Derrick’s jaw was set now, his anger lining his face plainly. “You were a child.”
“But nothischild. The first time he told me that, I was six. He pointed out Roseford getting out of a carriage on the street near a market and told me that was my real father. My world was shattered. Once he saw he could hurt me that way, he did everything he could to cause more pain.Hewas the one who showed me the letters from Roseford to my mother, calling her a whore, calling me her bastard. Hehelpedme find letters from my grandfather, too, the ones that cut us both off.”
“Son of a bitch,” Derrick bit out. “Tell me he is still living so I may give him the beating he so roundly deserves.”
She shrugged. “What would be the point? The past is in the past. I’ve moved on. And he did settle down in the end. Ultimately the peace they came to was to ignore me. Both of them ignored me most of the time. And that gave me remarkable freedom. Even more freedom when they had their own children.”
“You have other half-siblings?”
“Oh yes. I have nothing full and everything half,” she said with a shake of her head. “Clara was born when I was ten. George when I was twelve. And I adored them, but I was always kept separate. The real children and the bastard one.”
“Did you ever seek out Roseford?” he asked.
“The previous?” she said. “My father? Yes, the same year George was born I tried to reach out to him. I found his address and snuck myself into the house. He was enraged I’d sought him. I’ddaredto defile to his home. He made it clear I wasn’t wanted either, but that I would have a settlement when I came of age. Then he made me leave through the servants’ entrance.”
Her breath felt constricted in her throat and she fought to remain impassive and flat and unaffected as she always pretended to be.
“I learned to live with it,” she added once she could actually speak again.
Derrick’s fists were tight at his sides, his shoulders shook with righteous rage on her behalf. “You shouldn’t have had to.”
“But Idid,” she insisted. Then she forced a smile, praying the mask made her look wicked and not broken. “And you cannot mourn for me completely. When I was eighteen, I received my father’s promised settlement. A large sum at majority and a healthy monthly allowance ever since. I bought a little house and got a companion and have lived happily ever after in my own way ever since. I do what I please, with whom I please and how I please.” She stepped up to him and placed a finger on his lips. “You’ve benefitted from my freedom, I think.”
“I would have rather not if it would have spared you one moment of that pain,” he said. “You can be flippant about it, you can dismiss it and disconnect from it, but you must have been brokenhearted by these events as they were occurring.”
She dropped her hand away. “What do you want, investigator?” she asked, her tone harsher than perhaps she had intended. “Do you want me to pour my blood onto the floor in front of you? Do you want me to weep and gnash my teeth and relive every—”
She cut herself off because her eyes were stinging with tears she didn’t want to shed in front of this man. Memories she didn’t want to recall. Emotions she had told herself were long put away.
“No. Of course not,” he said. Softer, gentler now. Like he was trying to soothe a rabid beast. Perhaps that was what she was in the end.
“They didn’t want me,” she whispered past a tightness in her throat. Even after all these years, there it was. “I cannot complain. It made me strong, it made me independent, it made me—”
She cut herself off then. If she spoke too much, she’d reveal the truth. She’d reveal how she’d created the Fox for revenge and for safety and for a thousand reasons that had everything to do with what she’d endured.
And then he would hate her. And then he would leave her, too.
He drew a long breath and then took a step toward her. Another. Another. Until the distance between them was erased. Until he stood before her, a wall between her and the pain. He reached out and touched her face, cupping her cheeks. His thumbs stroked, and he was wiping away tears she hadn’t realized she was shedding.
“I have nothing but utmost admiration for you, Selina Oliver. I did before. I do now. I always shall.”
“You can’t promise that,” she whispered.
He arched a brow. “I do promise it. Nothing could change it.”
She almost laughed at that idea. Of course that could be changed. He wouldn’t care for her once he wasn’t in the same space as she was, let alone once he knew the truth about what she’d done. What she still intended to do.
This was going to be over, and sooner rather than later.
“Do you want to do something for me?” she whispered. “Do you want to help?”
He nodded slowly, solemnly, a man of honor. A man of goodness and kindness and gentleness. A man unlike any she’d ever known in all her life. “I do.”
She shivered at the low timber of his voice, the intense eye contact, the fact that he was still cupping her face, staring down at her like she was treasure of far more value than any she’d ever stolen.
Everything about this man made her quake. That was dangerous and desperate and she didn’t care. She wanted him. All of him.
“Then take me to my bed,” she whispered. “And help me to forget again. Help me to pretend all of that never happened.”
