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 4

In the days that followed, their partnership deepened beyond the pretense that had begun it. Isolda attended card games and garden walks, gathering small pieces of gossip that on their own meant little but together might form a larger picture. Meanwhile, the warmth between her and Allaric grew harder to deny — stolen glances across crowded rooms, quiet conversations in the library after the other guests had retired, the accidental brush of hands that lingered a moment too long.

One evening, walking along the edge of the moonlit terrace, Isolda turned to him with a question that had been growing in her mind for days.

“If we succeed,” she said quietly. “If we find the proof and stop Lord Vain — what happens then? Does our courtship end as quickly as it began?”

Allaric stopped walking and turned to face her fully, the moonlight softening the sharp lines of his face. “I confess, Lady Isolda, I no longer know how to answer that honestly. What began as a necessary deception has become something I find myself unwilling to give up, regardless of how this ends.”

Her breath caught at the sincerity in his voice. “You should be careful, your grace. Such words could be mistaken for true affection.”

“Perhaps,” he said, stepping closer, “because they are true affection.”

For a moment, Isolda forgot entirely about false documents and scheming lords. There was only the steady warmth of his gaze, and the quiet certainty that whatever had begun as a lie in a darkened corridor was slowly, unmistakably becoming true.

Then a movement at the edge of the terrace caught her eye. Lord Edric Vain stood just beyond the lantern light, watching them both with cold, calculating patience. He inclined his head slightly when he saw her notice him, then turned and disappeared into the garden shadows, leaving her with a chill that had nothing to do with the night air.

“He was there,” she said finally. “Watching us from the garden.”

Allaric’s expression darkened at once, all softness gone. “How long?”

“I do not know. Long enough, I think, to see everything.”

“Then he knows this is no longer only pretense. That changes things. A man like Vain grows more dangerous when he believes he has lost control of a situation, not less.”

The search for a name pressed on. A clerk who had once worked for the family solicitor, dismissed suddenly six months ago under circumstances no one would explain — that was the thread Allaric’s agent had found and could pull no further. His name was Nathaniel Price. He had vanished from his last lodgings weeks earlier, leaving no forwarding address, and no trace beyond a landlady who remembered him as a nervous young man who paid his rent in cash and rarely spoke to anyone.

Three days later, sitting with Ren in the morning room, Isolda finally told her friend everything — the forged documents, the threat to Allaric’s estate, Lord Vain’s suspected hand in it, the missing clerk who might hold the truth.

“Then we must find this Nathaniel Price,” Ren said firmly when Isolda finished. “My cousin Edmund works for a shipping merchant in the village. Clerks with good hands for figures are not so easily forgotten in a town this small.”

At the shipping office that afternoon, Edmund confirmed a nervous clerk matching Price’s description had sought work at several offices, though none had hired him, put off by his obvious anxiety.

“He mentioned once,” Edmund said, lowering his voice, “that he was frightened of someone powerful. Said if certain people learned where he was, he would not live to see another year. I thought it was simply nerves. But perhaps there was truth in it.”

He recalled Nathaniel had mentioned needing lodging near the harbor, somewhere quiet, somewhere he would not easily be found — a boarding house near the old mill, run by a widow who asked no questions of her tenants.

Isolda returned to the estate at once and sought out Allaric, finding him in the study with his agent, a weathered man named Josiah Bell.

“I know where to find him,” she said without preamble. “A boarding house near the old mill.”

Allaric rose immediately. “I am coming with you,” Isolda said before he could argue.

“Absolutely not. This is dangerous, Isolda.”

“I found him. He may be more willing to speak with a woman who approaches him gently than with a group of armed men who might frighten him into silence.”

Josiah nodded slowly. “The lady makes a fair point, your grace. A frightened man responds poorly to intimidation.”

Allaric’s jaw tightened, torn between logic and his obvious desire to keep her from danger. Finally he exhaled. “Very well. But you will not leave my sight for a single moment.”

