He looked down at her and nodded as he set her on the bed. Too bad, she thought. He was too straight and narrow to accept what she was. An illiterate street urchin, as the duke’s sister had called her. Not a thief as Edith suspected, but a reformed hustler. There was a difference.
“Why did your face turn glum?” he asked, pulling up a chair and sitting close.
“I was just thinking of my life before.”
“Was it a difficult life?”
She shrugged her shoulders. She’d never complained about it before. What good would it have done?
“I’d had hope of finding a job, saving up and getting my own place. But no one would hire a homeless illiterate who couldn’t even sign her name.” She glanced at him to see his reaction. If he was going to throw her out, she’d rather he do it now, before she grew to like him too much.
“Where were your parents?” he asked, leaning in closer.
She told him about being abandoned by her father and about her mother who raised her on the crowded streets of New York City.
“You never had a home?”
Fable didn’t like the pity she saw in his eyes. “I was okay. I didn’t miss what I never had.” Of course, she would have loved a warm bed and a hot meal but she’d rather lie to him than have him look at her this way. “It’s okay, really. I’m used to being alone. In a way it’s easier. You don’t learn to depend on anyone, so no one can let you down.”
She watched his Adam’s Apple dance along his neck as he swallowed. “Not everyone will let you down,” he answered coolly, but Fable heard traces of something warm.
Edith arrived soon after with Fable’s dinner. When she saw the duke there, she hurried to bring him food, as well.
“This is the second time I’ve eaten with you,” Fable told him, feeling an unfamiliar warmth rise from her belly and heat her face. The first time, he hadn’t eaten with her, but he was there. He’d fed her.
“Does how many times we eat together mean something?”
“Well, yes,” she told him, surprised that he looked so innocent right now. “Not for us in the same way, but...now then, haven’t you ever had a girlfriend?”
He blinked his beautiful, obsidian eyes. “A what?”
“A woman in your life? Someone who meant a lot to you?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been on the battlefield since I was sixteen. Before that, I fought on the streets to live. I never had time for a serious union.”
What did that meanhe fought on the streets to live? Why hadn’t she asked the earl more about his friend’s past?
And honestly, he never had a serious ’union’? Fable could hardly believe it. Why, the more her eyes took in the sight of him, the kinder he was to her, the more magnificently beautiful he became. What a pity.
“Why did you spend your life in battle,” she asked him in a quiet, curious voice, “risking yourself for so many years?”
“I had to,” he told her, in his low, steady voice. “One way or another, I would have killed others around me, possibly myself. Battle saved me.”
She stopped eating and stared at him. What did that mean? And why did it make her want to cry for a week? What had made him want to kill?
“Are you okay now?”
He looked up from his tray of food. He wasn’t smiling, but something pleasant and pleasing covered him like a veil. He nodded, and then tilted his head doubtfully. “I assume by okay, you mean well or good? If so, then yes, I’m well.”
“Good,” she said and went on eating.
She was certain he smiled, but it was gone too quickly.
“You said eating together meant something, but not for us,” he reminded her. “What did you mean by that?”
“Well, because I’m not your girlfriend and because that’s not why I brought it up. I just meant it was the second time I’ve eaten with anyone besides my mother.”
He put his spoon down. “Do you mean to tell me that not only did you never have a home, or a bed, but you were alone your whole life but for your mother? You didn’t even share a meal with anyone?” He blew out a deep breath and almost groaned looking at her.
