the ballroom.
“Not there. I must leaveLondon.”
“London?”
“Aye!”
Another feeling pierced his chest. A deep reluctance and something else. Something akin to panic.
“For what reason? Does my mother know about this?”
“Nae, but—” Her breath caught on a sob, more tears streaking down her cheeks.
He’d never seen her like this before—so often, she had been defiant, proud, challenging him in ways no other lady had challenged him. At the sight of her so upset, so fragile, when he associated her with the wild breeze streaking over the moorlands, he lost his anger.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, curving one hand around the back of her head and guiding her face into his shoulder. “Shh.”
