The Duke’s Borrowed Lie: He Whispered, “Kiss Me, and Let Him Believe We Share a Secret”—She Never Expected One Desperate Kiss to Save Her Family and Change Their Lives Forever

PART 2

The Duchess swept away to greet other guests, leaving Allaric and Isolda alone once more at the edge of the crowded room.

“Your mother does not miss much,” Isolda said quietly.

“No,” Allaric admitted. “She misses nothing at all, which is precisely why we must be careful what she sees.”

Isolda turned to look at him fully, searching his face for some sign of what he was truly thinking. There was a tension in him she had not noticed before — something guarded behind his composed expression, as though he carried a weight he did not wish anyone to see.

“You still have not told me what is truly happening,” she said. “Why would Lord Vain threaten me? What does any of this have to do with you?”

Allaric’s gaze flicked briefly toward the ballroom doors, where Edric had just reappeared, watching them both with a calculating stillness that made Isolda’s skin prickle.

“Lord Vain believes he knows something about my family that could destroy us. I do not yet know how much he has learned, or from whom. But tonight, when I saw him with you, I understood he intends to use anyone he can to get what he wants.”

“And you thought pretending to court me would stop him.”

“I thought,” Allaric said carefully, “that if he believed you and I were already entangled, he would think twice before threatening you again. A man like Vain calculates risk before he acts. He can still whisper about a debt — debts are common enough that half of Mayfair could be accused of the same. But if he tries to use that whisper to humiliate a woman under my open protection, in front of witnesses who saw me claim you tonight, the insult becomes mine to answer, not yours to survive alone. A man in his position cannot afford to make an enemy of a duke over a rumor he cannot even prove.”

Her chest tightened at the word duchess, spoken so casually, as though it were nothing at all.

“That is a very large assumption to build on a single kiss, your grace.”

“Perhaps.” He held her eyes. “But it was the only protection I could offer you in that moment. I am grateful you understood what I was asking, and that you were willing to trust me. Had you refused, I would have found another way.”

She should have said yes, it was unwelcome, and demanded he never do such a thing again. Instead she found herself remembering the warmth of his hand at her waist, the low urgency in his whispered words — and she said nothing at all.

The orchestra began a new set. Allaric extended his hand, an unspoken question in his eyes. Isolda hesitated only a moment before placing her fingers in his.

As they moved into the dance, she caught sight of Edric across the room, his eyes following their every step with a coldness that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Lord Vain is still watching us,” she murmured, as Allaric turned her gracefully beneath the chandelier’s glow.

“Let him watch,” Allaric said. “Every moment he spends watching us is a moment he spends doubting himself. That doubt may be the only weapon we have.”

“We,” she repeated softly. “You keep saying we, your grace, as though I have already agreed to whatever it is you are planning.”

His eyes met hers, steady and unreadable. “Have you not?”

She opened her mouth to deny it — to insist she wanted no part of his troubles, his secrets, his schemes. The words would not come.

The music swelled around them, and for a moment the whispers and the watching eyes faded into the background. There was only the steady pressure of his hand at her waist, the quiet intensity of his gaze, and the unsettling certainty that her carefully ordered life had just changed course entirely — all because of a kiss meant only to deceive.

When the dance ended, Allaric bowed over her hand, his lips brushing her knuckles far more properly than the kiss they had shared minutes before. Then, quieter, meant for her alone: “Thank you for trusting me. Even a little.”

“I have not decided yet whether I trust you,” she said honestly. “But I have decided I want to know the truth.”