Jake startled as if her query had drawn him out of a trance. “It is none of your concern.”
Curiosity bade her probe the point, but good sense had her hold her tongue. His tone brooked no rebuttal. Instead, she pivoted and asked, “Does Mina know?”
“She always knew the basics, but I told her the full story two years ago.”
Olivia thought her heart might burst with unnamed emotion. There was something he needed to hear, and she would say it. “You should feel proud, not only of Mina, but of yourself.”
His eyes shifted, as did his feet. Her words didn’t sit right with him. His was the bearing of the guilty. “Pride isn’t the first word that comes to mind.”
“You took Mina when no one else would,” Olivia persisted. “She is yours as surely as if she was your flesh and blood. You did what no one else would do.”
She paused to slow down the conversational pace, to consider carefully her next words. To consider whether or not they should be her next words. “I am quite in awe of you.”
His mouth twisted. “The threat of public humiliation is a powerful motivator. Never underestimate its ability to reveal the true measure of a man.”
“You were ayoungman. None of us can account for our twenty-one-year-old selves. We move beyond who we were then, if we’re lucky.”
Again, she paused. Again, she considered. Again, she spoke. “You aren’t the sort of man who lets a woman fall.”
“Aren’t I? Haven’t I?”
“I’m not speaking of the man you were then. I’m speaking of the man you became. You did right by Clemence. Your true measure was revealed. Adopting a child is an uncommon step in our society. It was brave of you.”
“Hardly brave,” he said. “Some years ago, one of my uncles took in a boy named Nylander. He and I were near an age, and we came up together. I knew from early on there was nothing to the nonsense that blood will out, but to the world, Nylander carries the stigma of illegitimacy.” His arctic blue eyes went hard and cold, impenetrable ice. “No such stigma will ever attach itself to Mina’s name.”
Fierce.Protective. Olivia now understood the reason behind that ferocity and protectiveness. An emotion that she refused to name, or even acknowledge, slithered through her body and wrapped its tentacles around her heart.
“This is the real reason you need a wife of impeccable reputation. A Society marriage would be the deflective shield Mina needs to protect her. Yet I’m curious,” she continued, a thought just occurring to her. “Why is it you never married? Surely it would have been easier to raise Mina with a wife all these years.”
An ugly chortle escaped Jake, one directed at himself, not at her. “No woman would saddle herself to the likes of me, not if she knew the truth. I’ll take a Society marriage and have the stepmother Mina needs.”
“Every woman in London would leap at the chance of being saddled with the likes of you,” she shot at him.
“Everywoman in London?” he shot back.
On a different night, his question would fluster her and send her running for safety, but not tonight. She’d intuited something vital to this man, and she wouldn’t let it go. “You seek to punish yourself. That is the reason you won’t allow yourself to marry for love. It’s the reason you allow yourself to be beaten to a pulp.”
“I wouldn’t say it’s the only reason.” His translucent blue gaze pierced straight through her. “Or even the primary reason.”
Her body went hot, but she wouldn’t be unsettled or distracted. “You’re afraid.”
“Aren’t we all?” he threw back at her.
“Of yourself,” she returned. He flinched as if she’d physically struck him. “You don’t trust yourself when it comes to love. You think love will turn you into a monster. But look at Mina. You will never let her down.”
“It’s different when it’s your child, but Clemence . . . I discarded her like a worthless piece of lint.”
“She betrayed you. One doesn’t easily forgive that sort of betrayal, or forget it. You must find someone worthy of your heart.”
His inward gaze suddenly reflected out and struck her with a penetrating acuity. “Such idealistic words from a woman who has sworn off love and marriage.”
Her heart thundered in her chest. “My circumstances aren’t the same.”
“Are they so different?”
The intimacy of yesterday and tonight’s confessions hung between them. The truth of her marriage. The truth about Mina. He should understand those confessions revealed the past, but changed naught in the present. He needed the sort of wife that she could never be for him.
She’d found her house, and Mina had found her school. They were done. Utterly done. Nothing bound them together. Except for one thing: they remained stranded on this roof together.
