Page 67 of Atone, Adonis

“But, Fred.” She paused, thinking carefully through what she wanted to say. “It was awful. And probably a very poor idea for which I take full responsibility. I can tell that you’re upset and that is my fault and I truly am sorry for it.”

He peered at her, intense blue eyes in that stupidly handsome face. She was nearly sorry for it, all his beauty. Because his life might have been better, easier, had he been plain. She appreciated his face certainly, but she’d have loved him without it. Because she loved his heart.

“It was always going to be awful, dearheart,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. And—” He paused as if he too wanted to be thoughtful about his words. “It was instructive.”

“Harold?” she asked.

He nodded. “I saw myself in him. And I—I felt for him.”

“I did too.” She paused. “How old were you when you first had a relationship with the Baroness?”

“Fifteen,” he said and his voice was hoarse.

So young. She breathed in deeply and turned, taking his face in her hands. “You do know that it wasn’t your fault, don’t you? What she did?”

He looked away from her, unable to keep her gaze. “Not until today I didn’t. But then I saw him, that child behind her, and I…saw myself in him.”

She drew him closer and he leaned into her embrace. “You’d never seen it like that before, I suppose. That you might have been—” she hesitated over the word victim because she didn’t think he would appreciate it. “Injured by her?”

“I’d always blamed myself.”

“No,” she whispered, kissing the top of his head. “No. The fault, the original sin, has always lain with her. Always.”

When the carriage halted in front of Chester House, he exited first. She gathered the blue folds of her gown around her and hardly looked up as she made her way across the squabs to the carriage block, reaching out for the coachman’s hand that always presented itself.

This time though, it was her husband whose hand she grasped. She felt the difference in his touch immediately—how his hand engulfed hers, warm and strong and unmistakably Fred’s. She looked up quickly to find her husband’s blue eyes staring at her.

“My lady,” he said and she could almost understand the Baroness’s anger today. To have had a man like Fred and then to have lost him? She’d be furious too. The idea was untenable.

Not her actions, of course. The Baroness’s actions were abominable. But the thought of ever losing Fred made her chest ache.

“My lord,” she replied, keeping her hand in his as he helped her down.

He didn’t let her go, even as her feet touched the solid ground. He simply slid his hand around her waist and guided her to the door.

“I’d rather,” he said, leaning down so his voice was nothing so much as a whisper, “that you call me Fred.”

“Yes. Yes, I’d rather that too.”

Inside the house, the servants melted away. It was late afternoon, time for tea. Or to retire to their individual dressing rooms, but Julianna could not countenance that. She could not stand another moment of being alone when what she wanted was to be together. With her husband, in whatever way he felt comfortable. She wanted to hold him. To love him, if he’d let her.

“Will you come with me,” she murmured, their hats and gloves discarded by the front door.

“Anywhere,” he said and she believed that he meant it.

She navigated the hallways of Chester House, with all their gilded ornamentation, but could have scarcely cared less. All she cared about was the sound of his boots on the floorboards behind her, muffled by the thick, Aubusson carpeting. That he was there with her, a tangible presence both utterly new and confoundingly familiar in her life. He was her husband now of course, but if she let herself cast her thoughts back, Fred had always been there.

It had been Fred who’d carved her a little wooden statue of a pony after she’d been so enamored with the horses he rode at Sedgewick Manor and declared she wanted one of her own.

Fred, who had always known she was trailing behind him and her brother as they traipsed through the woods, but said nothing of it.

Fred who, once her presence had been discovered, winked and placed his fingers across his lips to shush her before Tom noticed her there and made her turn back.

And now this man. Her Fred. She didn’t know him entirely, not yet. There were still layers to uncover beyond the cold, arch Chester. Secrets he hadn’t revealed about the man who hid himself away whenever she drew too near.

She still hated secrets, but she could see—could sense—her Fred beneath all of those others. The one he was at his center, who had walked by her side all morning. Who had been so terribly hurt and had had no one to protect him.

My husband.