Page 76 of A Relentless Rake

But he couldn’t stop pressing her for the truth. Because once he knew, then he could begin to forgive, and she could learn to trust.

“I want to know the real you,” he cajoled as he slowly approached her. “Not the façade you present to the world.”

“You do know me.”

“No, I don’t.” He knelt beside her and took the poker from her hand, then laced his fingers through hers. “Let me see into your heart.”

“If I do that,” she said so softly that he could barely hear her, “then my life could be destroyed.”

“I’ll protect you.” He placed a kiss to her temple and felt her shudder beneath his lips. “I’ll save you from the darkness.”

She slowly rose to her feet and slid her hand from his. She didn’t come into his arms. Instead, she crossed the room and leaned back against the door, putting as much distance between them as possible. If she could have flung open the door and stepped into the hallway to be even farther away, he suspected she would have done just that.

“It was Samuel Deering,” she confessed. “Viscount Deering’s youngest son.”

The man’s face flashed before Alec’s eyes. Lazy and pompous, thinking he could make his way in the world on his charms and his father’s wealth…

Yes, Alec knew him. And couldn’t stand the man.

He said as normally as possible past the bitterness on his tongue, “I never knew you and he…” He couldn’t finish.

“No one knew. His family made certain of it, and then…so did mine.”

To hide the anger inside him, Alec removed his hat and gloves, then shrugged out of his greatcoat and tossed the lot over a nearby chair. He reached for the bottle of whiskey and took a large swallow that burned all the way down his throat into his chest.

“What happened?” He offered her the bottle.

She waved it away with a humiliated shake of her head. “I was foolish and in love. I believed him when he told me that he wanted to marry me, that he wanted a future together.” She rolled her shoulders in a disheartened shrug. “Perhaps he did… But he’s the youngest son, you see, and so he couldn’t disobey his parents.”

An icy chill slithered down his spine. “Disobey how?”

“We couldn’t court openly because his family would never have approved, not of their son with a poor schoolteacher’s daughter. But his family supported the school—they were our most important patrons then—and so it was easy to find excuses to spend time together. When he asked me to marry him, I said yes.” Her voice grew impossibly softer. “And we eloped.”

Her quiet words punched him in the gut. He turned away with the excuse of removing his jacket before she could see his jealousy and anger. He tossed it over the chair with his greatcoat and fussed with his cuffs and shirtsleeves. “Obviously, you didn’t marry him.”

“We didn’t have the chance.” Her gaze remained firmly fixed on the floor. “When we arrived in Gretna Green, it was past midnight, too late to take our vows, and we were exhausted from traveling. So we took a room at the inn.” She pulled in a deep breath, and he heard her voice tremble. “Samuel said there was no point in waiting since we were going to be married in the morning, so we…”

So we made love.She didn’t have to say it. Still, he felt the unspoken words like a blow to his gut.

“But in the morning, right at dawn, his family arrived at the inn.” She shoved herself away from the door and began to pace again, this time wringing her hands. “They’d discovered that we’d eloped, and his father and brothers had chased after us on horseback. They found us in the room, roused us from bed—” Her face flushed red with shame. “Lord Deering told Samuel that he would cut off his allowance and disinherit him if we went through with our vows, that he’d be cast out of the family.”

Alec stifled a stunned curse. “But he’d ruined you.”

“When a peer or one of his family seduces a girl from the lower classes, no one cares if her life is destroyed by it. You know that.” She waved her hand at the school around her. “What could I have done to force a viscount’s son to marry me? It was my word against a gentleman’s, and no one would have believed me.”

Alec knew every word she said was true. A gentleman could be forced to wed a society daughter for being caught simply kissing her. But the same man could rape the upstairs maid and never face punishment. His own father had exemplified that.

He rolled up his sleeves, needing to keep his hands busy to stop himself from reaching for her. Or slamming his fist through the wall. “What happened then?”

With a shrug, she began to pace again. “They rented a horse for Samuel and rode back to London.”

He stared at her, aghast. “Theyleftyou in Scotland?”

“Of course they did. They had no intention of treating me with any respect, not even then.” She cut him a sideways glance and never paused in her pacing. “It took every penny I had to buy a seat on top of the mail coach for London. But I suppose it was for the best after all.” She began to chew on her thumbnail. “The long days and nights of traveling home gave me time to figure out how to break the news to Papa and Henry.”

He watched her pace, stunned by her resilience. Dear God, the humiliation she must have felt, the worry of not knowing if she were with child, the rejection—

But since she was still here in the school, her reputation still intact… “You went on as if none of it had happened.”