Page 37 of In a Rake's Embrace
“Yes.”
Her response was huskier than she intended, her belly tightening with the tension simmering between them. Irritated by how her body responded to his proximity, she glared at him. The tight, charged air between them only intensified.
He studied her, his eyes dark and contemplative. “Ronald is different. I do not want anyone to define him because of it. Do I have unrealistic expectations? Perhaps. But he is my brother, and I love him. Once, I trusted someone deeply, and she stood by while others mocked him—she even laughed while they hurt him.”
Agatha’s chest clenched with horror. “Thomas ... I am so sorry.”
“You are right,” he admitted softly. “I should not judge you based on someone else’s actions. I have enough good sense to know that not everyone is the same, and a person should be measured by their words, actions, and honor. It will not happen again, Agatha.”
Her throat tightened. “Thank you.
He lowered his head in a sharp nod.
“Did you make them apologize?”
A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “When I found three supposed friends by the lake, tossing apple cores at Ronald while he sobbed, and my fiancée laughed, my reaction was immediate, brief and vicious. Everyone left with bloodied lips, and there was a broken bone. I waded in with my fists.”
His fiancée?
Thomas’s hand left her chin and touched the scar on his cheek. As if realizing he had revealed more than intended, hisexpression grew distant again, and he began to pull away. But Agatha moved with him, sliding one hand around his neck while the other lightly traced the scar on his face.
“I hope you hurt them,” she murmured. “Badly.”
“Bloodthirsty.”
Her heart stuttered. “When necessary. I am very protective of my family … I cannot imagine them being so hurt.”
His lips twitched in amusement. “I have never spoken to anyone about that incident. Not even my closest friends, Oliver or James.”
Her eyes widened. This admission felt like a warning—an unspoken caution that she had touched something he rarely shared, and if she were not careful with what he offered, Agatha would bitterly regret it.
His fingers grazed her cheek, then traced the delicate arch of her brow. “It was a temporary madness. It will not happen again.”
“Thomas,” she said, her chest warming with a peculiar tenderness. “I would never betray your confidence.”
“We shall see.”
The cold mistrust in his gaze was painful to bear.
“My father is obsessed with gambling,” she admitted, holding his eyesand feeling a raw vulnerability she hadn’t endured when David demanded to know why they were leaving Cringleford and why she no longer wished to marry. “He owed eighty pounds and couldn’t repay it. He … he offered my younger sister in service here atAphroditeto clear his debt.”
He went still. “Why are you telling me this?”
Agatha swallowed, her throat tight. “Because … I want to give you a part of myself, too. Something real.”
His unwavering gaze roamed her face, yet there was a tenderness there she had never seen before. She didn’t know what to make of it. Agatha wished he didn’t wear indifferencelike a second skin so she could read and understand him better. In the few times they met, there always lingered a distant aloofness and an austereness to his expression. Agatha … wanted to shatter it and know the gentleman beneath hiscultivated, impenetrable mask.
The awareness made her heart stutter. This man before her was untouchable for someone like her, and it was utterly foolish even to entertain the thought of being drawn closer to his allure.
Thomas is only my tutor, nothing more, she told herself firmly, almost frightened by the softening she felt inside, the growing longing to sit and laugh with him.
“How did you end up here instead?” he asked, his voice quieter now.
“My … my sister is only sixteen.”
“That blackguard,” he hissed. “How could he be so vile?”
The earl’s distaste was oddly comforting. “I couldn’t bear the thought of her coming, so I took her place. A duke settled the debt for me—without asking for anything in return. I returned home afterward, but I knew my father would gamble again. He always does.”
