“Benedict,” Anastasia whispered, “you are not to blame for everything that happened to you. However, you should also understand that you do not have to follow all the tasks on your list for others to like you or for you to be in control.”
He should have dismissed the remark with a sharp retort. He should have reminded her that liking was irrelevant, that respect was earned, that order was the only thing keeping him from being dragged under. Yet for a moment, he found himself unable to summon the usual coldness. It was not merely what she said, but the fact that she said it without pity.
“I am not concerned with being liked,” he replied, but the words sounded mechanical, as though he were repeating something hehad been taught rather than something he believed.
Anastasia’s mouth curved into a faint smile that was not amused at all. “You are,” she murmured, “not by everyone. Only by the man who taught you that you were worth nothing unless you were useful.”
The blunt accuracy of it struck him harder than he cared to admit. For a moment, he could only stare at her, because no one had ever dared to name the thing he had spent his life refusing to look at directly. His gaze dropped, not to the chessboard, but to her hands resting on her skirts.
He drew in a slow breath, and when he spoke, his voice was quieter than before. “You should not have been made to beg for freedom,” he said, the words tasting unfamiliar in his mouth. “You should not have been used.”
It was not meant as comfort, yet it softened her all the same; her lashes fluttered, and her throat worked as if she were swallowing something sharp.
“Careful, Your Grace. I might start thinking that you are gentler than you want everyone to believe.”
“I did not know how to be gentle,” he admitted. His gaze returned to hers. “Not until you.”
Anastasia did not move, but something in her face shifted as if she had been struck—because she had not expected tenderness from him.
Then, as if she could not help herself, she reached out. Her fingertips brushed his hand where it rested on the arm of the chair, the gesture so small and unguarded that it was meant to soothe rather than provoke. The contact went through him withstartling force, and his first instinct was to pull away, because wanting comfort from her was weakness, and accepting it meant admitting she could reach him. But he did not move. Instead, his hand turned beneath hers, closing around her fingers in a firm, involuntary grip, as though he needed proof of her warmth before he could regain his composure.
Their eyes met again, and the silence changed. She was not looking at the duke now, or at the man made of discipline and restraint. She was looking at the part of him that had been hurt and had never been allowed to show it, and Benedict felt his heart hammering out of control.
It was unbearable.
He leaned in, and his lips found hers.
The kiss was initially chaste, a soft press of their lips—nothing like the frantic kisses they had shared before. Anastasia met him halfway, with instinct making her hold the back of his neck. Her fingers tangled in the thick hair he was careful to keep smooth. He pulled her onto his lap, crushing her not just with the kiss but also with the rigid heat of his body. The scent of vanilla flooded his senses, its essence ridding his mind of his study, his ledgers, and his numerous rules. He was claiming her now, with a silent plea. There were two people who finally understood each other. She was the chaos to his order, and yet everything made perfect sense. He realized he loved some of her chaos, the one thing he had tried to erase from himself.
“Benedict, I—”
“I know,” he murmured against her mouth, his voice rough. “I know.”
As he deepened the kiss, he realized he was not driven by temper or desire alone. He had been falling for her. The truth landed so sharply that for a heartbeat, he might have stopped, might have pulled away out of sheer instinct for self-preservation, but he did not. His hand tightened at her waist instead, holding her there as if letting her go would be impossible.
He could have gone on. He would have.
The lock clicked.
The sound cut cleanly through them. The door swung open, and cool air rushed into the room. They broke apart at once, both flushed and breathless, the taste of each other still on their mouths. Benedict did not move quickly enough to disguise the fact that Anastasia was in his lap, his arms still around her, her fingers still tangled in his hair.
For a brief moment, he looked toward the open door, his mind catching up as his body refused to obey. Then he rose, steadying Anastasia on her feet as if she were nothing but a lady who had stood too near him, and not the woman he had just kissed as though he could not stop. His expression became controlled within seconds, yet the loss hit him all the same, sharp and unwanted, because he had not wanted the interruption.
He had not wanted to stop at all.
“Good news! Lupita was found, Benedict!” the dowager duchess cried. “A footman found her chewing on a slipper behind the dovecote house shed.”
Benedict did not look at either woman. He needed to get out of there. He strode past the dowager duchess. He needed to escape.
Perhaps Lupita knew of a better hiding place.
Chapter 21
“He could not have meant it,” Anastasia whispered to herself, though the words did little to steady her. “It was only… a moment.”
She could not believe she had allowed herself to imagine that Benedict might look at her differently once he hadseenher, once he had spoken to her as though she mattered, once he had kissed her as though he had forgotten how to stop. He was the Duke of Frostmore, disciplined enough to write rules for his own heart and live by them. And she was a woman respectable men did not marry because her name was already stained.
It was not difficult to understand why he had turned cold the moment the door opened. A duke did not indulge in scandal. A duke did not allow himself to be trapped in anything that threatened his reputation or his future. He would need a duchess one day, and duchesses came with clean pedigrees and quieter pasts.
