Page 108 of The Boxing Baroness

“It’s private.” His eyes twinkled with dark amusement as he echoed her words. “Want me to put your things in here? Because if this is broken into, the thieves can’t find anything.”

She’d given him the enamel box and he’d tucked it away.

“Thank you,” she’d said, turning to leave.

“He might seem cold, but he is the farthest thing from it. You could hurt him. Deeply.”

Marianne had considered pretending she didn’t know what Guy meant, but, again, decided it wasn’t worth the lie.

“I think you’ve misinterpreted His Grace’s feelings for me, my lord.”

“I’ve known Sin a long time, and this is something different for him.”

“What? Are you trying to tell me I’m the first lover he’s ever had—aside from his wife?”

“No, he’s had other lovers.”

Marianne didn’t want to hear that—even though she already knew it. “Then what?”

“He normally takes lovers from among the ton.”

His words felt like a slap. “Well, don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll go back to the proper sort of woman soon enough. No doubt his recent decision was a result of his lack of options.” Marianne had whipped around to leave, but he’d caught her arm.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what do you mean, my lord?” She’d yanked her arm away.

Lord Carlisle was almost relentlessly charming, and rarely serious. He had quickly become a favorite among her uncle’s employees—especially the female ones. She’d never seen his face so stern and severe.

“St. John’s morality is not just a mask he puts on and takes off. He is an honorable man—through and through. I have known him since before either of us could walk. After he inherited the title—a title he’d never envied his brother—he became a different man. He was no longer St. John Powell, a younger son destined for the church—” He nodded at Marianne’s look of shock. “Yes, the church. He already had his future mapped out while the rest of us were still getting into foolish scrapes at school. He fell in love—and fell hard—when he was fifteen, before his family was decimated.”

Pain and jealousy had swirled in her belly; pain that the duke had lost somebody he loved—even as she burned with jealousy to think of him with another woman.

“I knew his wife died, but I didn’t—”

“The woman he loved was not his wife.”

Marianne hadn’t believed she’d heard him correctly. “He kept a mistress while he—”

“Of course not! That is the last thing he would do after what his father did. You’ve been around him for weeks now—do you see him as the sort of man to inflict pain on others? Especially people who are dependent on him?”

No, she didn’t.

“When he married Vanessa, he worked to make their marriage a happy one. I doubt she ever knew his heart had been given to another. They were happy together—even though it didn’t last long. I daresay they would have come to love one another in time.” Guy had shrugged, unaware that his words were like claws, shredding her.

“What about the woman he loved?”

“She was a vicar’s daughter—sweet, gentle, and utterly unsuited to the life of a duchess even if Sin could have married her. She grew up in the village of Staunton, where her father was the vicar, a living granted by Sin’s father. She was our age and we ran wild together before Sin and I were packed off to school. But even then—when we were just sprouts—it was easy to see that Sin worshipped her. He was different then—far less reserved. His father surely knew where his middle son’s interest lay, and Sin would have had to fight to convince the duke to allow him to marry a vicar’s daughter.”

“You say even if he could have married her. Why couldn’t he? Just because of their disparate statuses?” She scoffed. “It couldn’t have been such a great love if society’s judgment mattered more than their happiness.”

“You are quick to disparage what you do not understand.”

“Well, explain it to me—unless you think my brain is not sophisticated enough to grasp the complexity of ton marriages?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “You have a larger chip on your shoulder than anyone I’ve ever met, Marianne. We are not all like Strickland, you know.”

“I’m waiting, my lord.”