.
“Is the room to your liking?” Justin watched Alex look around the pale blue room with white and silver finishes before turning to look at him and nodding. A storm had begun the moment they’d arrived, and Justin felt as though the weather were on his side, locking him and Alex together.
The swift beating of the drops slapping against the window and roof, and the rustling of trees in the wind, were the only sounds for a moment. The servants had finished settling her in a few moments before he’d arrived at her door, but he’d not crossed the threshold. He'd told himself that he wouldn’t unless she were in danger.
His sisters had gone to visit a friend until dinner, and Reuben was outside speaking to the guards that had been hired to protect Alex.
Justin figured with her living in his home, he’d have plenty of time to figure out the best way to approach the topic of courtship again, but first, he would have to woo her, and he had the feeling she would not make that easy.
He had to find out what was working at her mind and what reservations she had before he could do more.
If he had any say, Justin’s true plan was to make sure that when Alex did pack her things, it would be to move her into the room that connected with, his as his wife. He had no intention of letting her leave this house as a maiden.
Since she'd come into his life, his mind had finally discovered what his attention should be on— his family and how to add her to it.
Reuben’s words of Justin qualifying as a Smith had humbled him, but Justin was more interested in making Alex a Padmore and the Countess of Chantenny, the mother of his heir, his wife, his lover…
She stiffened, and her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Stop looking at me like that.”
Justin looked down but grinned. “I’m sorry. My thoughts must be plain on my face.”
“I feared I’d have to cross the room and lock the door with you on the other side.”
He looked up and smiled at her as he watched her move toward the chair by the fireplace. The fire made her skin glow. The rest of the room was dim from the storm, her eyes working like mirrors to reflect the orange hues of the flames.
Lamps would be needed within the hour.
He placed a shoulder on the door panel so that he could comfortably study her. “How are you feeling?”
She looked away and when she bit her lip, he could tell that she’d rather keep her thoughts to herself, so he was surprised when she spoke and by what she said next. “I’ve gone from feeling unwanted to everyone wanting me dead or wanting to use me for some personal gain.” She turned to him. “How would you feel under the circumstances?”
If she was trying to get him to cross the room to her, he was sure no other words would have affected him more, but still he remained where he was. Perhaps it was the distance that made her comfortable enough to speak, so he remained where he was.
Still, he could say nothing as to her accusation. He could not say he’d not sought her out to use her.
She’d asked him before what he would gain from her company, and while guilt at his original plan did try to overtake his emotions, other more profound ones were rooted more firmly. He wanted to protect her. To possess her. To have her look at him as no woman had looked at him before.
“It’s a lovely room,” she said as though to fill the silence, which was fortunate, because Justin wasn’t sure what he’d say.
“My mother decorated the room,” he found himself confessing. For what reason he would bring that woman into a conversation with the kind one in front of him, he didn’t know.
Her expression brightened. His mother was not a subject they discussed, and for good reason.
He didn’t want Alex in that darkness within him. He wanted to keep her separate and untainted as long as possible. And worse, he didn’t want her to glimpse the truth, to see the stains that rested on his soul.
Because he was sure that the day she did was the day he’d lose her forever.
“She had lovely taste,” Alex went on. “Do you miss her?”
“Not really, no.” Why was he telling her the truth?
Was it because the thought of adding one more lie between them made him visibly cringe?
He watched her stand and cross the room to him. Her face became luminous in the light from the hall as he stopped before him. The concern etched in his brow made his heart leap.
“I’ve seen that look on your face before,” she whispered as she reached up to touch him. Yet before her hand settled on him, she tucked it behind her back. “You had that same pained expression at Lord Wint’s house.”
“Did I?” If he did, he knew exactly at what moment it had happened. He’d been looking at the staircase and recalling his fall.
Her hands settled on his neck and he turned to her, realizing he’d looked away momentarily. “What happened?” The feel of her fingers massaging at the edge of his hair and her gentle words nearly dragged the truth from his lips, but his body shook to hold it within.
