“Why are you being so kind to me, Gray?” she whispered at last. “Is this an angle to take me to your bed again?”
He flinched at her cold assessment of his intentions. “When it comes to you, I am always thinking about having you in my bed,” he admitted. “But taking you for a walk tonight has nothing to do with that.” She gave him a look, and he smiled despite himself. “Very well, it haslittleto do with that.”
“Then why?” she pressed.
“I heard you playing the pianoforte and it drew me in,” he admitted. “I saw you weep and it brought out a desire to comfort you.”
She pursed her lips. “And if there is no comfort to be offered?”
He frowned at the idea that she could not be helped. It made him want to rip the world apart to find a way. Instead, he said, “Then perhaps a few moments to forget.”
“And how do you suggest that I forget?”
“We’ll talk about something else,” he said, guiding them forward once more. “You can tell me which of these dead flowers is your favorite.”
She laughed, and the sound warmed him to his center. He could spend a lifetime making this woman laugh. Feeling the beauty of it wrap around him tighter and tighter until there was room for nothing else but the pleasure she brought.
He shook those feelings away. They served no purpose in heaven or on earth.
“I would rather talk about you,” she said.
He looked at her from the corner of his eye. “Me?”
“Yes. You and I have gone about our entire acquaintance backward. We made love before we knew each other’s name, we hated each other before we knew the other. It seems time now that we truly meet.”
He shifted with discomfort at the idea that she wished to know him better. Just standing next to her made him feel vulnerable. Giving her more was…it was like arming an enemy with information on how best to destroy.
“And what about what I want to know about you?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You know I was married before, you know my grandfather raised me and my sister after our mother’s death—you know a great deal. And all I know is that you’re Stenfax’s younger brother and you have some kind of business to the north.”
“When you put it that way, it does sound unfair,” he conceded slowly.
“You and your brother seem as close as Celia and I…” She trailed off, and there was a twisting sense of pain to her tone. She swallowed and said, “You are lucky to have such a tight-knit family.”
He let his gaze slide away as he considered her statement. The truth about his family wasn’t something he shared. Hell, he hardly spoke of it with Felicity and Lucien. And yet he found himself longing to tell Rosalinde more. He tried to tell himself it was only to lower her guard. But it was more than that.
“We look close,” he admitted. “Felicity and Lucien and I are close, indeed. But our family isn’t as intact and wonderful as perhaps you picture it.”
She stopped in the path and turned toward him slightly. “No?”
“My father was a hard man. With vices and arrogance that did nothing to help refill our coffers. Oh, there were times he could be kind, at least to others, but with his family he was more often distant. He saw little value in his children except for the one who would take his place: Lucien.”
He heard the pain in his voice, the pain he so rarely allowed and never addressed. Rosalinde took his hand and squeezed, and it was like it opened the gate to feel everything he normally repressed. The agony spread open his chest and exposed his heart to the cold air.
He clung to her hand, holding it too tightly until the emotion faded.
“You had no relationship with him?” she asked.
He shrugged, able to pretend that truth had no meaning again. “Not unless I could stand behind Lucien and wait for whatever scraps the old man had left to give. Which was little.”
“But you don’t resent Stenfax for that,” Rosalinde said softly.
Gray wrinkled his brow. “How could I? Lucien didn’t want it that way. I even sometimes overheard him trying to encourage our father to pay me some heed, for all the good it did. My brother is my best friend, Rosalinde.”
He said it, knowing what it meant to her. Knowing she understood how far he would go, but also why he would do so.
Immediately he saw her appreciation for what his words meant. “You are lucky to have such close bonds with your siblings. Not everyone feels this way about their blood.”
