And then, he’d had their precious, darling lad.
Until Arthur, too, had gone.
“Your hands,” she said softly, reaching for them, taking them in hers, her thumbs trailing over the soaked leather gloves separating his skin from hers. “They are callused.”
For the first time, he was grateful for the barrier between them, for the lack of evidence she sought. He was ashamed of the man he was, of the lies he had told her.By God, he had landed himself in a hellacious mess. He had never expected to love her.
But he did.
“If I were to tell you I have performed labor, would it shock you?” he asked. “Repel you, even?”
He did not realize he had been holding his breath as he awaited her answer until she spoke and he could breathe again.
“Of course not, Robin. What must you think of me?”
Robin.
Fuck.
He hated the lie. But how to undo it, without undoingthem?
“I think you are a duchess.” He squeezed her fingers gently with his own. “I think you live in a castle with gold-trimmed windows and you are married to another man, to aduke. One who possesses untold wealth. I think you could find far better than I.”
“There is none better.” Her stubborn insistence filled him with love, relief, and guilt, warring together all at once. “I want only you.”
He pulled her into him, so their soaked bodies were flush. “And I want only you. But there is…there is something I must tell you.”
He was going to do it.
The truth was there, calling to him.
Thunder ripped through the silence, and lightning illuminated the sheltered circle of the temple. Brightened her lovely face, her drooped hat, the wetness of her cycling costume clinging to her breasts and curves. Her eyes were wide.
He saw so much in that brilliant flash. Everything he would lose when he unburdened himself.
The darkness and the shadows returned. She cupped his face, her sodden leather gloves cool and eerily impersonal. “What do you want to tell me, Robin? Is it about your past?”
Tell her.
His heart faltered. “Yes.”
Liar.
“There is a bench,” she said softly. “Shall we sit together and wait for the storm to pass?”
“No,” he bit out with more force than necessary.
He did not want her kindness in this moment. Did not deserve it.
She removed his hat now and began stroking his hair, so tender and loving. So deceived, his beautiful love. What had he done? He never should have come here. Never should have agreed to the duke’s madness. And yet, if he had not, he would not have had this beautiful month with Tilly. He would never have known her, kissed her, loved her, been inside her. He would never have realized there existed another woman in the world who could heal all the jagged pieces inside him.
A woman who could make him whole.
“We needn’t speak of it if you don’t wish.”
“I was married,” he blurted, because he suddenly found himself wanting to at least unburden that part of his past. “I had a wife and a son.”
“Had?”
