She went a little cold and shifted in her seat. “Let’s not speak of it,” she said, suddenly unable to meet his eyes. “It has taken me a long time to get over that night.”
She glanced out the window. But it hung in the air between them now.
“What changed between us, since then?” he asked.
“I could ask you the same question,” she said.
“You decided you could look past my flaws?” he said. “You made it quite clear that there would be much to overcome.”
“We have different recollections, then,” she said, a flush starting in her chest. “I came out to the balcony and found that you were a different person.”
He frowned. “Only because of what you had said to Frannie about me.”
A creeping sensation made its way up Grace’s neck.
The carriage jolted.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
His expression darkened. “I will admit, I acted so beastly that night. I apologize. I’ve never gotten over the shame of it. But your words had found their exact mark.”
“What did Frannie say?”
He narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to make me repeat it?”
“Tell me,” she said urgently. The carriage lurched again, and she grabbed the seat.
“She had overheard you and Lillie. That I might want to watch myself around you because of your family station and your… desperation.”
“That’s exactly what I thought she said,” Grace said. Her hand tightened on the cushion. The warmth of the coals within her at his presence had died.
“But that wasn’t all. She said you laughed that it was a good thing I came from money, that otherwise no one would be interested.” He gestured toward the port-wine stain on his cheek with his gloved hand. “Because marked men made for easy marks.”
The blood drained from Grace’s face.
“I lashed out because I was humiliated, but it was unacceptable. Your words felt like poison going down. I’ve always been rather… vulnerable there and you struck that soft place right between my armor. I reacted badly, and I’ve been ashamed ever since. I have regretted those words every day. That’s partly why I wanted to help Oliver so much. To make it up to you.”
Grace let go of the seat, her hands tremoring. “She lied to you. I never said that. I thought… I thought you werehandsome. I thought you genuinely liked me, the way I genuinely liked you, until you found out I didn’t have money.”
He scowled at her furiously. “What?”
“I saw Frannie talking to you and I assumed she was telling you about my family, my station, my brother’s scandals. And then the way you reacted confirmed my worst suspicions. You only were interested if I had money and status like yours. My places of weakness. My biggest fears.”
He sat back roughly. “She exploited them against us both,” Theo said.
He looked at her sheepishly and rubbed his hand over his handsome mouth. His mouth that had just been on hers.
“There’s going to be another murder on the fairgrounds because I think I’m going to kill her for this,” Grace said.
“Can you stop looking so attractive while you’re plotting?” he said. “It’s hardly fair.”
The warmth kindled like fire through Grace again.
He slid across the carriage so that he could sit beside her.
She took his face in her hands. Gently stroked the birthmark on his jaw.
“I have never once thought of you as marked,” she said. “Only extraordinarily handsome, snobbish, and maybe a tiny bit brooding.”
