Her name.
He had used her name and the intimacy of it—the simple, devastating intimacy of her own name in his rough voice—made something crack open in her chest.
“It was a long time ago,” she said, and hated the wavering of her voice. “It does not signify now.”
“It signifies.”
“It should not. I am married. I am a duchess. I have—” She stopped, struggling to name what she possessed. Security? Position? A husband who regarded her with something that was not pity, though not quite warmth either? “I have more than I ever expected.”
“That is not the same as having what you deserved.”
The words fell between them like stones dropped into still water. Eleanor felt the ripples spread through her—shock, confusion, and beneath them both, something perilously close to tears.
“You do not know what I deserved,” she whispered.
“I know what you did not deserve.” He stood very close now, close enough that she could see the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, the way the scarring pulled slightly at the edge of his mouth. “You did not deserve to be used as a stepping-stoneto another woman. You did not deserve to have your worth measured against a dowry. You did not deserve—”
He broke off. His jaw tightened. His scarred hand, she noticed, had curled into a fist at his side.
“What?” she asked, scarcely breathing.
“You did not deserve to have your kindness mistaken for availability. Your intelligence dismissed as charming but impractical. Your—” Another pause, as though the words cost him something to utter. “Your beauty overlooked because it was not the right sort of beauty.”
Eleanor could not move. Could not breathe. Could only stand there, held fast by the gravity of his gaze, while he spoke truths no one had ever spoken to her before.
“You knew,” she heard herself say. “You perceived it, even then—at the gathering. When you proposed.”
“I suspected.”
“And you chose me nonetheless.”
“I chose you because of it.” His voice was rough, almost harsh. “I chose you because you had been wounded by the same weapons that wounded me—expectation, judgment, the conviction that you would never be enough. I chose you because I recognised the armour, and I thought—”
He stopped. Turned away. The muscle in his jaw flexed, his breath coming faster than it should have done.
“You thought what?” Eleanor pressed.
The silence stretched between them. When he spoke again, his voice was scarcely audible.
“I thought perhaps we might be incomplete together. That two people with matching wounds might find a way to—” He shook his head. “Forgive me. I am not skilled with words. I never have been.”
Eleanor’s heart pounded. Her hands trembled. Every instinct she had cultivated over seven years urged her to retreat, to armour herself, to reduce this moment to transaction rather than confession.
But she could not retreat. Could not look away from this scarred, silent man who had just offered her something she had not known she required.
Understanding.
“You are more skilled than you suppose,” she said quietly.
He looked at her then—truly looked—his dark eyes searching her face with an intensity that left her feeling exposed, seen, and terrified all at once.
“The man was a fool, Eleanor. Any man who could look at you—truly look—and see only inadequacy was not worthy of your grief.”
Tears stung her eyes. She blinked them back fiercely.
“And if I cannot cease grieving?” The question escaped before she could restrain it, raw and unguarded in a manner she had not permitted herself in years. “If the wound remains, even now? If I still—”
If I still cannot believe anyone who tells me I am enough.
