Page 21 of A Rogue's Rules for Seduction
His brows raised. “You heard us?”
“I wasn’t trying to, but the landscape carries voices, and...” She looked up into his face. “There may be more to her than you know, Dom. More than she’ll let you see.”
“Why would she feel like she’d have to hide anything from me?” He stared at the straight line of Willa’s back as she moved lightly over rocks and around scrub.
“Perhaps when you call a girlprincess,” Celeste mused, “she feels like she has to be one all the time. She might stride across the battlements, but there can be more to her than a crown. She’s a person, too.”
He frowned. It was so unlike the Willa that he’d known. Or the Willa that the woman herself had allowed him to see. But maybe there was more than a little truth in what his sister said. An hour ago, he’d begun to understand that, and Celeste’s words drove the point home.
He hadn’t been fair to Willa. Not by a mile.
“Besides,” Celeste added thoughtfully, “there are things aboutyouthat you won’t reveal tome, and I’m family.”
His gaze whipped to his sister. “What do you know?”
She lifted her shoulders. “Very little—and that’s the core of it, isn’t it? People get so used to pretending to be who they think someone wants them to be. For many reasons. In my case, I had to be the model daughter, the perfect aspiring lady. Never letting anyone know how much it killed me inside.”
“I’m so sorry, Star.” He squeezed their joined hands, careful not to crush her fingers. “It’s no excuse, but I didn’t know what it cost you.”
She squeezed his hand back, and the strength in her grip surprised him. “I never let you see it. And everything changed for me with Kieran.” Her eyes shone when she looked toward her husband, who had paused in his walk to scribble something in a notebook.
“Writing verses again,” Dom said wryly.
“Doubtless,” his sister said with a smile. “And I cannot wait to hear them.”
Dom turned his attention back to Willa. She had stopped to look at the view, her skirts molded to her body, strands of her dark hair coming loose and dancing on the wind.
“Stay close to her, Star,” he said, still looking at the woman who had once been his. “Comforther, if she’ll accept comfort. Do anything in your power to help her move forward, and leave me behind.”
“Why not try to take the next steps with her?” his sister asked.
Dom looked at Willa so far ahead of him. Climbing, going higher. Soon, she’d reach the top before anyone else, and tower above them like the princess she was. Yet maybe there was more to her than an endless supply of defiance and strength. But what was it? Who was she, without her armor?
A woman who knew about foraging for wild berries, and who had longed for the same thing he had: time away from the eyes of the world. Maybe to breathe a bit freer. Maybe she was tired of being strong. God knew, he’d borne his own share of carrying weight, and even he wearied of it.
“Don’t know, Star.” He exhaled. “I’ve lived in rough places, done brutal things. But she wouldn’t want me, not if she knew the truth. I’m not who she thinks I am.”
“Who are you, Dom?”
Yet he shook his head. Becausethat, he couldn’t reveal to anyone. Especially not Willa.
“We’re almost to the vantage point for the picnic,” Mr. Longbridge said, waving toward a bluff that perched high above the hills.
Willa blew out a breath. Thank goodness they were nearly at their destination. Clambering overrocks made her feel alive and energetic—but it was also bloody exhausting.
The scenery was spectacular, deeply romantic in the most poetic sense of the word, and full of majesty. And yet all she could think about was what she’d overheard.
Dom’s words to his sister, carried on the wind, haunted her. How he’d urged Celeste to help her move on. Most of all, though, his words kept ringing through her head like a bell tolling death.
She wouldn’t want me, not if she knew the truth. I’m not who she thinks I am.
How had she not seen it? This brash, bold man never backed down from a challenge and looked at everyone with defiance, as if to say,I’m as good as you, if not better. But lurking in his heart was the fundamental belief that there was something in himshewould reject.
He’d never shown her any of this vulnerability, or said what it was within him that was so shameful.
If only he had. But then, would that have changed anything? Would it have changedthem?
“Careful, careful,” Kieran cautioned Baron Hunsdon as the other man nearly lost his hold on the wine bottles. “The whole fate of our outing depends on your hands. What’s a scenic outlook without wine?”
