Xenia’s throat clogged as the pieces came together.
Lord Ethan hadn’t worn gloves to be fashionable. What she’d believed to be vanity on his part was, in fact, an attempt to conceal an injury. Looking at his damaged hand, it was obvious that he’d been in a dreadful accident. She thought of his hidden piano, that beautiful unfinished sonata… Her chest squeezed as she began to comprehend what the tragedy might have taken from him.
“My right hand bore the brunt of today’s fight. If you wish to tend to it, I’ll need help getting the glove off. The left being what it is.”
His stoic expression made the anguish in his eyes that much more obvious.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“The last thing I want is your damned pity.”
She didn’t react to his snarl because she understood that she wasn’t the target of his rage.
“That is not what I meant. I’m not sorry for your injury—though I am, of course,” she said haltingly. “I’m apologizing because I made you remove your glove when it was not my place.”
“You do not have the power tomakeme do anything, Mrs. Wood.” He was testy now, and who could blame him? “Are you going to deal with the scrapes or not?”
But his wounds were more than the broken skin of his knuckles. More even than the damage done to his left hand. They went deeper, straight to the soul of a man who’d lost his ability to express his passion, his art…himself.
HowIwould feel if I lost my voice and my ability to tell stories.
Emotion overwhelmed her. Instinctively, she lifted his large hand in both of hers and brushed her lips gently over the scars. He jerked but didn’t pull away. When she let go of him, his turbulent gaze locked with hers. In that moment, she saw how raw and exposed he was and couldn’t let him feel that way alone.
“I’m sorry for playing your piano,” she said, her voice serrated with emotion. “And your composition. I shouldn’t have violated your privacy.”
“Forget it.”
“I can be impulsive, and I have a bad habit of not doing what I’m told to,” she plunged on. “My mama wasn’t one to give proper guidance, and my papa tried to teach me right from wrong, but he…he died when I was young. I had to figure things out on my own. Although I try to act the way a good and respectable person would, I make bad decisions all the time.”
“We all make mistakes,” he said roughly. “You are a good woman.”
A pang hit her chest. “You wouldn’t think that if you truly knew me.”
If you knew I was lying about who I am. If you knew about my past and the things I’ve done. If you knew that people have died because of me.
If you knew…me.
“You are a woman who convinced servants to work here even though every idiot in the village believes this place is haunted.”
“We don’t know that Bloody Thomisn’treal,” she felt obliged to say.
He aimed his gaze heavenward before continuing.
“You’re also a woman who villagers greet by name, even though you’ve been here less than a fortnight. You put yourself at risk to help others—something we will be discussing, by the by. And you win over grumpy butlers and even grumpier masters.”
Her heart fluttered. She couldn’t believe that he’d noticed these things. That he wassayingthese things.
“Brunswick isn’t grumpy,” she blurted.
Lord Ethan stared at her. Then he did something she’d never seen him do.
He smiled.
It wasn’t a big smile and looked like it required effort. Yet it transformed him; in a blink, he went from broodingly handsome to utterly irresistible. His next words knocked her wayward heart farther off course.
“I’m sorry,” he said gruffly. “For what I said to you when I found you at the piano. It was unpardonably rude, and I didn’t mean it.”
“I deserved it. I had no right to intrude—there or in the attic room.”
