Page 47 of Her Beast of a Duke
“Even if you want him?” Mary questioned, her mouth turning up at the corners mischievously. “It is all right to have such desires, Isabella. Heaven knows enough women do, but we feel as though we cannot speak of them. After all, we are there to create heirs, but I know that the act of that can be much more than a clinical, distant affair.”
Isabella’s eyes went back to the familiar face as her friend spoke, and her heart dropped.
No, not him.
It really was who she had thought.
Her stomach clenched as Lord Stanton strolled up to her, his smile wide and as charming as she remembered it. He was dressed in a combination of butter-yellow and navy, and the sight was much too jaunty for Isabella’s mood.
“Oh, no,” Mary whispered, finally seeing Stanton approaching. “Quick, let us turn around and pretend we have not seen?—”
“Lady Isabella,” Lord Stanton greeted loudly once he was within earshot. His arms were already parting as if to embrace her, but she hastily stepped back, jostling Mary’s side. “My, my, it has been some time, no?”
“Good morning, Lord Stanton,” she returned her greeting, her voice clipped yet polite. “I hope you have been well.”
“I have attempted to be, certainly,” he laughed, and she bristled. “It turns out that one is not very well when one’s other half is absent.”
He let his eyes linger on her knowingly, his mouth quirking in a suggestive way she had once found rather handsome.
It was as though they shared a secret, one that she was being invited on, but now she only thought he looked foolish.
“Well, when you find that other half, I do hope you feel better,” she answered. “Lady Mary and I were just leaving.”
“So soon?”
“Indeed.”
“You must walk with me,” he implored.
Crushed beneath his top hat, the peak of his blonde, thick waves of short hair caught the sun, but she did not swoon for him the way othertonladies did. To her, he looked…boyish, almost. Soft.
“We must not,” she answered, smiling falsely. “Lady Mary has plans.”
“And your own?”
Isabella smiled wider. “I shall be returning to my husband.”
“Ah.” Lord Stanton glanced around, setting his hands on his hips with a short chuckle. “The Duke of Rochdale. A most admirable husband. Had I known that was your next option, perhaps I would have shown up at St. Peter’s Church that morning just to save you from being a beast’s duchess.”
“Lord Stanton,” Isabella ground out. “I will ask you only once to refrain from calling him that or speaking of your own mistake.”
“I know, I know. I was merely trying to make light of what I did. I have regretted it every day since, Lady Isabella.”
“It isYour Gracenow, Lord Stanton,” Mary chipped in, her eyes narrowing on him.
“Of course, my mistake.” He did not sound very regretful at all, not of anything.
Still, he locked gazes with Isabella, and shewatchedhow the charm overtook his face even deeper, and it made her stomach roll with irritation.
She did not have the patience for this.
“Your Grace, I am terribly sorry for the poor way I left things between us,” he said. “It was a coward’s behavior, and I live with my own shame. I am sorry. Yet I cannot be truly sorry, for I see how being a duchess simply becomes you. You are… different.”
Isabella held his gaze for a long moment, her smile polite, her composure unshaken.
“Yes,” she said evenly, “I am different. I learned that one survives being left at the altar not by mourning what is lost, but by recognizing what one deserves.”
Her words landed sharper than a slap, though her tone remained cool, even gracious.
