“No.” The word came out heavy, stripped of the charm he usually employed.
“It’s not.”
“You have been insincere with me.”
“I withheld information.”
“That is a distinction without a meaningful difference.” She felt the anger rising now, pushing past the cold shock that had protected her since Mrs. Kemp’s slip.
“You told me your name was Langford.”
“It is Langford. It’s also Trevane. I have rather a lot of names.”
“You let me believe you were an ordinary man.”
“I am an ordinary man.” He rose from his chair, and she saw that he was holding himself very still, as though afraid that movement might shatter something fragile between them. “With a title I didn’t earn and a reputation I did.”
“An ordinary man.” The laugh that escaped her was harsh, nothing like the almost-smiles she had allowed herself over the past weeks.
“An ordinary man does not hide his identity from the woman he has employed to raise his children. An ordinary man does not construct elaborate deceptions to ensure that his governess cannot damage him if she leaves.”
“That’s not why…”
“Is it not?” She stepped forward, closing some of the distance between them, her anger propelling her past the caution she might otherwise have maintained.
“You kept me ignorant because ignorance made me safe. Because a governess who knows only about Mr. Langford’sillegitimate daughters is a minor scandal. But a governess who knows about the Duke of Trevane’s illegitimate daughters is a liability.”
“Mel…”
“Do not.” The word cracked between them like a whip.
“Do not use my name as though we are intimates. You have forfeited that right.”
He winced. It was subtle, barely visible, but she saw it. She had learned to read him over these past months, learned to see beneath the performances and the charm. And now she saw something she had not expected.
Pain.
Not the calculated performance of pain that a rake might deploy to manipulate a situation. It was real pain, the kind that came from watching something precious slip away.
“I should have told you,” he said. His voice was quiet now, stripped of defense.
“I know that. I told myself it was to protect the children, to protect the secret, but that was only part of it.”
“What was the rest?”
“You looked at me like a person.” The words came out rough, almost involuntary.
“Not like a duke, not like a scandal. Not like a conquest or a prize or a story. You looked at me and saw someone ordinary, someone who was failing at something important and trying to do better. It has been so many years since someone has looked at me like that.”
Mel stood very still. The anger was still there, burning beneath her sternum, but something else was pushing against it now. Something that recognised the truth when it was spoken.
“So you fabricated the truth to preserve how I saw you.”
“I withheld truth to delay the moment when you would see me differently.” He met her eyes, and she saw the resignation there, the expectation of rejection.
“Every woman I have ever known has wanted me to be a duke. The title, the fortune, the position. They pursue me for what I represent, not for who I am. You were the first person in fifteen years to look at me as though I might be worth knowing regardless of all that.”
“And now?”
