Page 124 of Duke of Diamonds
“You are not to blame.” He turned from her abruptly, as though ashamed of his own helplessness.
Crossing to the sideboard, he retrieved a glass and poured from the decanter, the liquid glinting amber in the firelight. He returned to her and knelt once more, placing the brandy into her chilled hands.
“This should help.”
She drank. The warmth struck her throat, sharp and unforgiving, but it steadied her trembling fingers.
“I nearly failed you too, Fiona,” he murmured, taking her hands into his once more, raising them to his lips before blowing softly across her knuckles as though to soothe some unseen wound.
She looked up at him, his features drawn and eyes glassy. “You haven’t,” she said, pressing his fingers. “And you never will.”
“It was Aaron,” Isaac said, the words low and sharp.
Fiona stiffened, the name falling like a stone into the still waters of her thoughts.
“Mary’s lover was the Earl of Canterlack.”
Her breath caught.No...The realization struck hard and fast. The man who had haunted her, nearly ruined her, had once destroyed Mary too.
“Aaron seduced my sister,” Isaac continued, voice strained, “and persuaded her to elope with him. I was sixteen, still green and foolish, but I knew dishonor when I saw it. I followed them—halfway to Scotland. Challenged him to a duel for what he had done.”
Fiona’s mind raced.The field. The confrontation. It was the one Mary described...Pieces from the journal clicked sharply into place.
“He admitted it all. That he never loved her. That he’d only wanted what pleasure he could take. Said it right to my face.” Isaac’s jaw tensed. “But we did not know Mary had followed. She heard every vile word.”
His eyes dropped to the floor, shadowed with the weight of memory.
“She heard him say she meant nothing to him. That she was only a means to an end. His words broke her.”
Fiona placed a hand over her heart as if to steady it. “Oh dear…”
“He shot me,” Isaac said, voice quiet now. “Right through the shoulder. I was lucky. But Mary blamed herself. Said she’d nearly sent her brother to the grave for a man who cared not a whit for her.”
He looked up at her then, and Fiona saw the grief, sharp and raw, still etched behind his eyes.
“She was never the same. The melancholy never lifted. On her eighteenth birthday, we found her by the lake. She left a letter—for Elaine and me. An apology. A farewell.”
Tears blurred Fiona’s vision once more. She hadn’t realized they’d fallen until his thumb swept them gently away. He pulled her into his arms, and she let herself be folded into the shelter of his embrace.
The scar on his shoulder. The bitterness in his voice whenever Aaron was near. The way he’d insisted on protecting her, even if it meant scandal…
Every thread now wove into a tapestry of heartbreak and warning. He had not merely pitied her. He had known—he had known—what such a man could destroy.
“I failed Mary,” Isaac murmured, as if reading the very thoughts turning over in her mind. “And now I’ve nearly failed you too.”
“No. None of it was ever through any fault of yours.” Fiona brought her hands to his face, her palms resting against the warmth of his cheeks.
“You did your best,” she said, her voice low but sure. “You are just as much a victim in all of this, Isaac. And I cannot begin to say how sorry I am about Mary.”
He looked at her, eyes shadowed, but something in them shifted. A glimmer of something raw and restless. Then his gaze dipped to her throat.
“The scoundrel left marks,” he said, reaching up. His fingers brushed lightly over her skin, and she could feel her breath catch despite herself.
He leaned in, and his lips followed the trail his fingers had made, pressing a kiss first to one mark, then another. Each touch was gentle, reverent.
“I’m sorry, Fiona,” he whispered against her skin.
“Isaac…” Her eyes closed on a sigh, her fingers curling lightly into the fabric of his coat. She didn’t know what she meant to say, only that she needed him close, needed this moment to wash away all the horror of what had come before.
