Page 38 of A Virgin for His Grace
"Perhaps," she said quietly, "those you seek to protect might prefer to see you happy rather than merely dutiful."
Devon's eyes flashed with something that might have been longing but he quickly hid it away. "A pretty sentiment, but hardly practical. Now, if you will excuse me, I really must attend to those letters."
As he moved toward the door, Arabella found herself calling after him with desperate urgency.
"Devon?"
He paused, his hand on the door handle, and turned back with an expression that held both hope and trepidation.
"Yes?"
"Thank you," she said simply. "For defending me, for protecting me, for... for everything."
His smile was soft with genuine emotion. "Always, Arabella. Always."
And with that quiet promise, he was gone, leaving her alone with her thoughts and the growing certainty that whatever choice she ultimately made about her future, it would be governed less by practical considerations than by the treacherous longings of a heart that had already been irretrievably lost.
Chapter 11
"There is something I must tell you, Arabella. Something about my past that may... alter your perception of me considerably."
Devon's voice carried a note of grim determination as he stood before the fireplace in the library, his evening dress immaculate despite the obvious tension in his posture. Three days had passed since Whitmore's unwelcome visit, three days of careful politeness and studied avoidance that had left both of them walking on eggshells around the attraction that continued to simmer beneath the surface of their professional relationship.
Arabella looked up from the volume of poetry she had been attempting to read, noting the way the firelight played across his aristocratic features and emphasized the shadows beneath his dark eyes. He had been unusually subdued since the confrontation with her unwelcome suitor, maintaining a distance that felt more like withdrawal than mere propriety.
"Your Grace?" she prompted gently when he remained silent, staring into the flames with the sort of brooding intensity that suggested whatever he wished to share was both significant and painful.
"Do you recall," he began slowly, "that morning when you asked me about the man I used to be, before cynicism and experience taught me to expect the worst from human nature?"
"I remember," Arabella replied quietly, setting aside herbook to give him her full attention. "You spoke of India, of villages displaced for English profit. It was clearly a source of great pain for you."
Devon's laugh was harsh and entirely without humor. "Pain, yes. But not, perhaps, for the reasons you might suppose. The truth is considerably more complicated than the version I shared with you."
Something in his tone made Arabella's pulse quicken with apprehension, though she forced herself to maintain an expression of calm interest. "I am listening."
Devon turned from the fireplace to face her directly, his dark eyes holding hers with an intensity that made her breath catch in her throat. "The village I told you about, the relocation that went so tragically wrong, it was not simply a matter of following orders from superior officers."
"What do you mean?" Arabella asked, though she dreaded his answer.
"I mean that I was not merely a soldier carrying out the commands of others. I was... instrumental in planning the entire operation. The idea of relocating the villagers was mine, presented to my commanding officer as a humane solution to what appeared to be an intractable problem."
The admission hung in the air between them like a physical presence, and Arabella felt her stomach clench with sudden understanding. "You blame yourself for their deaths."
"Should I not?" Devon asked with bitter self-recrimination."I convinced my superiors that temporary relocation was preferable to the violence that seemed inevitable if the villagers remained on their ancestral lands. I personally selected the site for their new settlement, assured them that it was merely a temporary measure whilst legal matters were resolved."
He began to pace before the fireplace with restless energy, his hands clenched behind his back in a gesture she had come to recognize as a sign of barely controlled emotion.
"I even helped load their possessions onto carts, promised their headman that I would personally ensure their safe return once the disputes were settled. They trusted me, Arabella. They looked at me and saw an honourable English officer, and they trusted me with their lives."
"But you could not have known what would happen," Arabella said gently. "You could not have foreseen that the relocation would become permanent, that the new land would prove inadequate."
"Could I not?" Devon interrupted with harsh self-mockery. "I was not some naive lieutenant fresh from England. I had been in India for three years, had seen how such 'temporary' measures invariably became permanent once English interests were served. Yet I convinced myself that this time would be different, that my good intentions would somehow override the machinery of imperial greed."
Arabella rose from her chair and moved closer to where he stood silhouetted against the firelight, drawn by an impulse to comfort him despite the magnitude of what he had revealed.
"You were trying to prevent bloodshed," she said quietly. "Surely that intention counts for something."
"Does it?" Devon's smile was sharp with self-condemnation. "When children died of starvation because I chose to trust in promises I knew were worthless? When families were destroyed because I lacked the courage to refuse orders I knew were wrong?"
