8

Nick ran his fingers through Arabella's hair, twirling a coil around his fingers. She was curled into his lap on the settee, still naked, as he was, under the blanket he'd wrapped around them both. They were both relaxed and in very fine humor now. They'd had a bit more port, and he had washed the traces of his release from her skin with a soft cloth. She was quiet. Absorbing what had just happened.

He could not stop touching her. Hair, cheek. The skin of her palm, then her inner wrist, skating up to her elbow. He was very aware that she held an entire world inside that deceptively petite form. A deep, layered, richly rewarding world, it must be, to drive her to throw her comfortable life away without a glance back.

"When did you know," he asked her, "what it meant to you?"

"Painting?" she asked. He nodded. "Even as a child, I enjoyed it. But I think ... I was perhaps twelve." She gave a small sigh at the memory, seemed to be weighing whether to say more.

He waited. And finally, she continued. "My father had gone into one of his rages. A deal had fallen through. He is a ... volatile man."

Nick's arms tightened on her of their own accord. "Did he raise a hand to you?"

"No," she said, matter-of-factly. "But the book he threw only narrowly missed."

Anger flared in Nick. "Still —"

She shrugged. "I was very young when my mother died, but I remember how loving she was. I know how it feels, to be loved. And so I understood very quickly that my father was simply not capable of it. His heart, such as it was, had set itself on very particular aspects of life—status, money, victory —and all the rest of us were either helping or in the way."

It gave Nick a peculiar tightness in the throat to hear her speak so calmly, so easily about the lovelessness of her childhood. "I am sorry you were alone."

"A great many children are," she said, evenly. "And that's the secret. When I discovered what drawing could do, what it could ... unlock, for me ... I wasn't alone anymore. A day came—as I said, twelve, perhaps eleven. Father had frightened me. I was in my room, with a chair wedged under the doorknob. It wouldn't have stopped him, I suppose, if he'd really wanted to burst in, but he never bothered—there were servants he could so easily rage over with less effort. In those times, I hid for hours and hours—a whole day and night, sometimes. But on this day, I'd made a grievous error." He was stroking her hair now, and she leaned her head into his hand, encouraging him. "I'd put all my books back in the library, and I had none at all to read. Nothing."

"Prison," he murmured. Understanding now why her sensitivity to being locked away might be so high.

"Indeed. That—is remarkable," she sighed, as his thumbs found the muscle where her neck met her shoulder and begin to knead. She let out a sigh of deep pleasure.

"Have a care. If you make those sounds, I won't be able to let you finish the story," he warned into her ear.

She laughed, making a show of composing herself, even as her body melted under his fingers' firm ministrations.

"Prison," he said again, prompting her.

"Yes," she said. "All I had was a sketchbook, and some rather pathetic bits of charcoal. At first, I sort of ... scribbled. A girl is never permitted to rage in life, of course, and I felt a good deal of relief, allowing myself to be angry and ugly on the page. No—don't stop."

He'd stilled his hands unconsciously, absorbed in her words. He moved them now, finding the knots in her shoulder. "Continue," he murmured.

"After a time, I felt calmer. But I ... couldn't leave the room yet. I caught sight of myself in the mirror above my washstand, then. I looked very ... like a ghost, was my thought. Pale and lank, hair a fright, and my eye was very red and beginning to bruise—"

"You said he did not hit you," Nick interrupted sharply.

She paused. Then admitted, "The book did not entirely miss."

"Arabella." He turned her head to his. What did one say, upon discovering the old, secret pain hidden inside another? Her eyes were frank, without self-pity, but it seemed clear to Nick that she'd never spoken of this before, to anyone.

He could not find the right words. And so, instead, he pressed his lips very gently under one eye.

"Was it here?" She nodded once, surprised. He brushed his lips over the skin, so lightly, as if to erase what had been there. A tiny sound, almost a whimper, escaped her throat.

He repeated the kiss under the other eye. Then over each eyebrow. Each corner of her lips. Her temples. Her eyelids.

He knew violence. He knew it because he was capable of it—because there were many times in his life that had required inordinate self-control not to unleash it. The rumor mill relished the notion of the Beast of Blackflint as a man who'd snapped so violently he'd killed his wife, but in truth he'd never raised a hand to a woman, and he'd never been first to raise one to a man.

Except once. Once, he had indulged in darkest impulse. And he certainly had the scars to show for that .

Now, in this moment, his only desire was to soothe. He brushed his lips over her chin, then lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into the palm.

When he looked up, her eyes were bright. "Is this what happens when one takes a man's cock in one's mouth? He is suddenly very kind?" A hint of a smile, now.

He stroked her cheek. "Only when a woman's mouth is very wicked," he replied.

"Ah. You liked it, then."

"I am aware I gave no sign. But yes."

She burst out laughing. He wanted to kiss her hard then, to move her arse over his cock so she could feel it spring again to full stiffness, then take her here on the settee. He wanted to meet all the desire and tenderness and wit and pain with his own, as deep inside her as he could.

But he also wanted to stay here, wrapped in a blanket with her legs curled over his, exactly as they were right now. And he wanted to hear the rest of her story.

