Page 91 of The Duke and the Accidental Bride

“Surely, you are joking,” Louisa said.

Isabella pushed her lips together. “What? No, of course I am not. Why would I be?”

“Because I was wrong about him. Clearly. And you, for that matter.”

“But... but... but...” Isabella looked at her sister as if she had lost her mind, which she very well may have. As if that scar ran so deep that it touched her brain.

“Isabella...” Louisa shook her head. “When we last spoke, I said some not very nice things about your husband.”

“You spoke the truth!”

“I thought I did,” she agreed. “So, when I saw he and Lady St. Vincent sneaking into the manor alone, I thought to catch them in the act.”

“And the fact that you felt the need to do this is my –”

“Will you just listen!” Louisa snapped. “Honestly, you are being rather self-righteous. One would think that you were the one who was stabbed.”

“I am just saying –”

“All the wrong things,” Louisa sighed. She reached out and took Isabella’s hand, squeezing it as she met her eyes. “Lady St. Vincent...” She scoffed. “She was confessing her love for your husband. What was more, she believed that if he refused to admit that he loved you, then she might have a chance. It was rather strange...” She chuckled. “Even more so that when he refused to, she completely lost her mind.”

“Yes, I know all of this,” Isabella said.

“And yet you refuse to listen.” She looked pointedly at Isabella. “He might not have said it in so many words, but it was clear to me that your husband loves you. Far more than I thought he did – hence, my being wrong. Perhaps your relationship is a little odd. Perhaps the two of you are a tad antagonistic compared to most. But if that is what works, then so be it. Who am I to judge?”

“I –” Isabella opened her mouth to argue the point but no words came out.

Duncan loves me? Surely, Louisa misunderstood?

“Are you certain… what makes you think that?” she asked.

“Think what?”

“That he loves me.” Her pulse began to race.

Louisa sighed. “Because I could see it, Isabella. I could hear it in his words. I admit, I am not expert in love, but I like to think that I can tell when a man is in love with someone – his wife, especially. And if you had heard the way that he dismissed Lady St. Vincent, well…” She shrugged. “What else could it be?”

The room seemed to turn around Isabella.

It should not have been such a strange thing to hear that one’s own husband loved them but, when considering the strangeness of Isabella and Duncan’s marriage, it was almost unbelievable.

They had never spoken about love before. They had never even spoken about their feelings. With how tumultuous their relationship was, it was enough that they had found a rhythm which allowed them to enjoy one another’s company intimately and completely without muddying the waters with talk of love.

She had not even been certain that Duncan was capable of love. She certainly didn’t think that she was. For all her life, love was the last thing that she had ever wanted, thinking it a waste of time and a distraction. Why tie oneself down with longings of love when there was a world to explore and endless study to get lost in?

But now that the words had been said, that she knew them to be true, she could not help but wonder... did she love Duncan?

I do not even know what love is. How can I be expected to answer such a question?!

She supposed that she did miss him, now that she thought about it. The sex, she clearly missed, for that was the backbone of their entire relationship. But beyond the sex... those intimate moments they spent together when they were not tearing at the other’s bodies like starved animals...

They fought often. They argued all the time. They pushed one another. They teased and tested and annoyed. It should have been a recipe for disaster, a calamity of a relationship that never had a chance of working. Yet the more that Isabella thought about it, the more she realized that was exactly what she loved about their marriage.

Forever against the concept of falling in love, perhaps what Isabella had feared was falling in love with the wrong person? Someone who bored her. Someone who tried to change her. Someone who did not like her for who she was but for who they wanted her to be.

That was not Duncan.

And so it was, as her sister eyed her knowingly, and as Isabella searched her feelings like she never had before, she came to realize an answer so obvious that it was almost embarrassing it has taken her this long to admit.

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