When the Duke Returns(62)

“So are you! And it wasn’t just my dowry. I inherited my parents’ estate, you cretin.”

“Cretin?” he said slowly.

“Cretino!” she said. Clearly, she had completely lost control. There were inky black curls flying around her head, and she actually pointed a finger at him, as if she were his governess. “Just what do you think I’m talking about?”

“Your dowry,” he said, pulling his mind back on track.

“Thirteen vineyards,” she said, walking a step toward him. “A palazzo in Venice, on the Grand Canal, a house in the mountains outside Florence that my mother inherited from her grandfather, a Medici duke, and a house in Trieste that belonged to my great-grandmother on my father’s side.”

Simeon opened his mouth, but she walked another step toward him. Her eyes were glowing with rage. “In all, I employ over two hundred underlings.” Her voice was scathing. “None of them live in houses filled with the stink of excrement! None of my houses are surrounded by withered lands. None of my bills are unpaid! None of them!”

The truth of it felt like a blow. “You’re right.”

“Those bills should be paid as a gesture of good will, and because at this point you cannot ascertain who is swindling you and who is not. And let me remind you, Simeon, that your father is the swindler in question: it was he who ordered goods and services, and never paid for them.”

“I never—” He stopped. “I didn’t think of it in that light. I should have known that my mother was unable to run this estate. Had I paid more attention to my solicitors’ letters, I probably would have discovered that my father had lost his mind.”

The anger in her eyes turned to sympathy. He hated that. In fact, he hated her. He bowed. “If you’ll forgive me, I have an appointment.” Then he turned and left, not waiting for her permission.

He headed straight outside. It was raining, but the air smelled sweet and clean. Birds were ignoring the rain and singing anyway. A footman tumbled through the door behind him, bleating something about his greatcoat. He ignored him and headed into the dilapidated gardens.

There was a scamper of feet behind him and he turned around, ready to snap a reprimand. Honeydew had to learn his place—

But it was Isidore.

She was trotting down the path after him, holding an absurdly coquettish, pink, ruffled umbrella in the air. Her hair was still in disarray, and little ringlets bobbed on her shoulders as she ran toward him. He almost stepped off the path, behind a bush, but he stopped himself.

She skidded to a halt in front of him. He braced himself, but there was no sympathy in her eyes. Instead, she looked rather annoyed.

“I think we have to make a rule,” she said.

“What?” His lips felt numb. He felt slightly unbalanced. He often felt like that around Isidore. “What sort of rule?”

“No walking out and leaving a person in the midst of an argument.” She tucked her arm into his and cocked her umbrella. Her face was shiny with rain. A drop ran down her cheek.

Simeon put a finger on the raindrop and brushed it away.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“So am I.”

“I expect it was wonderful in Africa, away from here,” she said.

Simeon sighed inwardly. From the sympathetic strain in Isidore’s voice, she was clearly coming to understand the reasons that he fled to the East the moment he turned seventeen.

“I don’t walk out in the rain,” he said, all evidence to the contrary. “I am practical, thoughtful, and controlled.”

She laughed and it was terrifying how much he liked the sound.

“I myself never walk in the rain, and particularly never sit down on wet benches,” she said, plumping herself onto a wrought-iron bench shining with water. She laughed up at him and he sat down beside her.

The rain was merely sprinkling now, rolling down his neck in an unconvincing, yet cold, manner.

“When my mother died,” Isidore said, “I was so afraid that I couldn’t breathe correctly.”

He stopped thinking about how cold his bottom felt and curled his hands around her fingers instead. They were small and warm.

“I used to lie awake at night and think that my breath was filling the room, so there wouldn’t be any air left for me to breathe.”

Simeon thought of saying the obvious, that her fear didn’t make sense, but choked it back. Isidore was not a person who appreciated the obvious. “When did that feeling go away?” he asked instead.

“I finally told my aunt.”

“And she was able to reassure you?”

“No. She couldn’t convince me that I wasn’t right.” He turned to see her smiling up at him, her lips soft and ruby-colored, like a flower on the banks of the Ganges River.