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“Your turn,” she told him, glad she didn’t have to meet his eye just now.

He would see too much.

There was a beat of silence before he voiced his query to her.

“Why did you marry Corbett?”

The question surprised her. It was probing and personal, and no one had asked it of her ever. Not even Aphrodite.

But what shocked her even more was the discovery that Ophelia wanted to answer.

“It wasn’t a love match, if that is what you’re asking,” she said slowly, recalling that time in her life. “The man I had my heart set upon marrying—my betrothed—died when he was thrown from his horse. I was heartbroken, and my mother despaired that I would ever wed so my younger sister could marry her beau. I married Corbett to get out of Lucinda’s way.”

He stroked her hair. “Your mother encouraged you to make the match, then?”

She sighed, thinking back on those long-ago days, which seemed as if they existed in another lifetime, when she had been a different person herself. “I don’t know that she encouraged me, but I do recall a candid conversation concerning her wish to see my sister and I well settled. Ponsford was growing weary of waiting, and Lucinda feared he would soon cry off. However, my father refused to allow my younger sister to wed until I was married. I didn’t care whom I married, and in the end, I suppose Corbett was a convenient choice.”

“Not so convenient later, however,” Apollo said.

It wasn’t pity she heard in his voice, but tenderness. An ache began somewhere in her rib cage. Ophelia had to take a deep breath for a moment, to gather her composure.

“No,” she managed at last. “Marrying Corbett proved a poor decision. But Lucinda has been happily married to Lord Ponsford for ten years, and they have a wonderful family and life together. I don’t regret that, particularly when I receive her letters. I can sense her contentedness in them.”

“You sacrificed your own happiness for your sister’s.”

“I was persuaded I couldn’t have had happiness. After my betrothed’s death, my heart was broken.”

He continued stroking her hair in a soothing way, as if she were a wounded animal that needed to be calmed so she could be tended. “You were in love with the man you would have married, then.”

It was a statement, not a question.

“I was,” she admitted. It had been young love, and memories of Lord Oliver were bittersweet.

“Do you ever regret marrying Corbett?” Apollo asked.

“It’s not your turn to ask a question,” she pointed out.

“Ah, I am caught.” He sifted her hair, his touch light but intimate.

She had never known such intimacy with her husband, not in all the years of their marriage. It felt like something she never wanted to live without, now that she knew what it was like. But then, Apollo felt like someone she never wanted to live without too, and she knew how impossible that was as well.

“I wasn’t happy as his wife,” she said, “if that is what you were asking. But I made my choice, and I knew I had to live with it.”

“You deserved better.” He caressed down her spine, the touch intimate and yet having nothing to do with the intent of seduction.

His aim was to console and comfort.

And that was somehow far more dangerous than mere seduction ever could be.

“It is my turn to ask you a question,” she said, deliberately changing the subject.

He slowly swept his hand up her back again. “Go on, then.”

She didn’t want to ask him something intimate. Everything about what they had shared thus far, both the physical and the discussions about their pasts, felt far too personal and private.

So, Ophelia settled on the lighthearted questions her children liked to pose.

“What is your favorite color?” she asked.