“Clementine…” Vanessa smiled. “That is a very beautiful name.”
“They were my mother’s favorite fruits,” Winston explained, and for the first time, a real smile flashed across his face. “She used to eat them whenever she could. They were rare, of course, but she loved them ever so much.”
“Your childhood was exceedingly difficult,” Vanessa observed after a moment. “It makes mine seem much less difficult than I always imagined it.”
“You do not have to compare them,” Winston said at once. “Both can be difficult in different ways.”
“That is true.”
He finished cutting the potatoes then took them to the pot and dropped them in. She heard a splash, and the rich, tangy smell of the stew grew stronger.
When he turned back around to face her, his face was inviting. Without saying it, she knew that he was telling her it was okay to tell him more, if she wished to, about her childhood.
She took a deep breath.
“You know, already, that my father wanted a son, do you not?” she began. Winston nodded. “It was very difficult for them to have a child. My mother lost many children before I was born. She told me this one day when I was twelve. She had been drinking heavily, and she cried and told me about all the babies she had lost. Then she became angry. She said there was no way I could have been the best. That I was a disappointment.
“I knew she was in her cups, so as I grew older, I tried not to take her seriously. To shrug it off. But?—”
“But you were only a child,” Winston observed, and his voice, to her surprise, had turned as cold as a winter storm.
“Yes,” she agreed. “I was only a child. And it was hard not to believe the words she said to me. It seemed to make everything else make sense. How distant she could be. But it was always so changeable. One day she would be kind and loving, the next she would be blaming me for something that went wrong. I never knew if it was really my fault or not. Like when she wasn’t invited to a particular party, she would say that I had made her tired and ill-mannered from all the extra help I needed to become accomplished, and that was why she was excluded from some of the higher echelons of theton:because she was too tired to be as fashionable and conversational as was required.”
“That isnotyour fault,” Winston exclaimed at once, his voice rising in both volume and pitch. “That is the flimsiest excuse I have ever heard.”
“I know,” Vanessa agreed quickly. “I always knew she exaggerated some things, that she just needed someone to be mad at, but… Of course, it stung, and over time, I started to believe it. When that is the only thing one hears about one’s self, it is hard not to internalize it.”
Winston was silent for a moment. His jaw was set, and he looked as if he were trying to bite back his angrier response.
“I am very displeased to hear that she said such things to you,” he said at last. “And I hope I can encourage you to cast aside her comments and forget them. They are not true. Your mother was excluded from the highest echelons of thetonbecause she is a gossipy, social-climbing woman known for her vindictiveness when she does not get her way.”
Vanessa gaped at him, both a little pleased to hear this description and a little affronted. “How do you know that?” she murmured.
He shrugged. “There is much that I know. Thetonthinks I am a hermit who hides away in my castle and does not care what goes on among them. This is not true. I am always listening, always watching, always aware.”
“Why do you need to be?” Vanessa asked, her heart beginning to hammer. She thought again of her ridiculous theory about the Vigilantes of Virtue.No, it cannot be…
Winston shrugged again. “It is always good to be aware of what is happening among one’s set of people,” he explained. “That is how I found out about you, is it not? By listening.”
She laughed. “Do you do that often, then? Hide out in confession booths in order to glean young ladies’ secrets?”
“No,” he said, smiling slightly. “That was just a lucky coincidence. But I am often watching and listening on the sidelines. Like how I saw Lord Langdon go after you at the ball. I am a man of the shadows, Vanessa. I have been ever since I was a boy. My father made me into someone who could not take up the spotlight, or he would punish me for it. So I learned to watch and listen so that I could move into my power by using the secrets I had uncovered.”
Vanessa tilted her head to one side, taking him in. He looked so handsome like this, his shirtsleeves rolled and his hair messy. Handsome and relaxed. Almost vulnerable. She wondered if she was the only person who had ever seen him this vulnerable, at least since he was a child.
“I think you should become a man of the light,” she declared after a moment.
He blinked, surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that you have spent long enough in the shadows. There is no one to hurt you anymore. Your father is dead, and you are the Duke of Thornfield. I think you should step out into the spotlight and show thetonthat you are not frightening and cruelbut chivalrous and principled. Someone who will stand up for ladies who are harmed and who will call out the men who harm them. I think thetonought to know that about you, and I think you deserve your time in the light.”
She grinned at him, and he shook his head. He was smiling now, and then he actually laughed, running a hand through his hair.
“I think it is too late for me,” he said, his expression sobering. “In the shadows I will remain. But you, Vanessa, you need not stay in the darkness with me. You are a duchess now, and you ought to shine.
“I wish I could change how your parents treated you. It angers me greatly to hear of it. Your parents took from you without ever thanking you, they belittled you and put you down, and they made you doubt yourself. But they do not control you anymore. You are free. And you have nothing to doubt about yourself.”
Vanessa could feel the smile shining on her face. She was blushing, too, but she did not look away from him. “That is very kind,” she murmured and sent him a small, flirtatious look. “And not the words of a man who calls himself my husband ‘purely on paper.’”
