Unraveled (Turner, #3)

Her eyes shut. “No need to belabor the point. You’ve made your intentions perfectly clear.”


“No. If you’d understood, you’d not have cried yourself to sleep.” He paused, cleared his throat, and she felt a stab of embarrassment that he’d understood that. It was monstrously unfair that she’d given him everything, and he’d stolen her vulnerability, too.

“Let me tell you what I want you for, so that we are not laboring under any misapprehensions.”

“Intercourse,” she said.

He set his hand over her lips. “Let me finish, before you start scrapping at me. You don’t let me frighten you. You’re not afraid to disagree with me. From the first, you made me feel warm in a world where I often feel alone. I’ve reposed confidences in you that I’ve scarcely told another soul. And if you must know why I want you near, it’s because I don’t like to think of you too far away.”

She let out a gasp. There was nothing to say to that. She simply sat up and clutched the mug to her chest, trying to make out his expression in the predawn light.

“I like you,” he said. “I like you very well. I don’t think I’ve ever been as desperate for a woman—for all of a woman, not just her body—as I am for you. And that, I suppose, is what I should have told you.”

She simply stared at him, wondering if this was a dream. If she’d invented this to comfort herself in the middle of the night. But when she pinched herself, she didn’t wake.

“My God,” she said into that silence. “You are direct.”

“I did not want there to be any chance of your misunderstanding me. And after last night, I very much feared you had.”

She contemplated his silhouette. “No,” she said. “I do not think I misunderstood what happened last night. I offered you a little affection, and you stormed off into the night. You can’t come back and ply me with hot milk and compliments and expect me to understand. Your explanation does not make sense.”

“Indeed,” he said. “There is one other thing. It is a little thing that perhaps I should have mentioned before now.” He sat back and folded his arms.

She waited. She waited a very long time, before she realized he was not cold, but uneasy.

“Don’t touch my face,” he said.

She waited even longer. She could hear his watch ticking steadily away, until finally he spoke again.

“You recall my mother locked me in the cellar,” he said. “And it flooded. When the waters were at their worst, she came back. I was huddled on the ladder. The waters had stolen all the warmth from me, and my eyes had seen nothing but darkness for days. I was almost blinded when she opened the cellar door.”

Miranda set her mug on the bedside table.

“She reached for me. I thought she’d come to her senses. She said, ‘Oh, my poor, beautiful boy.’ And she smoothed my hair back.”

His breathing had become harsher.

“I had almost no strength in my grip, but I took her arm. She leaned down and stroked my face with her other hand. I wasn’t holding on to anything except her; I was scarcely keeping myself upright on the ladder. And then…” He took a deep breath. “And then,” he said, his voice getting harder, “she pushed me into the water. It came up over my head, and for a second I didn’t think I’d have the strength to kick my way to the surface. When I did, she was gone.

“She hadn’t come to save me. She’d come to say farewell. Since then, I can’t bear to have my face touched. Everything else, I can manage. When you touched my face, it brought me back to that moment. Vividly. Never mind that it was decades in the past.”

Oh, she was dreaming this. This kind of thing didn’t happen to brothers of dukes.

“Don’t.” He set his hand over hers. “Don’t feel sorry for me. Just accept my apology. And…don’t touch my face.”

It was awful. She wanted to touch his face now, to hold him against her and let him know that he was safe. What a horrible mess.

Instead, she simply let out her breath. “You should have told me that before we started. It would have saved us both a bit of grief.”

“So noted.” Another pause. “Although I believe that if I had simply forbidden it, like Bluebeard, you’d have given it a try. Besides, you fed me that line about not giving me affection. I thought I was quite safe.”

Safe, because he’d thought nobody cared for him? She felt a lump in her throat. She didn’t think he would appreciate the observation, though.

She let out a breath. “Is there anything else I ought to know?”

He sighed. “I’m sure there is. I’ve been by myself for so long, I forget these little things until they crop up. I’ve been told I’m not the easiest individual to care for.”