“I have been courted,” she said. “Courted, and won.”
“And then you lost him. What would it take to persuade you that there is more than one man on the face of the earth?”
She shrugged, too aware of the way his hungry eyes followed the movement of her shoulder. “I wasn’t only won, I was loved. And the chances of that happening again are infinitesimal. Lightning doesn’t strike twice.”
“The chances are non-existent if you refuse to let anyone near you.”
“I prefer it that way.” She crossed her arms over her chest, chilled by the finality of her own words. “I prefer it.”
Malcolm waited, wordless, leaving a void between them that Selina knew she would have to fill with a proper explanation.
She had never thought Malcolm was a patient man, but his resolute silence undid her.
“When Jeffrey died,” she said, “it felt as though a limb I never knew I had was severed from my body. I felt it here.” She touched her chest, right in the centre. “I felt it bleed. I felt the loss of it. I still had my arms and legs, but something just as fundamental had been cut away from me, and I was not whole anymore.”
“Do you still feel it now?”
She pressed her hand flat against the place, right in the centre of her breastbone, where she always half-expected to find a ridge of hard scar tissue beneath the soft fabric of her dress. “Over time, the bleeding lessened. The wound healed over. But I still feel the place where something is missing. It’s like an old scar. It might not hurt me anymore, but what was lost can never regrow.”
Malcolm took a step towards her again, his face unreadable, and placed his hand on top of hers. “Here?”
“There.” She breathed lightly, aware of the way his hand rose with the movement of her chest.
Malcolm lowered his hand. “Jeffrey,” he repeated, slow and thoughtful. “Jeffrey Overton?”
“You remember him?”
“A little. I didn’t know him well.”
“No.” She smiled, despite herself. “Jeffrey and I moved in quite a different crowd to yours.”
“He died in a fall, didn’t he?” There was a calm practicality in the way Malcolm spoke. Selina knew he was trying to draw her out, to learn more without causing her pain.
It was too intimate. Too easy to confess to him. Heaven help her, she’d never truly spoken about Jeffrey with anyone before. Now she was spilling her soul to, of all people, the Duke of Caversham. His Gorgeous Grace. The flirt, the rake, the power-hungry cad.
She was giving him entirely the wrong impression. But that would not matter much longer. She knew exactly how to destroy his interest in her.
“He died falling from my bedroom window. As he climbed out.”
She raised her chin as she said it, refusing to be ashamed. What did it matter if Malcolm knew the truth? She had no need to prettify her past for him. If he considered her spoiled, perhaps at last he would leave her alone.
She was expecting him to turn away, disgusted, or let out an exclamation of surprise. But his only response was a softening of his sharp features, a wrench of empathetic pain in his eyes. “That must have been terrible.”
The last thing she wanted was his sympathy. “It was a long time ago.”
Malcolm shook his head, neither backing away from her nor seeking a way to bring their encounter to an end. In fact, he smiled, self-mocking and full of his usual charm. “Heaven help me, I’m jealous of a dead man.”
“I’ll add that to the list of your sins.” Selina began to breathe again, her chest working hard to overcome the tight band that had been squeezing it. She did not know what she had thought she would feel after opening up so much of herself, but the overwhelming emotion that washed over her was a welcome one: relief.
She was relieved, and she did not regret telling Malcolm any of it.
The dangerous tension there had been before, as he stroked her hair and gazed at her, had dissipated. Enough to let her turn her head to one side as he parted out a section of her hair. She stole a glance at his face, nearly laughing when she saw the agony of concentration on it.
He twisted a lock, held it in place, and pinned it.
“Too gentle,” she said. “It’ll fall out.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Beauty is pain.”
“Don’t I know it.” He removed the hairpin and tried again, pressing it through her hair firmly. Then, not seductively, but with almost professional care, he took hold of her chin and guided her face from side to side so that he could compare the two. “I’ll never have a career as a lady’s maid.”
“It’ll do.” She patted the flat of her hand lightly against her head, feeling the shape of it. “At least no one will see me with my hair down and call me a wanton.” An ironic smile pulled at her mouth. “Even though it may be true.”
“Selina…” He sighed, folding his arms across his chest and drumming the fingers of one hand lightly on his elbow. “Would it comfort you to know that nothing you have told me will ever leave this room?”
“I have done nothing to earn your silence.”
“Do you think I am in the habit of ruining women for sport?” He heard his own words and shook his head, lips tightening. “Good lord. Please don’t answer that.”
“Caversham…”
He caught the change in address instantly, though she had hoped he wouldn’t. She had meant to keep to her usual chilly formality. Your Grace was distant. Deferent. Safe. But Caversham had slipped from her lips without her permission, and she could not unsay it now.
“Wait,” he said, holding up a hand, though she had not moved. “Don’t leave yet. You have given me something precious, and I… I have nothing to match it. It’s easier to be a gentleman than a lady, I suspect. None of my
