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“Gives them power over you.”

“Exactly.”

“Does my word count for anything, Your Grace?”

He turned and met her gaze. That unnerving, intense stare bore straight into her. Shadows played across his face. “I’m not certain yet.”

She pursed her lips and nodded. “Fair enough. You can. Trust me, that is. But I won’t hold it against you if you don’t.”

Not after what he’d been through. It was hard enough to trust others when you hadn’t been betrayed previously. And the man next to her? He’d been betrayed by the people in this world meant to be his one safe place. When everything else in life was uncertain, a person should be able to rely on family. Her attention fell on his cheek.

“It’s why I have my rule. It’s how I got what you’re staring at right now.”

Her attention shifted from his scar back to his eyes. It was more difficult to make out their color now; whether it was his shuttered gaze or the increasing darkening of the sky above them, she didn’t know.

“It was the last time I gave in and trusted someone. And I wasn’t even trusting her with that much,” he whispered.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and their heads jerked toward the sound. The sky was angry, rain impending. A few ripples dotted the surface of the pond. No longer impending.

“I was fifteen. She a hired whore.”

Theo’s stomach twisted, bile coating her tongue.

“I’d failed too many times previously when my father had forced me on a woman.” His gloves squeaked where they now gripped the rail. He glared down at them. “I was supposed to participate in those parties I spoke of.” A shudder ran through his frame. “I never could. Never could with any of the whores he’d locked me up with before. But with her…”

His face crumpled, and he slammed his eyes shut, his entire body vibrating.

She leaned into his shoulder, gave him silent support while he fought his next demon.

“I gave in,” he said hoarsely. “She knew exactly how to convince me, unlike the others before her.”

“How?”

His eyes met hers. “With kindness.”

Theo’s chest hollowed.

“And when I was at my most vulnerable.” He looked at her meaningfully, and she didn’t miss what he was hinting at. “When I was incapable of defending myself. She turned a knife on me.”

Even though she’d known where he was going, it didn’t prevent the utter havoc those words wreaked. She flinched, every muscle hardening against the claws scraping against her skin, adamant to get through to where she was soft and vulnerable. The level of deception was unfathomable.

He shifted, leaning on his side against the rail. “Hired by my father, as I’m sure you can surmise.”

Theo reached up, tracing her gloved finger over his scar.

He turned, nose brushing against her hand, his eyes fluttering shut for the briefest moment. Like she calmed him. Soothed him.

His eyes flicked back open. “Yes. Her work. In addition to not being in a position to defend myself, I was small and easy to overpower. Starvation tended to have that effect.”

Theo let her hand fall away. “But you got away.”

“I killed her.”

She nodded. His words were blunt. Held a challenge. Like he expected her to rebuke him. It was kill or be killed. He did what he had to survive. At fifteen. Her heart broke all over again for him. For that long-ago boy. The boy who probably never truly got to be a boy. Whose innocence was stolen before he’d even been able to experience it.

“That night, my grandmother and I fled. That was the last time I’d set foot at Ironcrest.”

“Until now,” she whispered.