“So why did you?” she asked.
His gaze moved from where he had been playing with her hair down to her face, his expression serious.
“I just wanted…” She didn’t know if she was eager or afraid to hear what he had to say next. “I wanted to know what it is that you are running from.”
Her eyes went wide with surprise, and he held up a hand, holding off her protest.
“I know, Letty. I know you don’t want to tell me. I really do understand. I just… You have to know that itkillsme, knowing that there’s something out there frightening you, and that I can’t do anything about it because I don’t even know what it is.” He pressed his eyes closed, like he was summoning strength. “I know it’s wretched of me to ask again. I know I keep promising to stop all this—to let you go—and then I keep failing. But I can’t leave without asking one last time. I am sorry.”
All at once, it seemed so silly, refusing to tell him all this time. It was as though all the fear she had felt had happened in a dream; she couldrememberit, but it didn’t feel quite real to her.
Because what was the point? Here, she had a manapologizingfor caring for her. It would be foolish not to let him give as muchcare as he wished. And why? In case he thought she was the kind of woman who might let her employer take liberties? She was very obviously the kind of woman who let her employer take liberties. His presence alone was proof of that.
She pulled herself back up against the headboard, gathering the blanket so that it covered her breasts. He had seen everything she had to offer, of course, but she could not bear to feel so exposed while she had this conversation.
“Very well,” she said.
Ezra looked surprised, then tried to cover it up, as if being startled might cause her to change her mind. She smiled, a rush of fondness overtaking her.
“His name was—is, I suppose—Lord Peter Dugley,” she said, not quite able to meet Ezra’s eyes. She hated even saying the wretch’s name. “He is a viscount—an English viscount, but he has lived in Belgium for at least a decade, now. His wife is French.”
She shook her head. Those details didn’t really matter, did they? But she didn’t know how to sort through it. She could either reveal everything or say nothing.
Ezra waited patiently. All he did was reach out to hold her hand, a silent gesture of support.
“I was hired to be the governess for his youngest child,” she said. “This was right before Clio—the Duchess of Metford, I should say—hired me to escort her back to England. The child was sweet, and it was all fine, at first.”
“At first,” Ezra echoed gently when she paused.
Letitia gave him a grim sort of smile, then nodded. “I’d been there for maybe three months when it started. Comments, first. Observations about my appearance that he ought not make. Seeking me out when he had no legitimate reason to do so. A hand on my shoulder that didn’t belong there.”
Her voice felt strangely emotionless. Distant, even to her own ears.
“I started avoiding him, and perhaps he got frustrated with that, because he found me one day when I was preparing a lesson for his daughter. He didn’t try to crowd me that time. Honestly, if not for his words, you would have thought that he was discussing something entirely proper.”
She could remember every detail of that day—the fear she’d felt when he’d appeared in the library door, followed by the relief when he had not come closer. And then confusion, dread, horror.
And, above everything else, the oddness of realizing that the library door was open. Anyone could walk by and see them because the viscount had not been afraid.
Why should he have been afraid when he held all the power?
“He told me that I had two choices,” she said, gazing absently at the wall when she was really seeing that far-away library. “I could either become his mistress in secret, or he would tell everyone that I had done so anyway. He would ruin my reputation. God, you cannot know how worried I was, every minute of every day. I started to jump at every sound. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. Every time he and I encountered one another, he would give me thislook, like he knew what I was, like he knew what I would do. He would touch my shoulder, my waist—nothing that he couldn’t explain if someone saw it, but enough that I always knew it was a threat. I was terrified of the day that he would…snap and take what he wanted.”
“The bastard,” Ezra said, his voice controlled, though his fingers did twitch angrily against hers. “Gentlemen like that aren’t worthy of the name.”
Her chuckle was mirthless. “No,” she agreed. “They don’t. But they are all too common. You know that.”
“I do,” he agreed grimly.
“He was all talk, as it turned out,” she said. She shook her head incredulously. She should not have been surprised, but she had been. She had been astonished, frankly. “I left as quickly as I could, and he didn’t make good on his threat. He didn’t tell anyone. I went back to working with Clio, then with the Lightholders. And then you.”
Ezra could not have missed the gentle ruefulness in her voice when she said this last, and his anger was replaced by a small, soft smile.
“But threats like that don’t vanish,” he said kindly. “You still worry he will do something to hurt your reputation—your career?”
“I did wonder if he would,” she admitted. “Until he did.”
Ezra’s sharp inhale cut through the silence of the room like a knife.
