“That is why I eloped with the Captain all those years ago,” she went on, her voice barely above a whisper. “He promised me freedom, and I could not stay and marry the man my father dictated to me. I thought I was running toward a life that belonged to me… not toward another gilded cage.” Her mouth tightened, and the bitterness in her expression made his stomach twist. “But it turned out he did not want me. He wanted what I could give him. As soon as my sister married the duke in my stead, he revealed what he truly sought—my ties to the man I was supposed to marry. I was useless after that.”
She inhaled, steadying herself, and when she spoke again, her voice was firmer, as if she were forcing the softness back down.
“You are probably right. My rebellion against order has brought me only ruin.” Then she added, quieter, and somehow worse for it, “The worst part is that I know now I nearly made the same mistake twice. I leaned toward men who were frivolous with words. Good with their charms.” Her gaze dropped to the board, and her mouth turned sharp with self-disgust. “The baron who courted me after… He tried to take advantage of me, and when I trusted him with my past, he made sure to spread all kinds of tales about me.”
Her eyes lowered to the chessboard. For a moment, Benedict said nothing. His jaw flexed once, hard, and the air between them changed, not with anger ather, but with a possessive furyso sudden he nearly recoiled from it. He could not help but think of the Captain or the Baron bastard touching her. He even despised the thought of them handling her hopes. This line of thinking filled him with possessive fury. He hated every man who had tried to claim her, only to leave her stranded. He could not bear the idea that she had once offered her heart to a man who had taken it like coin and spent it. Cruelty. It was sheer cruelty.
He had always known thetoncould be vicious, but hearing her say it struck him anew with renewed disgust. People did not care that she had suffered humiliation and heartbreak. They cared for the titillation of it—how easily they could paint her as reckless and ruined, and then congratulate themselves for being better.
Something in him tightened at the sight of her lowered gaze. He did not want her to be meek. He did not want her subdued. He wanted her sharp, bright, defiant. He wanted the vixen in her. And the fact that he wanted anything at all—wantedher—was the most dangerous admission of all.
It only seemed fair to offer her something of himself in return. She had laid herself bare in front of him, and despite her careful pride, Benedict could tell she had not meant to. It had simply… happened as if the game had given her permission.
So he made a careless move. He slid his knight forward without defense.
“T-that,” she stammered, the first time he had heard her sounding a little uncertain, “is—”
“Your turn to ask me a question,” he said firmly, looking her in the eye.
Anastasia’s throat worked. She glanced down again, then back at him, as though she were deciding whether she dared.
“What made you the way you are?” she blurted, and then, flustered, tried to recover her composure with a wave of her hand. “I… I mean…” Her cheeks pinked. “What about your family?”
She looked almost frantic now, as though she feared she had pushed too far, and her hands made an awkward little gesture in the air before she forced them to still. “I am sorry,” she said quickly. “I cannot help it. You are very hard for me to understand.”
He gave her a slightly amused smile. Then, he looked away, letting the dust motes command his following few words.
“My parents were never consistent,” he began, his voice measured, almost detached. “One day, they would be indulgent, almost doting. The next…” He gave a faint, humorless breath. “The next, I may as well have been a piece of furniture. I learned young that affection could be given and taken without warning. Not to mention that letting women cloud your judgement could lead to ruination.”
His gaze remained fixed somewhere beyond the window, as though he were speaking of another boy entirely.
“When my uncle took an interest in me, I thought it might be different. I thought—foolishly—that he would value discipline, that he would value… merit.” A pause. Benedict’s jaw tightened. “But it was never about merit. It was about utility.”
He swallowed once, and the movement looked like restraint.
“He treated me as his heir only when he believed he could not produce one of his own. Each time he found a new wife, I learned the same lesson: when his wife was with child, I ceased to exist. I was called close, then discarded. Called close, then discarded.” Benedict’s fingers tightened against the armrest. “He never had to say it aloud. His actions made it clear. My worth depended on whether I was useful.”
Anastasia had gone very still.
Benedict continued, his voice still even, though something darker pulsed beneath it. “I could not endure the uncertainty. I could not endure waking each day never knowing whether I would be praised or ignored, valued or thrown aside. So I learned that achievement was the only currency that could not be taken from me. If I became untouchable, if I became perfect, then no one could discard me again.”
As much as he tried not to show pain, he could not help it. It seeped out of him. Bled out of him. He held on to it for too long, all alone.
“That is why you want to be consistent. You made your rules to keep everything in place,” Anastasia said, her voice cracking.“What you did was build a cage of perfection to shield you. You are still afraid of being discarded once more.”
The words hung between them.
The green eyes that turned to him were full of sympathy. No, it was not just sympathy. She truly understood.
Benedict’s chest felt tight. His throat felt tight. For the first time in a long time, he did not know what to say.
“I grew up believing that anything unplanned was a weakness that would destroy me. Yet, you can see now that I am failing at it. Today, an old woman fooled me into looking for her dog, only to lock me up here. I am a joke. An unworthy duke, as my uncle would say.”
Benedict ran a hand over his face, as if to scrub away the vulnerability that could not help but appear there. However, his words revealed more of what he had learned to set aside.
“I spent my whole life trying to please him. Trying to get his approval. One tiny failure made him see me as nothing but a ruinous disappointment.”
There it was—the thought that was niggling in his mind. A part of him knew from the moment the door locked that the dowager duchess wanted to lock him in with Anastasia.He had seen it coming, and still he had walked into the trap. Why? Because he had not moved quickly enough to stop it? Or because some part of him had wanted—