They rode out beneath a sky heavy with clouds. Isolda approached the narrow, weathered boarding house alone, while Allaric and his men waited out of sight behind a stand of trees. Her knock echoed hollowly. After a long, tense silence, the door creaked open to reveal a thin, hollow-eyed young man who flinched at the sight of a stranger.

“I am not seeking trouble,” Isolda said gently. “My name is Isolda Marchant. I believe you may be Nathaniel Price.”

The young man’s face drained of color. He tried to close the door; she stepped forward, placing her hand against the wood.

“Please. I know you are frightened. I know someone forced you to do something terrible — something involving forged documents belonging to the Vern family. I am not here to harm you. I am here because a good man’s entire estate, his family’s legacy, is being destroyed by a lie you may hold the power to correct.”

Nathaniel’s hands trembled against the doorframe. “You do not understand what he will do to me if I speak.”

“Who threatened you, Nathaniel? You will be safe here with me. No one followed us, and no one knows of this visit except those I trust completely.”

His eyes searched her face for a long moment, weighing whether her kindness could truly be trusted after months of living in fear. Slowly, the tension eased from his shoulders, and he stepped back to allow her a small space within the threshold.

Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, he spoke a single name that confirmed everything Allaric had suspected.

“Lord Vain,” he whispered. “He came to me six months ago with the documents already drafted, needing only my hand to make them appear authentic. He said if I refused he would ensure I never found honest work again in this county. When I hesitated, he said far worse things. Things I dare not repeat.”

Isolda’s heart raced with triumph and dread in equal measure.

“Nathaniel — would you be willing to tell this to the Duke of Vern himself? He means you no harm. He wishes only to clear his family’s name.”

Fear warred visibly with something that might have been relief at finally being able to speak the truth aloud. “If Lord Vain learns I have spoken, he will destroy me.”

Hoofbeats sounded on the road. Nathaniel looked past her, and whatever fragile trust she had won vanished from his face. A rider in Vain’s dark green livery had appeared at the far bend.

“You said no one followed you.” Nathaniel stumbled backward. “You brought him to me.”

“No. I swear it.”

But he had already seized a coat and fled through the rear of the house. By the time Allaric and Josiah reached her, the rider had wheeled away and Nathaniel had disappeared among the abandoned sheds surrounding the mill.

They searched until the first drops of rain began to fall. Josiah found footprints at the riverbank that ended beside the swollen water, and Allaric’s face turned grim.

“He may have crossed,” Josiah said. “Or wished us to believe he did.”

Isolda looked toward the mill. Its great wheel stood motionless, but a narrow door beneath it shifted once against the wind and then held still. She remembered Nathaniel speaking of somewhere quiet, somewhere no one would look. Without waiting for either man to stop her, she crossed the muddy yard and opened it.

Nathaniel crouched behind a stack of rotting grain sacks, soaked through and shaking.

“If I meant to betray you,” Isolda said, remaining in the doorway, “I would have called the rider instead of coming to find you. Vain already knows where you are. Running alone will no longer protect you.”

“Nothing will.”

“The Duke has resources to protect you,” Isolda said. “Far greater than Lord Vain possesses. But I will not force you. The choice must be yours.”

A long silence stretched, broken only by the distant creak of the mill’s stilled wheel. Finally Nathaniel rose.

“Bring your Duke,” he said quietly. “I am tired of being afraid.”

Rain began to fall in earnest as Nathaniel repeated everything to Allaric — dates, meetings, the exact documents he had been forced to alter. Allaric promised him protection, employment, and safety from Vain’s retribution, and the young clerk, for the first time since Isolda had arrived, allowed himself something close to a genuine smile.

Riding back through the darkening rain, Allaric took her gloved hand in his.

“You found him. When my own man could not.”

“We found him,” Isolda corrected softly. “Together.”

Unseen in the darkness behind them, a figure on horseback watched their return from a hidden vantage point along the road. Lord Edric Vain’s expression was no longer merely calculating. It had become something far more dangerous — the cold fury of a man who understood at last that his carefully built scheme was beginning to unravel around him.