Page 41 of As the Devil Dares

She once more rested his arm across the table between them, but this time, she kept her left hand holding his, their fingers entwined, even as she continued to dab gently at the scratches farther up his forearm. Only to keep him still. Certainly not out of any thoughts of affection.

“The duchess speaks of your father quite often,” she said quietly, her voice growing serious as she let the teasing fall away. She didn’t look at him, her eyes focused on his arm, but he suspected that she was keenly aware of the reaction that talk of his father drew from him. There was little that sharp mind of hers missed.

“They were very much in love.” He watched her face as she focused her attention on his arm. He had to admit that she was quite beautiful…when she wasn’t set on torturing him. “His death was hard on her.”

“And on you,” she commented, not raising her gaze from the scratches.

He tensed, dread freezing his blood. How much did she know? Surely, his mother hadn’t shared the details of his father’s death with her. “On all of us,” he corrected, deflecting attention from himself.

When she lifted her gaze to meet his, a faint plea to share more revealed itself in her eyes. But that sure as hell wasn’t going to happen. The very last thing he wanted to discuss with her was his feelings about his father’s death.

“Your mother said it was an accident,” she told him quietly.

“Yes.” A damned lie. His father’s death wasn’t an accident.

Her green eyes stared at him for several long moments, as if she knew he had just lied to her. But instead of challenging him, she gave a faint nod of understanding and lowered her gaze back to his arm.

“When my mother died,” she shared softly, “her death was also unexpected.”

With her head bowed so he couldn’t see the expression on her face, she slowly pulled her hands away from him. Suddenly, the inexplicable urge gripped him to grab her hands and hold on tight, so that she couldn’t take the comfort of her touch away. But it vanished a heartbeat later and left him feeling like a fool.

Christ! To take comfort in this hellcat—what on earth was wrong with him?

Completely unaware of the turmoil her nearness stirred inside him, she reached for the bottle of whiskey. “She’d taken Evie and me to the park just that morning, in fact. It was a dreary day, cold and damp, but we didn’t want to stay inside and hounded her until she relented.” She fell silent as she placed the handkerchief over the end of the bottle and turned it upside down to wet the cloth. When she continued, her voice was much softer. “That afternoon she said she was tired and went upstairs to rest. She never got out of bed again.”

His chest tightened in grief for her. He’d lost his father, but for a little girl to lose her mother…“I’m so sorry.”

Her only acknowledgment of his sympathy was a tight nod. “The doctors said it was a fever, that there was nothing anyone could do.” She didn’t raise her eyes, sitting perfectly still as she whispered, “By dawn, she was gone.”

Her shoulders shook as she inhaled a deep breath to collect herself. Then, without meeting his gaze, she returned to her task and dabbed the whiskey-soaked linen against the scratches.

He sucked in a mouthful of air through clenched teeth at the bite of the liquor. Knowing the Hellion, he would have said she was torturing him on purpose, except for the grief that hung heavy on her brow. Not even Mariah could fake that.

“You must have been inconsolable,” he commented gently, remembering the cries of grief from his mother and Josie when his father died. Hearing them had made him feel like a piece of glass, shattered from the inside out.

“I was, because I blamed myself,” she whispered. “If I hadn’t insisted that she take us to the park, she would have still been alive.”

“You don’t know that,” he reassured her quietly. “Fevers come from all places.”

She nodded slowly. “And in time I came to accept that.”

She paused, mid-dab, her eyes not lifting from his arm. In that moment’s hesitation, he had the feeling that she wanted to say something that she wasn’t certain he wanted to hear.

Instead, she commented, “It’s been even worse for Evelyn. She was only eight and couldn’t really comprehend what death meant, except that Mama fell asleep and never woke up. For weeks afterward, she was terrified of going to sleep. After all these years, she still has trouble sleeping, and even now, she’ll sometimes stay in my room with me, especially when she has nightmares.”

The sting of the whiskey weakened as she continued to gently cleanse the scratches, but his sympathy for the Winslow sisters grew. Especially for Mariah, knowing how close she was to Evelyn, how much it must upset her not to be able to help her sister more.

“That’s why I spend so much time at the school, I suppose,” she reflected softly. “I want to help others through their grief, to let them know they’re not alone.”

Not alone. But she was wrong. In the end, everyone grieved alone. Even surrounded by a crowd of friends and family. He’d certainly learned that lesson well.

“I wish Evie could take solace in the school the way I do. But seeing the children reminds her too much of Mama, and she can’t bear it.” She paused and stilled the handkerchief against his skin. “I wonder…does the duchess ever experience that side of grief? When she looks at her sons, she must see your father in you and miss him terribly.”

“I’m certain of it,” he murmured. Mother often commented on how much her sons reminded her of their father. Especially him. She always said that with pride, not realizing how that simple comment shredded his insides. Because he’d proven himself to be nothing like the good and respectable man Richard Carlisle had been.

She set the handkerchief aside. “What was he like?”

His gut tightened as he hesitated to answer. The last person he wanted to talk with about his father was Mariah Winslow. Yet she knew the pain of losing a parent, and he ached with the harsh guilt that he kept bottled inside him. Finally, he offered succinctly, “He was a hero.”