“Justin,” she called in a soft tone.
He couldn’t take her kindness. “I thought you were keeping away from me.”
Her hand stilled as though recalling that she had, in fact, been keeping away from him. He closed his eyes and prepared himself to lose her touch entirely, telling himself it was for the best, that he was too emotional at the moment, too fragile in her hands, and wanted to be cared for more than he wanted his next breath. If she didn’t move away, he’d spill his entire sorrowful story onto her feet.
She didn’t pull away.
Both her hands cupped his neck, lacing together, and he shuddered under the feel of her body moving toward his, having to stop where his arms were crossed over his chest. He didn’t resist when she pulled his head down and forced it to rest on hers. Her breath caressed his lips in light peaceful puffs of air.
He kept his hands where they were, his last hope of defense against her.
“You can tell me anything,” she whispered.
“She tripped me.”
Her breath caught. “What?”
He opened his eyes and found her gray ones rounded with surprise.
“She tripped me down the stairs,” Justin told her. “I wasn’t alone when I fell.”
Her hands slid to his jaw and her brows drew in. “Why? Why would she do that?”
“Because I’d been playing with my sisters,” he told her. And it had been the very last time he’d played with them ever again. It was then he’d realized that his mother had not been playing a long game with him, that she truly thought him a monster. “She’d told me not to repeatedly, but the girls had cornered me. Lucy Ann started weeping, asking why I didn’t love her. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t love her, so I showed her a hand trick I’d learned to make her laugh.” The truth spilled from him like a great weight, but he didn’t want her to take it. He didn’t want her corrupted by it, by him. He tried to pull away.
She wouldn’t let him. Her fingers bit into his face as though threatening to keep it with her if he fled. Tears were building in her eyes. “I don’t understand. Why were you not allowed to play with your own sisters?” Her gaze was earnest, searching for an answer.
So he gave it. “Because I’m dirty.”
She swallowed, and her brow cleared. “What?”
“I’m a filthy boy,” he told her. “It’s what my mother always said. She told me she knew it from the moment I was born. She looked into my eyes and saw the truth. I’ve her father’s eyes, the Viscount of Theems. She said I was like him, that I was sick. She said I couldn’t be near her or my sisters. I couldn’t touch them. I couldn’t touch her.” He snapped his eyes closed at the pain he saw reflected in her eyes and the tears that spilled from them.
“Justin...” His name seemed to come strangled from her lips. “Is that the reason you don’t touch women?”
“I shouldn’t have touched you,” he told her and felt her hands slip behind his head once more, threading through his hair to keep him hostage. If only she knew how much he wanted to be held by her, but he didn’t dare touch her. “You were clean, and I ruined you. I ruin you every time I touch you.”
“You didn’t ruin me. I was ruined years ago,” she said breathlessly.
He growled as his gaze snapped to her. “That creature didn’t ruin you. He couldn’t. Your light is too bright. Your goodness too abundant for him to ever touch.”
She smiled as tears continued to slide down her cheeks. She pressed closer to him. Their chests touched, and Justin looked down to realize his hands had moved to her waist. His anger at the thought of Michael anywhere near her had clouded his judgment.
“Is that how you see me?” she asked. “Bright with goodness?”
He frowned at the silly question. “It’s what you are, Alexandra. A sweet balm to the existence of everyone you meet. Look at how you keep your family together by hosting meals, how you invited Lady Emma into your confidence, your work with the children at the orphanage.” And the way she’d kissed him. She’d restored just a pinch of light to his soul. A small flame rested there, but that flame had nothing to do with anything he’d done. That flame was all her. The part of him that loved her burned for her, yet still it was small. It wasn’t strong enough to cleanse him. Nothing would be. Maybe she could one day, but at what cost?
Alex was openly weeping now, and Justin used his hands to wipe her tears.
