“Iadorayou,” Sophia said from the pianoforte, and dissolved into a peal of laughter. Nicholas squeezed Isadora’s hand once, then went to tickle his daughter until she squirmed and squealed, begging for Isadora to save her from Nicholas’s tyranny.
Isadora sank onto the chaise. “If you can make it to me,” she said, holding out her arms, “then I will protect you from the terrible monster!”
Nicholas raised his head. “A terrible monster, am I?”
“Are you not?”
“I’ll show you what a terrible monster I can be.” He fake roared, scooping Sophia into his arms, and carried her across to Isadora. Sophia, laughing so hard her cheeks were apple-red, latched her tiny arms around Isadora’s neck.
Something changed and softened inside Isadora.
She had already known how inordinately fond of Sophia she had become, but now she realized that Sophia was, in essence, her own daughter. If she had to, she would run into a burning building for the girl. And she wouldn’t even hesitate. If she never had children of her own, she would still feel satisfied. Sophia was hers in every way that mattered.
She buried her face into Sophia’s hair.
“All right, Lady Sophia,” the nursemaid said, entering the room. “I think it’s time for bed.”
Isadora released Sophia and looked up. All their ballgowns were rumpled from having wrestled on the chaise, and Nicholas stood over them all like a protective lion over his family.
The playfulness left Nicholas’s face, and he straightened. “Very good. Come, Sophia.”
Isadora wished she could have clung to that moment—that version of Nicholas—for a little while longer. But the walls had come down around that relaxed, happy, family man he had been for the last hours.
And she had to accept that.
Sophia kissed Isadora’s cheek before retiring, and Isadora slumped back on the chaise, smiling at the ceiling.
Nicholas blocked the light, standing over her with a hot look in his eye. “Finally…” he growled, and brought his mouth down on hers.
Another searing kiss—this one, if possible, even deeper than the last.
“I have been waiting for hours to get you alone,” he mumbled against her mouth.
Isadora surrendered to the feel of his hands skimming over her shoulders and waist and breasts, and returned the favor. The light was greater now, and her fingers trembled with anticipation as she unbuttoned his waistcoat.
Finallywas the right word. She would finally get to see him in all his naked glory again.
Yet as she tugged at his shirt, more eager than she could ever remember being—even here, in their drawing room, on the chaise instead of in a bed—he caught her wrists to stop her, only a sliver of his stomach visible.
She halted, almost feral with need.
He panted above her, eyes two coals, glowing, desperate. But instead of kissing her again, or pushing up her skirts, or even undressing himself, he merely murmured, an edge to his voice, “I… must tell you something first.”
“Tell me what?” she asked, still faint and breathless.
He released her wrists and shrugged off his waistcoat and pulled his shirt over his head, tossing it over to one side. Then he stepped back.
Isadora looked… and looked. She had expected to drink in the sculpted splendor of his body—and she did, but that was not all she did. Instead, her eyes snagged on the faded bruises across his sternum. Old scars that made no sense to her, marring his skin. Last night, in the light of a single candle flame, she had not known they were there.
“I have tried resisting you,” he started, watching her from that distance. “I have tried keeping apart from you, but all it has done is make me mad for you. But if this—ifany of this—has a chance of working, then you deserve the truth.”
She recalled the bruises on his knuckles. The nightly outings. The countless secrets. And now, all the proof that he used his body for something far more brutal than merely being a duke demanded.
“After… after Grace died, I spent the better part of a year drowning. Drink, mostly. I put the whole world at arm’s length, my friends, my sisters—even… even Sophia. She had already losther mother, and I was doing my level best to make certain she lost her father too.”
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “The man who came rushing their way and overturned their carriage was never charged. A baron. He walked away from the wreck with a broken wrist, and I could not touch him—not in law, not in society, not in any way that would not have finished Sophia along with me.” His jaw worked. “So, one night, I got word he frequented a certain cellar in theShambles. Bare-knuckle bouts, no names asked. I went there meaning to kill him.”
Her breath caught.
