“And whatisyour intent?”
He hooded his gaze. “Right now, my sole intention is to keep you from harm. An intention I’ve maintained since our unusually rapid departure from Wisterley.”
His unasked questions hung heavily in the air, and the closeness of their bodies stood in sharp contrast with the distance between what she was experiencing and what she was willing to reveal.
“I grant the urgency of our flight was unusual.” She spoke slowly, as if feeling her way through a long, dark tunnel. “I assure you the children are not in danger. The Duchess of Ashbey is fully aware of my circumstance.”
“Ash implied as much.”
Had he?
She felt the blood drain from her cheeks. Thank goodness the duchess had promised to keep Annis’s existence a secret...even from her husband.
“Ash also implied that you have no family on which to depend. I’m intrigued by your circumstance, which has led me to wonder...”
For a desperate moment, she thought he was about to guess the truth.
“...were you, perhaps, born a foundling?”
The word left her cold. Colder, even than she had been. She bristled. “Sheltering a foundling beneath your roof would offend you, I suppose.”
He frowned. “Several older foundlings from Lincolnshire are, in fact, apprenticed on the estate—a circumstance due to Alicia’s influence. I see no reason to hold a child’s manner of concep—” He stopped abruptly, and then colored, as if just realizing how far they’d strayed from the boundaries of polite conversation. “I see no reason to shame an innocent child.”
His expression—slightly confused, deeply earnest, and plainly desirous of her confidence—tugged at her heart.Confound him. She had to tell himsomething,before all her secrets came tumbling forth.
“I am not a foundling...but neither do I have my family’s protection,” she said. “I lost my mother as a child. My father, some five years past.”
“It’s been longer for me.” A muscle twitched in his jaw. “But I understand the loss beyond what I am... easily able to convey...”
The beat of her own heart thudded in her ears.
“...Would you grant me the honor of a description? Tell me something you remember about your parents.”
Ah,this man.
Capable. Confident. Master—at all times—of his person, was asking about her parents with the expression of an urchin with his hat clutched in his hands.
Karl had never asked, even though he frequently spoke of his own grief.
In fact, she did not think she’d ever had the opportunity to talk about her parents since her father died. She found herself wanting to recall, if only for a moment. But...
“Would you do the same for me?” she ventured.
He flinched and then gazed silently out the window for what felt like a full minute. “I will,” he replied finally. “...but at a later time.”
She searched his face for devious motivation and found none. Could he simply want to know her? Warning bells chimed. She ignored them, responding instead, to the phrasebeyond what I ameasily able to convey.
She understood this pain.
She turned her gaze outside the window, where a lone bird was calling out in the distance. “My mother was lovely and warm. She smelled of lavender and she always wore two bracelets that clinked when she drew me into an embrace. ...Unfortunately, that is about all I remember.”
“And your father?”
“My father was...kind—when he thought to acknowledge anyone else’s presence, that is. He could be obstinate.” She smiled. “And arrogant—though I never doubted his love. Books were his chief solace after my mother passed.”
“And yours as well?”
She nodded. “And mine.”