"I interrupted you," he said. To show her he wanted to listen, he moved his hands back to her shoulders. "Please go on. The mirror."

"Ah. Yes." She thought a moment. "I looked a terror, but I was certainly the most interesting thing in that room. So I decided to draw myself. It wasn't the first time I'd attempted a self-portrait ... but also, it was. Because I told the truth."

"You drew the bruise."

"I drew every imperfection. And I tried to capture the expression in my eyes, which was, of course, above the level of skill I possessed. But I felt compelled to try." She sighed approvingly as he moved his massaging fingers to her back. "And then," she went on, "I had the oddest impulse. To draw my father. Exactly as he was."

She paused a moment, remembering. "It was not a comfortable thing. To be ... honest with what I had beheld. But it had an unexpected effect. In my mind, you see, when I ran from my father, he was huge, all-powerful. Twenty feet tall, with lightning bolts flying from his fingertips. But gradually, drawing him, I started to see—he was a man. Only that. A cruel man, deeply flawed, and in a certain light, pitiable. After all, he had every advantage in life, and what was he doing? Chasing a little girl down a hallway, screaming at her. He was, in spirit, smaller than I was."

Arabella looked at Nick over her shoulder, a thoughtful expression on her face. "It is a gift I have carried with so much gratitude. To know that if I look deeply at someone, for as long as it takes, sometimes the surface of them will start to fall away, and I will begin to see their soul."

Nick had the sudden thought that in this moment, he was seeing hers. Quietly dazzling, deep as the ocean.

She shifted in his lap, to face him more fully. "It is ironic, I think, my telling you all this."

"How so?"

"Because I have sketched you several times over the years, and I have looked at you perhaps more than you know."

"Is that so?" he asked, fighting a smile.

"Yes. I fancied you quite ardently. And I did not see you at all."

She lifted her fingers to his face. He thought she would stroke his cheek. But instead, she gently touched his scar.

He stiffened.

"Let me," she whispered.

She'd shared something profound with him, and it felt somehow unfair not to return the trust. Worse, it felt cowardly.

He nodded. Tense, but allowing her to trace the knotted track over his cheek.

"I think I saw only the whispers when I looked at you. A storybook villain."

"Beast, I hear, is a popular term," he said.

"It set me quite aflutter," she said, with a self-deprecating smile. "The dark duke with one eye. All danger and ice. Old enough to know everything. No heart, utterly unfeeling. Will he kiss me or kill me?" She gave an embarrassed laugh. "I imagine you attract your share of that."

He shrugged. He'd always been amused by it, in a detached sort of way. The fervid attentions of half-frightened, half-titillated women seemed one of the more intriguing side effects of allowing his reputation to continue.

"But now I think I see you."

He almost did not ask. He felt an uneasiness under her gaze.

But he also wanted to know. "What do you see?"

She leaned in now, as he had. Kissed his smooth cheek. And then brushed a kiss over the ropy skin of the scar.

"I think you do feel. But ... you seem to have chosen to be completely alone. And that is why you seek a duchess you have no intention of knowing, nor allowing her to know you." She leaned back, meeting his gaze. "And I think you must have good reason for it."

He said nothing. He knew it was all over his face.

She lay a cool hand on his bare chest. "You do have one in there. I can feel it beating. Funny, it doesn't feel cold at all."

A long moment spun out between them. She regarded him with gently probing eyes. Finally, she asked. "Would you answer if I asked what happened?"

He would do anything she asked right now. But he could not imagine talking about it. Not without breaking in half.

He brought her hand to his mouth, and kissed each fingertip. "We are not the same," he said. "I cannot run away from my life. I'm the Duke of Blackflint. Hundreds of people rely on me. I cannot afford to ... to—"

"Let someone see you?"

"To be anything but strong, always."

"It's only me—only this cottage, this night—"

"It took a good deal of time and no small effort to lock that door, Arabella. I cannot simply fling it open."

"I understand. I merely . . ."

He kissed her wrist. "I know. You are kindhearted."

"I think there is a power in it. Telling someone what you carry. I believe it makes the burden lighter, in the end." She leaned down, and dropped a kiss on his chest, just beneath the long, raised scar above his heart. "But you're right. I am not a duke. And after everything you have done for me, helping me ... I could not possibly press you to give me anything more."

Nick shook his head, deflecting the sentiment. "I've given you nothing but what should be yours—your own life."

"Many men would not do that," she said, letting her fingers find his jaw, trace the line of it.

A new thought brought a hint of a smile to Arabella as she reached his ear and followed its curve with her finger. Her gaze had gone hot. "And yet I fear I must impose upon you once more."

He knew before she spoke it what she meant. He felt himself stir under her hip.

"I find myself in a generous mood," he said, his voice dipping low. "Ask."

A blush blossomed on her cheeks. She took his hands, guided them up her body, to her breasts, so that he cupped them. "Show me more," she whispered.

He brushed his palms over her nipples. "How much do you wish to know?"

She shifted in his lap, to straddle him. Her sex against his cock, pressing her wet heat into him.

"Everything," she said.