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Tentatively, she rested her hand against his bare chest. The instant her palm met the hard warmth of his skin, she felt his arm slide around her waist. Slowly but deliberately, he pulled her on top of him until nothing remained between them.

"I did," he answered quietly. "I told you before, I cannot make love to you."

"You did not seem nearly so concerned this afternoon."

Her fingers drifted lightly along the roughness of his jaw. His eyes closed for the briefest moment. She watched the muscles tighten beneath his skin, the crinkles deepen around his eyes. It struck her then that perhaps his objection had never truly been the act itself. Only the name. Whether one called it making love or simply sharing a husband's bed scarcely mattered.

The truth was far simpler. Arthur cared for her, and she cared for him. Whatever name he wished to give it could never change that.

"I have a question." She traced the other side of his jaw before letting her hand drift back down to his chest, her fingers moving lazily over warm skin as she gazed at him through lowered lashes.

"What taught you that you could not love?"

She watched his entire expression transform before her eyes, the hunger that had darkened his gaze only moments before retreating so completely being replaced by something that looked painfully close to defeat. His jaw shifted, his lips pressing into a near-straight line as though he were physically holding the words back. Knowing she had caught him entirely off guard, she deliberately continued tracing slow circles over the broad expanse of his chest.

"Questions..." she whispered, her fingertips never ceasing their absent exploration, "demand answers, Arthur."

The side of her face burned under his glare, and so she did not attempt to meet his gaze; instead she focused on studying the path of her own fingers with exaggerated concentration, believing that if this confession were ever to leave him, it would only do so if she afforded him the dignity of speaking without feeling observed.

"I have loved unequivocally once before," he said at last, the words so quiet they almost dissolved into the silence between them.

"She was the daughter of a glassmaker in London."

Immediately her thoughts betrayed her, flashing to the engraved whisky glass that had occupied the corner of his desk from the first day she had entered his study, the one he had so carefully taken from her hands when she had reached for it.

“We were both nineteen. I had purchased my commission, though I had not yet left for war, and everything still seemed remarkably simple then. She made me laugh…” A melancholy smile danced across his lips before disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared. “…rather like you. From the very first afternoon I met her, I knew, with a certainty I have never possessed about anything else, that she was the woman with whom I intended to spend the rest of my life.”

Her fingers faltered against his chest for only the briefest of moments before continuing their gentle path. The words hurt. Far more than she cared to admit. But this was not the moment to indulge that hurt. Arthur was offering her something infinitely rarer than reassurance; he was entrusting her with the wound that had shaped the man he had become, and she refused to interrupt it with her own jealousy.

"Her father had already promised her to another man, and—this may surprise you—I possessed considerably more confidence than wisdom at nineteen." His smile carried no amusement.

"I believed a dukedom could solve every problem placed before it and that all I had to do was arrive, announce my intentions to Mr Weatherly, and everything would naturally fall into place."

His eyes remained fixed upon the canopy overhead.

"It did not."

"When her father discovered I had stolen his daughter's virtue. He beat her..." Arthur swallowed, his voice tightening almost imperceptibly. "...so brutally that when she came to me later that evening, pleading with me to protect her, the bruises across her face matched the blue of her eyes."

Eliza's breath caught painfully in her throat. She had witnessed cruelty before. The orphanage had introduced her to children who carried bruises hidden beneath sleeves and collars, yet hearing Arthur recount horror with a quiet restraint somehow made the image infinitely more horrifying.

"She begged me to save her, to marry her, and I promised I would", he continued, his arm unconsciously tightening around her waist as though he were still trying to protect that frightened girl after all these years.

"So I marched directly to her father's workshop and challenged him to a duel. If I won, I would receive his daughter's hand. I had fenced since I was a boy, won more schoolyard contests than I could count, and like every arrogant nineteen-year-old who has never truly been tested, I mistook confidence for ability."

A humourless breath escaped him.

"He accepted immediately. He chose the place, Richmond Park, and the hour, nine o'clock."

"It never even occurred to me that the event would occur in almost complete darkness."

A long silence followed before he spoke again, quieter this time.

"I arrived, and Laurence stood beside me as my second. We were little more than boys masquerading as men, convinced honour alone would see us through." He said, his gaze never leaving the canopy above them.

"We duelled. He was older, and unlike me, he played dirty. He slashed my face before I had even realised I had left myself open, and still I refused to yield. We fought for what felt like an eternity. I landed several good blows myself; one struck his hand with such force that I later learnt he could never return to glassmaking, but none of it mattered.”

The words were scarcely louder than a whisper.