Page 91 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
“Good.”
He deserved that. She saw him accept it. The small nod. The way his jaw tightened and relaxed.
He was not going to argue with her. He was not going to defend himself. He was going to sit on this bench and listen and answerand do the thing he had been afraid to do since the barn—tell the truth.
“I owe ye an explanation.”
“Yes, you do.”
He told her all of it. George in the barn. The apple and the pistol. The conversation. The years of partnership and the slow corruption. The innocent man George had tried to trick him into arresting, and how Edward had backed down at the last minute. The wife. He told her about the threat against her life, spoken in the flat, casual tone of a man who had nothing left to lose. He told her about his choice. The moment when his hand had wrapped around George’s throat and old instinct had said finish it and he had chosen to stop. Chosen the cord. Chosen to walk away.
“And then he said something.” His voice was flat, controlled, but she could hear what lived beneath the control. The crack in the foundation. “He said, ‘No matter what ye do, this is what ye are. A weapon. A Hound. Yer bride is in danger with ye.’”
She listened without interrupting. She had learned, with Gordon, that the most important things men said came in the silences between words. The pauses. The places where the voice caught, the jaw tightened, and the hands gripped whatever was nearest.
Edward’s hands were gripping the edge of the bench. His knuckles, still bandaged, were white.
When he finished, the garden was quiet. The bird had flown off the fence. The sun had moved. Inside, the children were playing something loud that involved stamping feet and Ruth’s clear voice counting to ten.
“He was your brother,” she said. Not a question.
“Aye. The only one I chose. Nathaniel was given to me by blood. George, I chose.” He looked down at his hands. “I chose wrong.”
“You chose a boy who was hurt, angry, and lost. That is not the same as choosing wrong.”
“The result is the same.”
“No.” She turned to face him fully. “The result is that you are here. On this bench. In this garden. With me. Instead of in a barn with a pistol and a man who wanted you to be something you are not.” She paused. “You chose to walk away, Edward. That is not the Hound. The Hound would have finished it. You didn’t. You chose the cord, the constables, and the Queen’s justice. You chose to be better than what he said you were.”
His eyes were wet. She had never seen him cry. She did not think he knew how. The wetness sat in his eyes and did not fall, held there by twelve years of training that said men like him did not weep.
She reached out and wiped the corner of his eye with her thumb. Gentle. The same way Mary had been gentle with her in thosethree dark years. The same way one touched something that had been hurt and was not sure whether to trust the hand that was reaching for it.
“You are not a weapon,” she insisted. “You are a man who was used as one. There is a difference. And I know the difference because I was used, too. Gordon used me as a trophy, a prisoner, and a body to be controlled. He used me until I forgot what I was underneath the use. But I remembered. I remembered because of you. Because of the children. Because of Caroline, John, Mary, Mrs. Grady, and every person who looked at me and saw Valeria instead of the Duchess of Thornhill.”
She took his bandaged hand and held it between both of hers.
“Let me see you, Edward. Not the Hound, but you. The man who knows every child at the orphanage by name. The man who sat in a chair and watched me sleep because he was afraid that if he lay beside me, he would not be able to let go.” She squeezed his hand. “I don’t need you to let go. I just need you to hold on.”
Silence. The children were inside. She could hear them inside, the happy chaos of small voices and clumsy feet and the particular brand of mayhem that only children under five could produce.
“He wasn’t wrong. I nearly killed him, Valeria. If he hadn’t spoken, I would have. I was a breath away from finishing it.”
“But you stopped.”
“Aye, I stopped. This time.”
“This time is the only time that matters.”
He looked at her. She looked back. Steady. Unflinching. The same woman who had held his gaze at the auction and offered her hand and told him he was welcome to play. The same woman who had called him cruel in his bedroom and compared him to Gordon and kissed him at the altar with blood on his hands.
She had earned the right to say what she was about to say, and she would say it without flinching.
“I have always tried to be there for you, and you keep pushing me away. Every time I get close, every time I think we are finally past the walls, you build them higher. You built them so high that on our wedding night, you kissed my palm and walked away.”
“I was trying to protect ye.”
“From what?”
