She Slapped England’s Most Feared Duke… Then He Refused to Let Her Go

Chapter 5

Night fell slowly over Harrington House.

Rain tapped against the tall windows — a gentle, patient percussion. The corridors grew silent as the household retired. Candles burned low in their wall sconces, and the shadows moved like dark water across the portraits of generations of Harringtons, none of whom looked pleased with the current turn of events.

And Isabelle Fairmont stood outside the forbidden door.

The Duke’s library. Every servant in the house knew the rule: no one entered without permission. No one. Not the butler, not the housekeeper, not even Lady Harrington herself — that was the rumor, anyway, unconfirmed, delicious, whispered in the kitchen over the last pots of tea.

Yet the door stood slightly open.

Light spilled across the marble floor in a golden blade, and with it came the smell of old paper, of beeswax, of wood smoke. Her pulse quickened. For a moment — one long, terrible moment — she hesitated.

Then she stepped inside.

The library was larger than she had imagined. Floor-to-ceiling shelves wrapped the room in dark mahogany and the spines of a thousand books, most of them older than her father had been. Maps covered one wall — charts of the world, of shipping routes, of borders drawn and redrawn by men who would never see the places they had divided. A massive desk stood beside the fireplace, littered with papers, weighted down by a brass globe the size of a cannonball.

And near the window, the Duke of Harrington waited.

He was not dressed for society tonight. No ceremonial coat. No jeweled orders. Just a dark waistcoat and a loose cravat, his shirtsleeves white against his wrists, and the absence of formality made him look younger — and more dangerous. The candlelight touched his face, softening the harsh architecture of it.

“You’re punctual.”

His voice broke the silence like the first drop of rain on a still pond.

“I dislike wasting time, your grace.”

“As do I.” He studied her for a moment — a brief, thorough survey — then gestured toward the desk. “Come here.”

Three sheets of paper lay beneath the candlelight, each one covered in strange symbols. Codes. Fine, cramped script, twisted into shapes no human language should hold. Isabelle felt a small spark of recognition, the way a hound feels the scent of quarry.

“You intercepted these?”

The Duke raised an eyebrow. “You recognized them immediately.”

“Their substitution ciphers.” She stepped closer, drawn against her will, her fingers hovering above the parchment as though it might burn them. “The key rotates every few characters. A fairly old method — my father used to set me exercises in it when I was twelve. He said—” She stopped herself.

“Said?”

“Said that any fool can hide a message, but only a mathematician can hide a message and make it useful.” She looked up. “The ones that matter, your grace, are the ones that look like something else entirely.”

The faintest smile appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Interesting.”

She scanned the first line, and her mind began to move on its own — patterns rising to meet her, repetitions, structure hidden beneath chaos. Repetitions. The letter P appearing at too-regular intervals. The rhythm of it.

“French ports,” she murmured.

His gaze sharpened. “You can read it already.”

“Partly.” She reached for the pen lying beside the papers. The Duke did not stop her. She dipped it, applied it to a corner of the page, and began to work.

The room filled with silence — the good kind, the working kind, the silence that smells of ink and concentration. The fire crackled. The rain whispered against the glass. And Isabelle Fairmont scratched out the Duke’s messages line by line, her father’s voice in her head — always look for what repeats, Isabelle. Repetition is confession.

Minutes passed.

Then she froze.

The pen stopped mid-letter. Her eyes widened.

“What is it?”

She did not answer. She slowly turned the paper toward him, and when she spoke, her voice was changed — lower, tighter.

“These aren’t merchant codes, your grace.”

His expression darkened. “Continue.”

“Military movements.” She pointed to the final lines. “Troop shipments from Calais. Scheduled for next month. Arrivals, departures, quantities of men and powder and horse—” She set the pen down, and her hand trembled despite herself. “This is not trade. This is war.”

The Duke stared at the page.

For a long moment he said nothing. The fire crackled. The rain went on falling, indifferent as time.

Then he exhaled slowly. “Good God.”

He looked at her again, and now there was no amusement in his face at all. Only calculation — cool and quick as a drop of mercury.

“You solved this in fifteen minutes.”

“My father taught me.”

“Thomas Fairmont.”

“Yes.”

The Duke leaned back against the desk, and something in his posture had changed — loosened, almost. As if a weight had been placed, and then removed. “And you still believe he was framed.”

“I know he was.”

Another silence stretched between them. The rain had become a steady drum.

“If you are correct,” the Duke said at last, “then someone inside the East India Company falsified official documents. Documents that sent an innocent man to his grave.”

“Yes.”

“And if that someone still holds influence —”

“Then they are still doing it. Right now, probably.” She met his eyes. “Forgeries are not a crime you commit once. They are a habit.”

The Duke’s eyes gleamed. Something in his face had lightened — she would have called it pleasure, if she had known pleasure to look like that on a man who felt nothing.

“For the first time this evening,” he said quietly, “I am pleased I listened to my instincts rather than my sister.”

“Then your instincts are better than your sister’s manners.”

The Duke laughed. A short, real sound, startling in the quiet room. “Miss Fairmont,” he said, and he was still smiling when he said it, “how would you like to help me expose them?”

Her breath caught. “Work for you?”

“For the Crown. Discreetly.” He stepped closer, close enough that she could feel the heat of the fire behind him, and smell the clean sharpness of soap and brandy. “There are messages we cannot decode. Patterns we cannot see. Languages our best men have failed even to recognize, let alone break.” His voice lowered. “But you can.”

Isabelle hesitated. Every instinct she possessed warned her. This was not scholarship. This was espionage. Danger. Politics. A web of power that had already devoured one member of her family.

But it was also something else.

It was the chance to clear her father’s name.

“What would you require of me?” she asked.

“Discretion, which I believe you already possess in abundance. And courage.” His eyes moved over her face, and he said, almost gently, “Which I have watched you spend like a soldier spends ammunition tonight.”

“You already know I have that.”

“Yes.” A slow smile appeared on the Duke’s lips — the first real smile she had seen on him, and it changed his entire face. “Yes, I do.”

He extended his hand.

“Then welcome to a very dangerous game, Miss Fairmont.”

For a moment she stared at his hand — a hand that had signed treaties, dismissed ministers, owned shares of oceans. Then she placed her fingers in his. The touch was brief, formal, and yet something electric passed between them — a current she could feel in her fingertips, in her wrist, in the base of her throat.

The Duke released her slowly.

“One more thing.”

“Yes, your grace?”

“You should know.” His voice had softened. “You are the first woman who has ever struck me.”

Isabelle lifted her chin. “Do you intend to hold it against me?”

He watched her for a long moment, and something in his eyes had gone strange and deep, like river water at dusk.

“No,” he said quietly.

A pause.

“If anything —” The corner of his mouth curved. “I suspect I may never forget it.”