Page 15 of Duke of Diamonds
But above all else, one thought haunted her as she walked beneath the gaslamps and back toward the only home that did not feel like hers.
What was that smile when I said Canterlack’s name?
It had been a smile meant for war, not reassurance. And she, foolish creature that she was, had knocked on the door of a stranger and begged for rescue.
Reckless and desperate, but it was done now, and she would have to live with whatever came next.
CHAPTER 5
Isaac sat in the soft golden wash of morning light, his fingers suspended above a narrow gear that refused to fit. Sleep had eluded him again, though he had not truly expected it to come. It rarely did when thoughts clung so stubbornly—and today, they clung with the scent of garden roses and the sharp taste of desperation.
Lady Fiona Pierce.
She had appeared like a phantom on his doorstep, cloaked in midnight and trembling resolve. Reckless, certainly. But beneath the recklessness, he had glimpsed something else—something too familiar to ignore.
Not boldness. Not defiance. Desperation.
Perhaps that was why her request struck a chord he could not ignore. Not because she reminded him of someone. But because she reminded him of himself.
He adjusted the magnifier resting over one eye, guiding the brass pin into place with careful precision, though his thoughts remained elsewhere. The gear slipped, skittering across the workbench.
With a sigh, he tightened a screw more forcefully than necessary.
“This is not about her,” he muttered, but even as he said it, he knew it was not true.
No, it was not entirely about Lady Fiona. It was about failure—his own—and the price someone else had paid for it. The kind of mistake a man might spend a lifetime trying to rectify.
This time, he would not stand idle. The workshop door creaked open.
“I knew I’d find you in here,” Elaine said, her voice warm and light, as though it had been summoned by the very weight of his thoughts.
She entered without hesitation, her skirts whispering over stone as she crossed the room with all the ease of someone who had never been denied entry.
“You are forever hunched over that contraption,” she went on, coming to stand beside him. “Do you never tire of squinting through that blasted glass?”
“Do you ever tire of writing sonatas no one but you can decipher?” he returned, not lifting his gaze from the delicate mechanisms before him.
“Never,” she declared with a toss of her head. “I shall compose until I am buried with my quill.”
“There it is, then,” Isaac murmured, allowing the faintest smile. “I shall set aside my screws and cogs the day you abandon your music.”
Her laugh was soft, genuine—a sound he rarely heard from anyone but her. “A fair bargain,” she agreed.
A quiet settled between them, companionable and full of memory. He could feel the shift before she spoke again.
“I heard you had a caller last night.”
His fingers paused, though only briefly.
“A woman,” she added, the word stretched with deliberate mischief.
“How is it,” Isaac asked, keeping his gaze steady on the gear he no longer saw, “that you know more about this household than those who reside in it?”
Elaine perched on the edge of a stool, hands folded neatly in her lap. “Because someone must keep an eye on you.”
“And do I truly require such vigilance?”
A shadow passed over her face then, a familiar flicker that caught in the corner of her eyes. “I must do right by my brother at least.”
