Page 88 of The Duke and Lady Scandal
“Ben, I’d rather have you shout at me than this.”
“I’m not going to shout.” Perhaps he’d learned something in this after all. “I shouted at someone I cared for once, someone who was willful, and it didn’t end well.”
“You mean George?”
“Yes.” Those memories were always ready to fill his mind if he let them, but he’d gotten good at pushing them away.
“Seems your life is full of willful people.”
“It is, but I don’t mind. Willful people make things happen. I admire tenacity.”
“Am I tenacious?”
“How can you doubt it? You survived illnesses and being left on your own, and you turned that independence into a role that you seem to love.”
“What happened to George?”
Ben felt something in him shuttering, a door coming down hard to push that story back. He couldn’t get lost in the past any more than he could get lost in his feelings for her.
“Now isn’t the time, Alexandra.”
“Please, Ben. It haunts you, and I want to know why.” She took a single step closer. Her tone had softened, and the pleading note in her voice pushed open the closed door in his mind.
In some strange way, he needed her to know. Maybe it would help her understand what he’d come to do.
“My brother was wayward. He grew up angry, resenting how our mother neglected us, that our father had abandoned us.”
She didn’t react to that.
“He joined a gang who spent their time at the docks, stealing, bullying, causing trouble.” Ben swallowed. The argument they’d had rang in his ears as if it was echoing off the walls of the Wellingdons’ luxurious drawing room. “I confronted him about his behavior. Demanded that he break ties with the gang, that he amend his ways.”
Ben’s throat began to tighten, as if his body wastrying to keep the rest in. Because the rest was the deepest pain he’d ever known. “He chose the gang. Refused to speak to me or Helen. And then he chose to steal from the gang.” He swallowed against bile at the memories. “They killed him. Threw him in the Thames.”
Allie said nothing but reached for him. She gripped his hand, then his arm, and then she fitted herself against him, wrapping her arms around him. The sweetness of her warmth, the soothing stroke of her hand down his back, nearly brought him to his knees.
Moments later, he realized he’d embraced her too, pulling her in so tightly that he could feel her heartbeat against his own chest.
He forced himself to loosen his hold. “I didn’t come to talk about George,” he rasped against her hair.
“So why have you come?” Allie tilted her head up to search his eyes.
“The second constable I assigned to guard your home sent word that you’d departed.” He was grateful she’d at least had the sense to take Collier with her.
At those words, she stepped out of his embrace, though she kept a hand on his arm.
“I will not stay in that house and be idle, Ben.” The words burst out in a fierce, unwavering tone, but then she swallowed hard.
“You’ve never stayed put anytime I’ve asked you to, so this wasn’t a complete surprise.” He felt a smile tugging at his lips but fought it back.
What he’d come to do required resolve. He could not be distracted by her loveliness, or even how he adored that she forever disregarded his dictates.
He had to put this to an end. Not because of bloody Haverstock and his manipulation, but because it was best for her. If she knew what he’d seen, the things he’d done...
She seemed to sense his resolve hardening, and pulled away from him entirely, crossing her arms and pacing along the contours of the Wellingdons’ expensive rug.
“Let us compromise, Ben. I must be able to take care of matters at the shop. To visit my friend. Constable Collier came with me, as I’m sure you saw. Is that not protection enough?”
“That seems a fair compromise.”
