Page 220 of Kneel Before Me

“Yes.”

“Because?”

“Because I was mad too.”

“You were?”

She nodded.

“What were you mad about?”

To his surprise, her face darkened. Her answer seemed to slip out before she could stop it. “Benjamin.”

Maximus frowned. “Who is Benjamin?”

Daphne pursed her lips. He knew that look. It was the expression she wore whenever she wanted to say something but was choosing to hold back. That wouldn’t do at all.

“Daphne.” He leaned closer. “Who is Benjamin?”

The second iteration of his question only made her purse her lips tighter. He held eye contact, determined not to back down. He had just been vulnerable with her. She owed him this.

“Tell me.”

Daphne lifted her chin. “He’s not important.”

“He made you mad. That’s important.”

She shook her head. It seemed as if she were fighting some demon within herself. Clearly there was something she wasn’t telling him, and Maximus couldn’t think of anything else to do to make her say it.

“You can talk to me.” He brushed a curl from her face, tucking it behind her ear. “You know that, right?”

“Just drop it,” she whispered.

“No.”

“Max.” She placed her hand flat against his chest. “Drop it.”

But he couldn’t. Maximus had thought he only needed to worry about the basilisk, and now there was another suitor in the mix.

“Daphne.” He stared down at her determinedly, trying to stay calm. “If there is someone walking this world who hurt you, it’s my responsibility to do something about it. I want to protect you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me.”

“You don’t need me at all. And I’ve accepted that. But I need to protect you. So tell me who he is.”

A pause. They stared at each other.

Was Benjamin one of the imbecile village boys? Maximus remembered the group of boys who had chanted cruelly when Maximus had kissed Daphne onstage. If Benjamin had been one of them, he would order a search party to bring him to justice. He would demand his head on a stake. No punishment was too severe for hurting Daphne.

“If you don’t tell me who it is, I shall scour the entire village for him anyway. So you can either tell me now, or I will find him on my own.”

She closed her eyes, and he felt the tension in her shoulders. She was stiff in his lap, clearly bracing herself through this conversation. He hated it. Maximus fought the wild urge to shake her. He wished he could extract her thoughts from her brain. Daphne had always been a mystery to him—she was an unsolvable riddle, a safe he could not crack. Perhaps he didn’t dare to. Perhaps she would never let him. The thought of her shutting him out was unbearable, but the thought of not getting to the bottom of who had hurt her was even worse.

“He’s nobody,” Daphne whispered finally. “And there’s no need to scour the village.” Her next words came so quietly he barely heard them. “He works for you.”

Maximus went still. The thought of employing someone who had hurt the angel currently lying in his lap was enough to make him want to punch a hole in the wall. But he knew that wouldn’t help anything. All he could do was fix it the only way he knew how.

“A footman?”