The door opened.
Christian rose at once, irritation colliding with something far too akin to alarm. In the doorway stood Miss Fiona Hart, one hand braced against the frame, the other gripping a fireplace poker pressed into service as a makeshift crutch. She wore an overlarge nightgown—clearly borrowed from the servants’ stores—and a woollen shawl draped about her shoulders. Her hairhung loose in a tumble of chestnut curls that caught the firelight and glowed copper at the edges.
She looked, he thought with incredulity, like a determined lunatic who had stormed his defences armed with hearth equipment.
“Miss Hart.” His voice came out strangled. “What, precisely, are you doing?”
“Apologising.” She advanced one uneven step into the room, winced, and caught herself against a bookcase. “I screamed at you. It was unforgivably rude. I am sorry.”
Christian opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
No one apologised to him. People avoided him. Whispered about him. Stepped aside when they glimpsed him upon the road. They did not traverse corridors on injured limbs to beg pardon for a perfectly natural fright.
“You were startled,” he managed. “You had suffered an accident. Your reaction was… understandable.”
“It was not.” She took another step, and he had to clamp down upon the instinct to cross the room and steady her. “You saved my life. You carried me through a storm. And I repaid you by shrieking as though you were some sort of—”
She stopped.
Her gaze had shifted to the mirror above the mantel. In its glass, she could see what he had not thought to conceal: hisreflection, coat unfastened, cravat loosened, the dark edge of the birthmark visible where he had tugged impatiently at the collar.
He watched her face in the mirror. Waited for the recoil. The flinch. The confirmation of what he had long ago learned to expect.
Miss Hart turned to him.
“Is that it?” she asked quietly. “The mark they speak of?”
His throat tightened. He ought to close his coat. Dismiss her. End this absurd exchange before it cut any deeper.
“You have been listening to servants’ chatter.” His tone sharpened despite himself. “I should have thought a lady above indulging such nonsense.”
“I was curious,” she replied, without defensiveness. “They call you the Beast of Thornwick. I wished to know why.”
“And now you do.” He turned away, drawing his coat about him with practised efficiency. “A mark at birth. A convenient superstition. Choose whichever dramatic explanation you prefer—the conclusion is the same. I was born… different, Miss Hart, and society has never permitted me to forget it.”
Silence followed.
He finished fastening the buttons and turned back, half-expecting to find her gone—retreated to the safety of distance and propriety.
She remained where she was, leaning against the shelf, the poker planted upon the carpet, studying him with an expression he could not decipher.
“You were not holding my wrist to alarm me,” she said slowly. “This morning. You were taking my pulse.”
It was not a question, but Christian answered anyway. “The physician could not reach us last night. The roads were impassable. I possess sufficient knowledge to recognise a fever. I wished to ensure…” He hesitated. “I wished to ensure you had endured the night without complication.”
“And so you sat with me. Watching over me.”
“Someone had to.” His jaw tightened. “Your maid fell asleep in the small hours. I did not think you should be left unattended.”
She regarded him in silence for several heartbeats.
Then she smiled.
It was not a broad smile—merely the faintest curve—but it altered her countenance entirely, warming the cool grey of her eyes and softening the resolute set of her mouth.
“Your Grace,” she said, “I believe I owe you a second apology.”
“A second—”
