Page 7 of Sir Durham’s Disarming Asset

He sniffed. “I used to.”

“What happened to stop you?”

At once, he looked forlorn, his green eyes black as night. “My friend died.”

“I see. And who was he that he had such power to change your views of parties and balls?”

“He was the prime minister, and I was his close confidant.”

Her mouth fell open. “And what did you confide?”

“News of traitors and spies.”

She sat, no words useful to his revelations. “Have all those traitors and spies been caught?”

“No.”

“Do you pause then because your friend is not with us?”

“No. I continue in hope that I may one day again be useful to a new prime minister.”

“The one in power does not please you?”

“He negotiates with Bonaparte.”

She inhaled. “I see. I am not pleased either. Not for you. Not for me.”

“Wise woman.”

“Thank you.” She watched him retreat into his thoughts. “So will you and I go to parties and balls?”

“We will.”

“So then I see that I must learn how to be a social cat.”

He winced. “Nothing too feral.”

Though I used to be, and that’s why Vaillancourt threw me in the Conciergerie. “I must. After all, I have done nothing except be the invalid to your nurse!”

“Ouch! Insult me not, please! I think of myself as your helper, your friend.”

She laughed.

“You see?” he crooned as he lifted her chin and gazed into her eyes. “You must do that more often.”

She snuggled against him, affectionate creature that he was. “You must promise to teach me.”

“Why not?” He curled her closer against the wall of his massive chest. “A smile is more useful than a frown.”

*

He shifted, the weight of his bewitching charge in the fullness of his embrace. Teach her to laugh? Ha! What a delight that would be. But she had known. He saw in her—lately only shrouded—her elan.

She had suffered so much, more than any woman he had ever known to survive such dastardly treatment. How she had done it was through her own determination. Luc had told him how she had defied the guards, holding her tongue when they insulted her. Swallowing her words when two came to rape her. How she had never shed a tear.

She was too lovely, too intelligent, to suffer such heinous indignity. But she lived. In spite of all their mistreatment, she lived.

He was not a religious man. God knew, he believed in the moral rectitude of some humans. But he did notice—how could he not?—how Zephora Burton had endured because she knew how to seek fortitude within herself. To withdraw from others. To ignore them, if need be. To use her own self-righteousness to thwart aggression against her.