Page 58 of A Rogues & Gentlemen Christmas

“Where did you go?”

Ludo smiled. “She had a house in Kent. Hers, not Father’s. He could not take it from her. Some legal quirk. He tried to get around it, but her mother had been a canny soul, I think. Anyway, she took us there, and we were happy.”

“Until she died.”

Pain flickered in his eyes, and Bunty wanted to never see such an expression again. She vowed she would do anything she could to prevent it.

“Yes. I was eight. Then… Then it was not good at all. Not for a long time. Not…” He reached up and cupped her face, and she wondered at the gentleness of this man, who’d had so little of it in his life. “Not until you.”

Bunty turned into his touch and kissed his palm, holding his hand there with her own.

“It is the strangest thing,” he said, a wondering tone to his voice. “To think he has frightened me so these many years when… when he’s nothing. He’s less than nothing. A vain, vile nothing of a man. He has money and power, and yet he’s….”

“Pathetic,” Bunty said firmly, disgust in every syllable. “Preying on those weaker than himself. He’s no man, Ludo. Not like you. He does not deserve a moment more of your attention, and I should like it very much if you never thought of him ever again, but… but if you do, if you want to tell me more… anything. I shall always listen.”

Ludo tipped his head back and stared at her.

“I don’t understand it,” he said, almost to himself. “I don’t understand what I did. How did I manage it? How did I convince you to marry me?”

Bunty did not consider that a question worthy of an answer, as it was far too obvious, so she kissed him instead, and he seemed to like that well enough.