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Imagining him in the arms of so many women made her stomach sick.
As though reading her thoughts, he frowned. He gently pressed his finger under her chin and lifted it. Making her gaze meet his. “Forgive me. Perhaps I should not talk about that. But I promise you, ever since I came into that school of yours and got mud smudged over my clothes, there has been no one. I haven’t looked at anyone but you.”
Warmth spilled through her veins like sunshine. She shook her head, hiding a smile. “It’s your past. I want to know you. All of you. What made you…you. The way I see it, it was Lady Charity’s biggest mistake to have lost you.”
He chuckled and shook his head slowly. “Miss Jane Grant, what am I going to do with you?”
Jane bit her lip, her heart pounding. “And so that you know, there’s nothing boring about you. You’re quite…fascinating.”
“Fascinating” wasn’t even the right word. Yes, he infuriated her at times. Yes, he made her feel like he understood her and then betrayed her.
But he also made her feel present. He made her feel alive.
And whatever he did, he never made her feel alone.
She wanted to decipher him, understand him, learn every little thing about him. He was contradictions. He was so gorgeous he could have any woman he wanted, and yet deep inside, he was shy. He was a rake, and yet he had loved with all his heart. He had such a warm, adoring family, and yet he felt lonely because he thought he was different. He had the money, influence, and time to do anything in the world, and yet, he felt useless.
If only he could see himself the way she saw him…
“Fascinating?” He chuckled and brushed his knuckles against her cheek. “I’m not fascinating at all, sweet girl, but thank you for saying that.”
“You are…to me.”
His gaze warmed even more.
“I’m just trying to say,” she said, “do not let a woman who didn’t deserve you ruin the rest of your life. Not that I know anything about love…”
And yet, something told her she may know more about it than she had thought…
His face relaxed, was suddenly soft; the trace of that pain he had told her about was gone. “I never told the details of what transpired with Lady Charity to anyone, nor how they impacted me,” he said. “Calliope knew some of it, but she was too young, and I couldn’t talk to her about that. My brothers saw my pain, but their way of helping was to take me to brothels and make me forget.”
“But this…” He raised their interlaced hands and planted a kiss on the back of hers, sending a thrill through her. “Just talking to someone who listens. Who understands… Who thinks it was not my fault… That love—”
He stopped talking, a hint of fear suddenly clouding his gaze.
“That love what?” she asked softly.
He looked at the dark ground. “Nothing.”
“What is it?” She reached to his face and laid her hand on his jaw, turning him to her. “Please, tell me.”
His dark gaze met hers, and there were no shields, no walls, and no barriers. There was a young man, hopeful and unhurt and vulnerable, perhaps just like when Lady Charity had met him.
“Mama and Papa loved each other, after all. They were so happy, Jane. As a child, I thought all families were supposed to be like that. I was sure my own family would be one day.”
She was sinking into his beautiful eyes. Her heart fluttered in her throat like a little bird. A question was born in that fluttering bird-heart…a question she was dying to ask but was terrified to.
And still, it broke through, as though not spoken by her own mouth. “Do you believe love would be possible for you once again?”
He didn’t reply for so long, she thought an eternity must have passed.
In a rasping voice, he said, “I’m starting to believe that it might.”
Jane nodded, shaking—and not from cold.
The fluttering bird-heart in her throat prayed, wished, sang a beautiful but impossible vision of the future, where that person he saw himself with was her.
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