She sighed. “Thank you for acknowledging as much.”
“However, before you make your decision, I have another wrong I must confess.” He grasped for a way to broach the difficult subject. “I should have told you my intentions first—if I had you might have even told me the truth then. And, from this day forward, I promise I will.”
“What did you do?” she asked with alarm.
“While you were still at Hevenhyll, I asked my godfather—through the home office—to locate Prince Karl.”
“No!”
He winced. “It could have gone badly, I now understand. And I profoundly apologize. I will not make decisions on your behalf in the future. But the result is this, he cannot harm you any longer. He is dead.”
“Dead,” she echoed, wide-eyed.
“He was set upon on route home from Vienna. He did not survive. And you need not be concerned for his children. They are with their mother’s family in Switzerland.”
She felt her way to the settee as if blind to her surroundings. Then she sat. Her faraway expression fixed on something that was not presently in the room. Something he could neither see nor share.
He took the seat beside her. “May I,” he swallowed, “hold your hand?”
She looked down at the appendage in question as if surprised to see her own fingers. She flexed them, tightened them into a fist, and then finally, slowly, placed her loose fist into his open palm.
He held her one hand in both of his own and then tentatively threaded their fingers together. “Iamsorry,” he said. “Whatever you felt for him, I am certain his death has come as a shock.”
“A shock.” She wet her lips. “Yes.”
“Ithought,”he said haltingly,“under the circumstances, you might wish to revisit the house.”
“The house?”
“The house he let while living in London. I have the keys. But if you do not wish to return...”
He felt the blood in his cheeks.
What had he been thinking? He’d kept the literally wrecked pieces of his past—but had revisiting them ever eased the pain?No.Why would she wish to revisit the place where she’d suffered so much?
“...I thought taking you there might be a way to reckon with the past. A terrible idea, on reflection. An impertinent presumption.”
“No.” She placed her free hand on top of his. “I—I believe Iwouldlike to return. If, that is”—she raised her face—“you would come with me.”
Dawning hope felt like a raw abrasion. “Of course.”
* * *
The wheels of Hurtheven’s carriage rumbled over London’s cobblestone streets carrying Hera back into the heart of her past. Karl’s former townhome had, at first, represented a place she could begin anew, a place she could earn her way and become, if not self-sufficient, at least independent of a brother who had never asked for, nor relished, her presence in his house.
Her life certainly had taken a turn under those eaves.
Karl. Dead.
The idea was bewildering. How could someone who had exerted so much influence in her life be, simply, gone?
Hera searched her heart for some greater feeling than relief—something that could capture the complexity of what she felt for the father of her child. The most gracious emotion she could define, however, was pity. Pity that he’d never have the chance to become a man who madehimselfproud.
His death was a waste of life. A waste of power and vigor.
Her heart was...
Bruised? Aching?
