And yet, once she’d started talking, saying those words she’d kept to herself, stories she hadn’t even told her aunt, it was like a spigot was turned on. She couldn’t stop.
That was shocking enough, given what she knew about the motives of the man standing before her. But more than that was the fact that he took in what she said. Solemn but without judgment. He didn’t tease her or play off her words.
He justheardher.
And that was like a gift she hadn’t realized she needed so desperately.
“He was tired that night,” she whispered, trying not to follow her mind down its path to her worst memories. “But demanded his pleasure regardless. He asked me to be on…”
She stopped. This was too much. Too intimate. Too private.
Robert leaned in, his gaze never leaving hers as he reached up to stroke her cheek with the back of his hand. “You needn’t be embarrassed. I’ve seen it all, remember. Biggest cad in London. I am not capable of being shocked. Nor of judging you, which I would like to reiterate, I do not.”
She shut her eyes. He made this too easy. How could it be so easy with him? And yet it was.
“I was on top,” she finished without looking at him. Of course with her eyes shut, she could see Gregory now, laid out on their bed like some ancient king demanding tribute. “And as I moved, I began to feel that flutter of pleasure I wanted sodamnedbadly.”
Robert took her hand, his thumb sliding over her skin gently. “You reached for it.”
She still didn’t open her eyes. “God, yes. Harder and faster. In control for the first time in a very long time. I saw his eyes go wide, saw him gape with what I thought was surprise. And then he went so stiff beneath me. I could see something was wrong. He was not well. I screamed for help immediately. I wasn’t thinking of how it would look when the servants burst in. Me naked over him, him sprawled out on our bed. Dead.”
She heard her voice getting louder, more hysterical, as it had that awful night. Robert tugged her and she fell into his arms. Warm arms, comforting beyond measure. He smoothed his hands across her back, whispering empty words of comfort against her hair as he just…held her.
Some part of her screamed in to pull away. Run away because this felt too, too real. But she was exhausted by confession, broken by reliving all that pain in the past. Knowing all the pain still yet to come as she navigated her way through Society and their judgment.
And his arms were so strong. She leaned into his chest, shuddering as she fought tears. “It was awful,” she whispered against his skin. “He died, and I recognized immediately that his death would be the end of my life, too.Everyonewould know what had happened. Everyone would see I was exactly what my father always accused me of being.”
She felt him stiffen and his arms tightened around her. Like he could protect her from her words. Like he wanted to.
“That’s all of it,” she whispered.
She stayed there in the cocoon of his warmth for a moment, then began to pull away. He held her tight, not forcing her, but not letting her get away either.
He looked down into her face. His was just inches from hers. His gaze was firm on hers. “This wasnotyourfault.”
She jolted at the words, at how deeply they touched her even though she couldn’t trust him. Didn’t trust him. Didn’twantto like him or see him as a person she could curl into and surrender her fears just as she had.
“Look at me,” he said gently. “Really look at me, Katherine, without thinking about your next move.”
She froze in the midst of her struggle to escape this connection and forced herself to take a long breath. To come back to this moment rather than let her fear take over.
“What happened that night isnotyourfault,” he repeated. “Gainsworth was wrong not to teach you how to harness your own pleasure. He was certainly wrong to tell you that the desire for that sensation was dirty. He should have celebrated your responsiveness. Nurtured it.”
She felt a tear slide down her cheek and gasped at the heat of it. He wiped it away with his thumb and then pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“You were never, never wrong for what you wanted, Katherine.”
He released her when she pulled away this time. Only she didn’t race across the room as she had thought to do at first. She stood before him, still warmed by his presence as she stared at him. “No one else but you would ever say that.”
He shook his head. “Not true. Any person who’d ever experienced pleasure would say the same. Every duchess in this house would tell you the same.”
Terror raced through her. She had so little—the burgeoning friendship with the duchesses was so fragile and precious to her as she came to know them.
“You would not tell them what I said? Your friends? Their wives?”
“No,” he said immediately, with strength. Almost with shock that she would assume that. “Never, Katherine. Here in this room, between us, it is private. It will remain so.”
She sighed. “Trusting you will never be easy.”
