Page 85 of The Wolf of Mayfair
She bowed her head with an appropriate deference. “I understand.”Him.She understood him so very well.
He grunted. “Good. I am pleased that is settled.”
Going on tiptoe, Helia whispered into his left ear, “I am falling in love with you and ah’m scared to death.”
Anthony quickly turned his head. But for a frown, his face otherwise remained expressionless.
Oh, my god. And at last, it made sense.Thiswas what the housekeeper had alluded to. “You cannot hear,” she breathed.
Rage tightened Anthony’s features, and his swift transformation into an angry beast sent Helia stumbling away from him.
“What did you say?” he raged. As soon as the question exploded from his lips, Anthony blanched, and as if he’d realized what he’d asked, he, too, retreated a step.
Helia bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. It was the first he’d ever faltered before her, and she hated the sight of his suffering.
A man as proud and strong as Anthony would see any loss of hearing as a complete failing, a sign of weakness and vulnerability.
How much did his partial deafness account for the guarded man he was now?
Helia found her feet and her voice. “It is all right, Anthony,” she said softly. “You are no less because of ... of ...”
His glare cut through her, and her words trailed off.
“Say it,” he seethed.
“Say it,” he repeated, in a deathly quiet tone, more dreadful than any of the thundering he’d done. He’d not, however, hurt her. She knewthat all the way to her now anguished soul because she knewthisman. He’d cared for her with his own hands.
“You are no less of a man because you cannot fully hear, Anthony,” she finally said.
Anthony’s body tensed.
He’d not thought she would speak those words.
And then, it was as though she’d imagined all hint of vulnerability in Anthony.
He donned one of his coolly sardonic grins. “Do you truly believe I see myself as alesserman, my dear?”
Anthony used that “my dear” like Helia was a recalcitrant child. She recognized it as an attempt to protect himself.
“No,” she said calmly. “I have no doubt you are a man who knows his worth, strength, and power. You are a king among men.”
Anthony drew back.
Her avowal had taken the wind out of his ire, and it’d also restored the hard, square set to his broad shoulders and the usual swagger he wrapped himself in.
“That is right, Helia,” he purred. “I know exactly my worth. Others, however, see any imperfection as something to be pitied.”
“Others, such as your father?”
He laughed, an actual mirth-filled expression at odds with his next revelation. “The duke would have to be capable of somethingotherthan disdain for anyone he deems inferior.”
Disdain for his son? What a bloody monster. With every small detail Anthony had shared in Helia’s time here, he’d proven all the tales of the duke’s awfulness were true.
Anthony sharpened his gaze on her. “Now tell me, have there been servants with loose lips who’ve shared tales about how I lost my hearing?”
She shook her head. “No, they are loyal to you,” she assured him.
She’d come to learn Anthony was the reason servants remained on staff despite having a cruel employer. They knew the duke would not live forever and respected the duke-in-waiting enough to suffer in their services.
