Of two wounded souls acknowledging each other’s scars.
Thaddeus leaned back slightly in his chair, and for one brief instant, his carefully maintained mask slipped entirely. He looked younger somehow, vulnerable in a way she had never seen. His hand moved as though he might reach for hers, then stopped halfway, hovering uncertainly before falling back to his knee.
“Thank you,” he said. “For listening. For not judging me. My cowardice.”
“It is not cowardice to be afraid,” Maribel replied. “Only to let that fear stop you from living.”
He nodded slowly, his gaze still fixed upon her. “You are not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Someone more biddable, I suppose. Someone willing to maintain the fiction without questioning the walls I have built.” His mouth curved slightly. “Instead, I find myself married to a woman who insists on seeing past those walls. Who refuses to allow me the comfort of my distance.”
“Does that anger you?”
“No.” He shook his head. “It makes me?—”
He stopped abruptly, and something shifted in his expression. Something that looked remarkably like panic.
“It makes me realize how much I have revealed this evening.”
The words fell between them with uncomfortable clarity.
Maribel watched as he withdrew—not physically, but emotionally. She could see it happening, could watch him reconstruct those walls brick by careful brick. The vulnerability in his eyes shuttered. His posture straightened. The mask of the Duke of Blackwood slid back into place.
“You should return to your chambers,” he said, his voice suddenly formal, distant. “It grows late, and I have taken too much of your time.”
The dismissal struck her like a physical blow. Maribel remained frozen, trying to comprehend the sudden transformation. One moment he had been open, achingly human. The next he had retreated behind walls so high she could not begin to scale them.
“Thaddeus—”
“Please.” The single word held an edge of something that might have been desperation. “I should not have—that is, I spoke too freely. It was inappropriate to burden you with such matters.”
“Burden me?” Maribel heard the tremor in her own voice. “How can Oliver’s welfare not concern me? How can your?—”
“We have an arrangement, Lady Blackwood.” His use of her formal title felt deliberate, calculated. “You are here to care forOliver, for which I am grateful. But I should not have presumed. Should not have imposed.”
He rose abruptly and moved toward the window, presenting his back to her. Every line of his body radiated tension.
“You should go. Please.”
Maribel remained seated for a moment, her hands clenched in her lap. Her chest felt tight with hurt, confusion, and the terrible understanding that he had shown her something real—and was now desperately trying to pretend it had never happened.
“Very well,” she said at length, rising with what dignity she could muster. “Goodnight, Your Grace.”
She heard him flinch at the formality but he offered no response. Nothing at all.
Maribel retrieved her candle and moved toward the door. For one wild moment she considered turning back, demanding some acknowledgment that what had passed between them had meant something.
But the rigid set of his shoulders warned her that pressing now would accomplish nothing.
She slipped into the corridor and closed the door softly behind her. Only when she stood alone did she allow herself to leanagainst the wall, one hand pressed to her chest where her heart hammered.
What had just happened?
One moment they had been speaking with unprecedented honesty. He had shown her his pain, his fear, his humanity. Had let her see the wounded man beneath the duke’s careful facade.
And then—nothing. As though a door had slammed shut. As though he had suddenly realized how much he had revealed and could not bear to show her more.
