Page 19 of The Duke's Only Desire

Without a word, she calmly took one more sip from her port, then set it aside. She rose to her feet and closed the distance between them. Still leaning his hip against the table, he remained in his slightly slumped position that lowered him to her height and brought their faces even.

“I willnotleave my marriage,” she promised, her voice soft but determined. “I took vows, no matter how unexpected, and Iwill hold my heart to them. And I would certainly never leave our children the way our mothers left us.”

Our children.The quiet words were a dagger thrust to his gut.

There would be no children from their marriage.

“So if you think you can frighten me away, Seamus Douglass—if you think you can save me from James by marrying me and then save yourself from marriage by running me off—” Her eyes blazed, blue flames dancing in their depths. “Then you’d best think again. Do you understand? You’re with me now, forever, like it or not. I certainly didn’t want this marriage, but now that I’m in it, I plan on making it work.”

It wasn’t relief that filled his chest at her promise. It was dread.

“I’ve promised to send for your father as soon as spring breaks,” he told her. “April.” Which would give them three months together at Ravenscroft Manor—three months for her to realize exactly what kind of monster he’d become and how empty her marriage to him would truly be. By then, Norton and Malcolm would no longer be threats to her. “You can decide if you want to return to London with him when he leaves.”

She searched his face so intensely he could almost feel her gaze tickle over his skin. “I won’t go to London unless my husband goes with me.”

Christ.He was giving her a way out, didn’t she realize that? Ignoring her obstinacy, he added, “In the meantime, I’ve hired the best physicians in London to care for your father and two nurses to tend to him around the clock. It’s not the same as having you with him, granted. But I think his illness will improve now that the debts no longer weigh—”

She placed her hand to his good cheek and gently turned his face to see his scars.

Shay caught his breath as sharply as if she’d slapped him. Dear God, who knew a soft touch would hurt that much?

Her gaze moved slowly over the wounded half of his face where the skin lay leathery, hard, and ghastly uneven. “You shouldn’t have hidden this from me,” she murmured.

“Oh yes, I should have.”

Her eyes darted up to meet his, the same eyes that had once looked at him as if he were her hero, larger-than-life, perfect, and he steeled himself for the pitying look he feared he’d see now. But what he saw in their blue-grey depths wasn’t pity.

What he saw…understanding.

She lightly caressed his good cheek with her fingers and teased the faint scrape of rough evening beard beneath her fingertips. Then she stunned him by tracing lightly down to his chin…and to the other side of his face. To his scars. “Do they make it hard to shave?”

“No,” he whispered, then swallowed hard against the torturous pain of her soothing touch, as if the wounds were still raw. “That side doesn’t grow a beard anymore.”

She nodded slightly as she took in that bit of information, but her eyes remained fixed on his face, following the path of her fingertips as they brushed along his jaw.

He didn’t dare move as she explored the scars.

“Is it hard to talk, or eat…or smile?”

“No.” Not in the way she meant anyway. The scars would always pain him. He would never be able to leave the agony of that night behind, or find absolution for what he did. But the pain didn’t come from the old wounds anymore; instead it came from somewhere much deeper inside him. He would have said it rose from his very soul, except he’d long ago stopped thinking he even possessed one.

Then she caressed her finger over his temple and down the side of his face to his mouth, to the place where the cornerof his lips curled into his cheek. Or should have. Nothing remained there now but a patch of thick skin into which his lips disappeared.

“Does it hurt to kiss?” she whispered, outlining his lips with her fingertip.

“Yes.”

She paused, as if suspecting he had just lied to her. But he hadn’t. Just the thought of kissing her was so torturous he knew he would never survive if she leaned up on tiptoes and brought her lips to his. Her sweetness would end him.

“I’ve caught glimpses of you—last night in the garden, today in the carriage—when I’ve seen the man I once knew, still there beneath the scars.” Her words were barely more than a whisper, but each one fell through him and panged at his heart as if she had screamed it like a battle cry. “I don’t know what to believe about you now…if you’re still that good man I knew.”

“I’ve changed.”

She cupped his scarred face against her palm. “Not as much as you think.” She placed her other hand on his chest, over his thumping heart. “Not where it’s important.”

“Sophie,” he warned, his voice hoarse, “you have to—”

A knock sounded at the door, shattering the magical spell weaving itself around them. Shay set her away as he slid off the table and then put half the dining room between them.