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Perhaps, it was the words of his friends playing over in his head, of how lucky he was, of how he should cherish her, of how he should take time to get to know her. Whatever it was, he found himself taking a half step closer, his hand rising up.

The blush in her cheeks darkened, her eyes flitting from his hand to his face to his lips and back again. She trembled visibly, but she did not step back, her ragged breaths pulling him in, filling him with the urge to calm her nerves and soothe her worries. To touch her, comfort her.

His hand was almost at her face, his fingertips itching to caress her cheek, when he suddenly withdrew.

What are you doing, you fool?

He folded his arms behind his back, for clearly they could not be trusted, and cleared his tight throat.

“I shall leave you to settle in,” he said roughly, needing to get out of that room at once. “As I said, anything you need, just ring the bell and someone will tend to you. I do not expect we shall cross paths again for a while.”

With a bob of his head, he turned and walked out of the bedchamber, vowing to himself that he would never set foot in there again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

How could I not know? I am an educated woman; how could I be so ignorant?

Marina sank down onto the edge of the bed, her hand gripping the bedpost, breathing so hard she feared she might faint. The creak of a floorboard outside the room made her jump, but when she looked to the open doorway, there was no one there. It was just an old house and its aging groans.

Staring down at the floor, her other hand came up to touch her cheek gently, right where Anthony would have touched her if he had come any closer.

“Why did he do that?” she whispered, as she ran her fingertips over the uneven skin of her burns.

Was it just curiosity?

He would not have been the first person to find interest in what fire did to flesh.

When she was younger, the children from the village who snuck into the Stadley grounds would offer her coin to touch the scars, daring one another. She had never permitted it, though one of the girls had crept up on her when she was sleeping beneath a tree in the summer, and touched her face. The girl’s screams were what had woken her, followed by the laughter of the other children who had been hiding in a bush.

After she told her uncle what had happened, those children never snuck onto the grounds again.

But that look in his eyes…

They had shone with something she could not decipher, so intense that she had not been able to breathe properly. And what is more, she had not wanted to step away from him. The closer his hand had come to touching her, the less she had wanted to retreat or shield her scars from him.

“It was not because he wanted to…” she trailed off, cheeks flaming. “No, of course not. Why would anyone want to do that? Indeed, he said he did not want to.”

She often talked to herself when she was pondering over a new remedy or a problem she could not solve, accustomed to the dialogue of her own company. Usually, it helped her to figure out a solution. This time, however, it only seemed to deepen the problem.

A book. I must find a book that will tell me more.

But where could she begin with such delicate subject matter? The great poets, perhaps? Or something more straightforward, written by someone of science? Maybe, there was a pamphlet or a book out there, written from a woman’s perspective, although that would probably be harder to get her hands on than a shipment of sleepy grass.

For the first time in a long while, she felt the keen sting of her mother’s absence. This was what a mother was supposed to do: prepare her daughter for the secrets of marriage and men.

And Marina had lost hers.

She turned her head toward the window and swiped a tear from her cheek, just as a knock came at the door.

“Your Grace?” a sweet, feminine voice said.

Marina took a breath and put on a smile, turning back to find a young maid in the doorway. “Is something the matter?”

“Not at all, Your Grace.” The maid took a step inside. “I’m Gail. I’m to be your new lady’s maid. I just wanted to introduce myself and see if I could be of help.”

Marina nodded. “A bath, I think.”

“Of course, Your Grace.”