Page 79 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars
“I don’t think you fear scaring me away. You just don’t want to show me all of you because you can’t give me all of you. Is that why you made love to me in this dim library? So that you couldn’t see that I am not Lady Isabella, after all?”
Aaron’s fingers halted on the buttons, and he did not speak for a moment.
Theresa could no longer hold back the tears; they spilled over her lashes and streamed down her face.
They had made love, had consummated their marriage so that she would not return to her old life. Had she known that she was right, she would never have shown him all of her. She would never have given him that gift.
Aaron tried to turn her around, but she dug her heels into the floor. She was not one of his servants. She had every right to refuse his command to turn around.
She was a duchess every bit as much as he was a duke.
“You are still not over her,” she concluded bitterly.
Her voice quivered, the words almost failing her. Her voice was quiet, so quiet that she feared he would not hear her. She wanted to hold her head high and act as if this did not bother her, but she could not.
She had been thrust into this life straight from the convent. She had learned that she was the daughter of a marquess and had a sister moments before her father had marched her down the aisle to a stranger.
Back then, she could have accepted that Aaron was in love with another woman. She had no idea what marriage would be like. She had no idea what it was like to be touched, to be seen by a man.
Now, she could not go back to not knowing.
Somehow, that made it all the worse. He was in love with a woman who would always be more poised and more graceful than her.
Theresa had no doubts that Lady Isabella would have made a better wife for Aaron. She would have been a true duchess who already knew how to navigate Society. The Dowager Duchess would not have had to teach her how to curtsy.
To curb the tide of tears, she held her breath for a moment. The pieces clicked into place.
“Did she leave you when this happened, and you assume I will do the same?”
“She did not leave me. I left her,” Aaron corrected.
He resumed fastening the buttons on her gown. When he was finished with the last one near her waist, she turned to look at him.
“I don’t understand,” she croaked. “Lady Isabella told me that she broke your heart?”
“Well, she lied. Do you remember the rules I set the day we got married?” Aaron asked.
The change in topic left her fumbling for the edges of their conversation. She did not see how this could relate.
“Those were not rules that I just thought up. They were Lady Isabella’s rules after she saw me without my mask on. When she saw my scars, she ran out of the room to retch. After that, she issued me an ultimatum.”
“She set rules for your marriage, and you thought that I would be so cruel as to impose those same rules on you? That I could not bear to look at my husband, even when I have scars of my own?”
“I did not think?—”
“If you did not think that, then why don’t you remove the mask when I have already shown you everything? When I have already given you everything I have?”
An unfathomable emotion crossed his face. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his sides, but he said nothing.
“I see,” Theresa mumbled, deciding that his silence was answer enough. “I will ask my father to take me to see my mother and meet my sister. It will be nice to get to know my sister.”
“I will take you there,” he growled.
“No, you can’t take me anywhere. You can’t even let me in your heart. I need some space from… all of this,” she said, refusing to bow to his demands.
She would not be ordered around by a man who refused to bare himself to her.
“We should get back to the treasure hunt.”
