“Your sense of self,” Nathan said, nodding.I know how that is.
“Yes,” she said, looking surprised. “And I retreated further into fiction. My sisters, on the other hand, began living their lives more fully. They got married; they had children; they fell even more deeply in love with their husbands. And I just… read books. I allowed other people to live the full lives I wanted, and I consoled myself that if I read great stories, I didn’t have to live a great life.”
There was a long silence. Nathan wanted to break it to tell her that shewasleading a great life, that she was the leading lady of her dreams, but he also knew that he had to let her speak first. She was speaking truthfully to him, and it wasn’t the time to interrupt that with encouragement; he just had to listen.
“That’s why these past few days have felt so wonderful.” She grinned at him, and the sparkle came back on in her eyes.“Working together to fool Lord Redfield, and in order to stop a criminal enterprise, reminded me of what I always wanted out of my life. I channeled the heroine I have always wanted to be, and it worked.” Her grin grew even wider. “We did it! We’re going to bring down an opium ring, just like my sisters brought down my father.”
“I’m very proud of you,” Nathan said, and he raised the bottle of scotch high. “And I think you deserve a drink of this.”
He poured them each a glass then raised his own up. “To you,” he said. “To the Duchess of Carramere becoming the heroine of her life.”
Rosalie laughed and clinked her glass against his. “To finding my way back to myself,” she replied.
They both drank. This time, Rosalie coughed, and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sure that’s very good,” she said as she set her glass down on the sideboard, “but now that I no longer have to pretend to like it, I must admit that it is an acquired taste.”
“Fortunately, you won’t have to have it very often,” Nathan said. “Not until the next momentous occasion.”
“Oh yes, should we write it down?” she asked.
“I’ll do it later,” he said quickly.She can’t know. Please don’t let her insist.“I would rather we enjoyed a drink together first.”
Thankfully, she didn’t insist. She smiled, raised her glass, and took another sip then settled in the chair across from his desk. He did the same, smiling at her as he took a seat.
“You really were invaluable,” he said as they looked at each other over their glasses. “I can’t believe you knew so much about the opium trade.”
“Yes,” she said darkly, sighing. “An unfortunate side effect of growing up with my father.”
“I always thought you were saved from the worst of him,” he said slowly. “I was under the impression that your sisters got the worst of it.”
“They did,” she assured him, “but it was difficult for me as well. They were always sacrificing themselves to save me. Not that they always could, of course. He liked to torment them by threatening to marry them to evil men, but he found out rather quickly that marriage didn’t terrify me the way it did them, so he had to find other ways to bully me.”
Nathan’s heart had begun to speed up. The thought of the former Lord Carfield causing Rosalie distress, even if it was years ago, made his blood boil. It made him want to go to the prison where he was kept and give the man a piece of his mind.
“Like what?” he asked, his voice bone-chilling, even to him. “What did he do?”
Rosalie shrugged. “Oh, nothing too bad. He made fun of me for reading, that kind of thing.” But the offhand way she said it made Nathan suspicious. He had a feeling there was more to the story than she was saying.
However, he didn’t want to rush her. Instead, he found himself wanting to share some of his own stories. Not only because it might make her feel more comfortable to tell him about her father, but because he actually found he wanted to share.
“I know about bullying fathers,” he said, and her eyes widened in surprise. “My own father was not a good man.”
“He was the original owner of the epithetthe Beast of Carramere,was he not?”
“That’s right. And he earned the name.”
“I wondered.” She shook her head. “Because of course, one cannot always believe what one hears. I had also heard rumors that you were beastly, but now, I no longer think that is the case.”
Nathan swallowed. “Well, you should believe whatever you have heard about my father and worse. He deserves it all.”
Rosalie watched him for a long moment then she set her glass down on the desk between them. The look she gave him was determined and decided, and suddenly, Nathan wondered what was coming.
Nothing could have prepared him, however, for his wife’s next question.
“He gave you the scars on your back, didn’t he?”
Chapter Fifteen
