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He turned on his heel and passed by her again.

“Gavin . . .”

He whirled around, stopping just inches from her. “Don’t you understand what it was like running into that room and seeing you in a torn dress with blood all over you?”

Oh. He’d been worried about her. He was angry because he was scared.

“It wasn’t my blood,” she said softly.

“I didn’t know that!” he shouted.

She shrank back a step, unfamiliar with his rage. He rubbed a hand over his now-weary eyes. “I should know better than to tower over you like that after that brute attacked you. Forgive me.”

Cautiously, she laid her hand on his forearm. “I know you’d never hurt me, Gavin.”

He gave her a weak smile. “Perhaps I shouldn’t worry so much. From the looks of it you can take care of yourself.”

“Only because you taught me.”

“How did you hit him?”

“With the flat of my palm,” she said, holding out her hand to show him. “I know you said a good knock across the jaw can be just as effective, but I didn’t want to risk breaking a finger. It’s hard to sculpt with a broken finger.”

He squeezed her hand. “I’d never want you to compromise your sculpting career.”

The mention of her art sobered her, and she let go of him so she could settle on the sofa. She toed off her slippers and tucked her feet under her as best she could in her full evening gown.

“What am I going to do?” she whispered.

Rather than take the chair across from her, he settled on the floor, his back propped against a low, heavy table piled with books. Sitting like this he looked more like a boy of eight than a man of twenty-eight. A lock of his hair had come loose and hung in a curl over his forehead creased with worry lines. She hated that she was the source of his troubles.

“Tell me what you’d want with your life if none of this had happened,” he said.

“To sculpt,” she said without hesitation.

He nodded. “What else?”

Oh, there were so many things, but she wasn’t ready to tell him or anyone else about them. How could she admit that she dreamed of the day when she could walk into a museum and see one of her sculptures on display? She wanted to be written up in journals and studied by critics. She wanted to be approached for commissions and for people to proudly say, “That’s one of Ina Duncan’s statues,” when they went to church or walked around the city.

The Royal Sculpture Society would be her first step—an anonymous test to see if she really could stack up against all of the other artists who would submit. Then, if it was a success, she might begin to show people she was more than a lady who dabbled in art to fill her days.

“All I want is to be left alone to sculpt,” she said.

He pursed his lips and then nodded again. “Mrs. Sullivan is right.”

Her brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”

“You need to marry, and it’ll need to be quick. The world judges you more harshly than it does others. I’ve seen you bear that burden for a long time.”

He didn’t need to list all of the things working against her. She was acutely aware of them all. Daughter of a recluse and a flirt. Granddaughter of a shipbuilder. She might have a dowry, but her money was too new for society to forgive the fact that her family’s wealth had been made in trade. She’d always been the subject of speculation, acceptable enough, but not one of the inner circle of ladies who made up Edinburgh society.

Her gaze dropped to her hands, which lay folded in her lap. “I don’t know how to do anything but pretend not to hear all of them and ignore them as they watch me.”

“Then marry me.”

She looked up, half expecting him to burst out into laughter at tricking her, but his expression was earnest.

“Listen to me,” he said. “Mrs. Sullivan’s right. You need the protection of a husband or you risk your reputation being irreparably damaged, perhaps not today but at some point in the future. If there’s anything I can do to stop that from happening, I have to do it.”