“I should never have touched you,” he whispered. “I’m a selfish man.”
She shook her head. “That’s not true. I’m so sorry your mother has done this to you. Justin, you can’t believe anything she said." Despair and conviction battled over her features. “You’re a good man.”
“No.” He jerked until he was out of her hold and then held his hands up to keep her away. The air was cool against his cheeks, and it was only then he realized he was crying. “You don’t know me.” She didn’t know the sin he’d committed, the one he could never wash from his hands, how he’d fulfilled his mother’s words, only not as his mother had predicted. His mother had said he’d be the ruin of her, and in his own way he’d fulfilled that truth.
She’d been reaching out to him, but at his words, she withdrew. “You’re not the villain you think you are.”
He stepped back again and found himself on the other wall. The distance was not far enough for his liking. “What makes you think I’m not?”
“Do you think for one moment Lucy Ann wouldn’t have told you so if it were the case? Do you think she’d love you so earnestly? Trust you?”
Those questions left him mute, but only for a second. “I’m all she has. She’s making an exception.”
Alex shook her head. “No, she doesn’t strike me as the sort who would do such a thing. You said yourself that she's always loved you. I don’t believe she’d have defended you in the park had she not thought you worthy.”
“Then she’s a fool,” was all he could surmise. “Because I am unworthy.”
“Yet you want me.” The words were said as a statement, but her expression held a question.
“I’m selfish,” he reminded her.
“Why Mrs. Shaw?” Alex asked. “What about her makes her acceptable?”
Because Mrs. Shaw had her own darkness was the answer, but it was not something he would ever reveal to her or Gerard. They could never know what he shared with the woman. It wasn’t her age that drew it, but the likeness of heart. Mrs. Shaw had her own crimes to answer to when judgment day came, like exactly how her cruel husband had died, but that was between her and God. “We understand each other.”
“And I don’t understand you?” she asked.
He moved to her then, no longer able to stand her hurt look. He hesitantly placed his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t want you to know that side of me, Alexandra.”
“But don’t you think I should know all of you?” she asked.
“I’ll never hurt you,” he promised.
“I know.” Though the words had been as light as the brush of butterfly wings, her radiant faith shook him to the core.
If only she knew at that very moment what he wanted to do to her. “Step back, Alexandra.”
She started and blinked, her eyes slightly reddened from her weeping. Weeping for him. There were so many ways he didn’t deserve her. “What?”
“Step back before I do something we may regret in the morning.”
She came disentangled with him then and stepped farther into her room. It pleased him as much as it pained him to lose her touch.
He rested his hands on the doorframe to keep himself upright. “It would be a wise idea to lock this door, though I’ve already sworn not to step foot into this room while you occupy it.”
She turned and moved back to the wingback. Bracing her hands on the high back, she looked over at him. “Not even if I asked you to?”
Justin closed his eyes as his own body reacted as though she’d given him invitation. “Not even then.” When he was steady, he opened his eyes to find her grinning at him.
“Good to know,” Reuben said from behind him before walking into Alex’s room. He’d obviously placed no restrictions on himself, and while another man could look at Reuben and see him as a threat to any woman he crossed paths with, Justin felt no danger. He and Alex had grown up in the orphanage together. Shared space was usually in such places. The boundaries that the ton set might as well be nonexistent in their world.
Alex tracked Reuben’s movements and watched him settle in the chair across from her. “I need to speak with you alone.”
Reuben turned to Justin and said, “Close the door when you leave, my lord.” The dismissal was plain. Reuben stared at him with challenge and a soft grin.
Any other day, Justin would have thrown the man out, but if Reuben left, so would Alex, and he needed her to stay… which meant he had to deal with Reuben as well.
But he would only play the man’s game so far.
Justin pushed off the wall. “Dinner is within the hour. We stop serving a minute past.”
Reuben’s smile brightened, and he nodded in understanding. “We’ll be there.”
Justin hesitated then reached out and closed the door.