Page 22 of The Duke’s Hidden Runaway Bride

Ophelia had thought she had wept all her tears when her mother died.

She discovered she had been mistaken.

They came without warning, slipping silently down her face. She wept not for Markham, nor her father, nor even her mother, but because Adrian had heard the worst and turned his judgment not upon her but upon Markham and himself. He had called the cruelty by its name.

It was worth more than he could know.

“I do not think you are one of them,” she said when she could speak.

He did not move.

“My mother told me that charming men were never to be trusted.” She wiped impatiently at her face. “But I am very much afraid that I am about to trust one now.”

His expression softened, but he did not smile. “Then let me earn it slowly. Do not give me more than you choose. I have spent most of my life treating trust as something easily won and lightly spent. I should like to learn better with you.”

The room seemed suddenly too quiet.

“And Markham?” she asked.

“I will never betray your secret to him, or to any other. Beyond that, I will do nothing unless you want my help.”

“You said at Christmas that I would not face the world alone.”

“I said it badly.” His gaze held hers. “You need not face it alone unless you choose to. That is what I should have said.”

It was a smaller promise than the grand one, and therefore greater.

Adrian rose and bowed to her. A real bow, not a flourish.

“I will leave you now.”

At the door, he paused.

“Which name do you wish me to use?”

The question nearly undid her again.

“In company, I must still be Olivia.”

“And here?”

She looked down at her mother’s book on the table, then back at him.

“Ophelia.”

He said it once, softly, as though he was tasting it on his tongue.

Then he went out.

Ophelia remained beside the dying fire for a long while, wondering if she had made a terrible mistake. She had done the most dangerous thing of her hidden life. She had let one person see the whole of her, plain and unguarded, and he had not turned away.

Chapter Eleven

The strangest days of Ophelia’s life were the days after her confession, and the strangeness was that they were happy.

She had expected everything to grow harder once Adrian knew. Instead it grew simpler. The danger remained, larger now that they had named it, but she no longer had to police every word in his company or feel his attention gathering her up clue by clue.

He knew.