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The Battens had always had a flock of sheep, and Bramble had been a lamb from one of their ewes.

The old lady looked at Patience with warmth in her face and curtsied again with a slight grimace of pain. “You are welcome, Your Grace,” she said.

Patience went to the old woman and presented a basket of steaming blackberry pies, golden crusts glinting.

“This is for you. From his grace’s kitchen.”

Mrs. Batten clutched it close, eyes shining. Then she peered up at Dorian and smiled. “Bless you, Your Grace. You’re a far kinder man than your father ever was. We’re lucky to have you.”

Dorian wrestled his features into a rigid smile even as nausea churned. If only she knew the blood staining my hands. The life I took. The family I destroyed. He clenched his fists behind his back until his knuckles ached.

As Patience knelt to exclaim over the giggling children, Mrs. Batten leaned in and said to Dorian, “You take good care of your duchess now, y’hear? You were a lovely little boy, and you can be a loving husband, not a brute like your papa was.” Her gaze bore into him, unflinching.

Dorian swallowed against the bile rising in his throat. “Um,” he managed hoarsely.

“Do you know what he did?” asked Mrs. Batten, addressing Patience. “As a boy, he found out I grew medicinal herbs and used them for remedies. Not a week after his papa’s death he brings me books on herbs from the Mediterranean, and France, and even Constantinople, and pouches with seeds of rare herbs he bought at some apothecary in London.”

Dorian felt his face heat. “It was the least I could do.”

She leaned towards Patience. “Cinchona bark helped one of my other grandchildren as he had a fever. Your husband may have saved the boy.”

The sight of tenderness and respect in Patience’s face only made him crumble inside. God knew he didn’t deserve it.

“I owed you much more than that,” he croaked.

“You did not owe me anything,” said Mrs. Batten with a soft smile. “You rescued that wee poor lamb. It was nae your fault what the old duke did. I hold no grudge, and I hope you could forgive yourself, too.”

They said their goodbyes, and as the carriage trundled on, Dorian couldn’t escape the old woman’s words echoing in his mind. Patience, unlike half an hour ago, sat quietly beside him, her brow furrowed. The silence stretched between them, taut as a bowstring.

“Is everything all right?” Dorian finally asked.

Patience hesitated, twisting her gloved fingers in her lap. “Mrs. Batten mentioned… She said she was glad I have a kind husband. Unlike your father.” Her azure eyes met his, searching. “What did she mean?”

His breath caught in his throat. Memories assailed him—his father’s thunderous rage, his sister’s muffled sobs. He gripped the carriage seat, the leather creaking beneath his fingers.

“My father,” he began haltingly, “was a hard man. He disliked any hint of softness, of emotion. He wanted to mold me into a cold, unfeeling duke.” His jaw clenched. “He was cruel, to me and to Chastity. I did my best to protect her, but…” His throat tightened and he shook his head. “Forgive me, I don’t wish to speak of it further.”

Patience laid a gentle hand on his arm, her touch soothing even through the layers of fabric. “That must have been hard for you,” she murmured.

Dorian stared at her. Her compassion melted his heart. He ached to share with her, to tell her more. But he couldn’t.

Tenderly, he took her small hand in both of his as a fierce protectiveness overwhelmed him, a desperate longing to shield her from any further pain. He could feel her gentle skin with the bare skin of his left hand. His right hand clad in the glove tingled, aching to feel her touch. There she was, surrounded by him, with his secrets hidden under thick leather, ugly and painful.

If only he could erase the hurts of her past, to cherish and protect her as she deserved…

“What happened to Mrs. Batten’s lamb?” asked Patience softly. “If you wish to talk about that.”

His usual response—closing up, getting angry before he could tear himself open and be vulnerable—made his throat ache. But the tenderness in her blue eyes pulled him past that painful guard.

“The Battens had sheep on their farm for generations,” he said. “Mama disappeared from my life as Papa had sent her away to a distant estate and forbade any contact. I missed her. I was terrified of him. I didn’t know what I was feeling—the hurt, the pain in my soul.”

“You must have been grieving the loss of your mama,” said Patience, and the truth of her words struck him with a devastating clarity. “She left, but you needed someone to love and to love you. Someone to protect you, to be on your side.”

It was like she could see straight through into his soul, put words to the feelings that had ruled him for years. Explain things he couldn’t.

Would she be able to explain the moment he had challenged her brother to a duel? Or the moment his finger had found the trigger and pulled?

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, his mangled fist tightening. “I found a lamb from one of their ewes. Somehow it had escaped and had fallen into a pit in the woods. I took it home, to my room, and named it Bramble. I cared for it until it recovered, which is when I went to Mrs. Batten to return it. Seeing my tears, she told me I could keep it. You’ve seen how kind she is. I wanted to keep Bramble more than anything in the entire world. It was the first time since Mama left that I felt better, when I held the little lamb. But even at my young age, I knew losing an animal was a great deal for tenants like the Battens, so I offered her a vase from Rath Hall as payment, but she refused and said I could keep the little thing as long as I kept it healthy and safe.”