“That is the purpose of my article, is it not?” she countered gently. “To show that you are not some… spectacle. To present you as capable. Steady. Ordinary in the ways that matter.”
“Ordinary,” he repeated, dryly.
“In the best sense,” she clarified. “Reliable. Competent. A duke who runs his estate as he ought.”
A faint, humorless sound left him. “I thought the truth mattered to you. What was it you said? That without it, we’ve no free will?”
“But Iamwriting the truth. I know you think there is truth in those horrible rumors. But… I’m writing of thingsI have seenwith my own eyes. You leave the facade of the manor wild and untamed looking, but inside, and all around it, there is order. Abundance…Caring.Not every titled gentleman governs with fairness. Not every man of rank concerns himself with the people beneath him.”
“And how,” he asked, voice mild but pointed, “would you know how aristocratic estates are run?”
Rosamund’s pulse jumped.
Before she could fashion an answer that didn’t unravel her entire deception, Wallace appeared at the duke’s shoulder with impeccable timing.
“Venison, Your Grace,” he announced, setting down the next course—thinly sliced roast with braised carrots and parsnips, the sauce rich and dark.
The duke did not take his eyes from Rosamund.
She really needed to be more careful.
“I don’t understand why you don’t want… ” she said gently. “Even if you do have the occasional… episode.”
“Not episodes,” he corrected quietly. His gaze sharpened. “It is not temper. It is not merely a foul mood.”
“Then what is it?”
A long silence.
“You think I don’t wish to blend in?” he asked at last. “That I prefer this?” His mouth flattened. “I would give a great deal to be unremarkable.”
“You,” she said, “Will never be unremarkable.” But then, more seriously, added,
“You seem perfectly in command.”
“I do,” he agreed. “Until I am not.”
Rosamund stayed silent.
“They are… inconsistent,” he went on, slower now. “I can go weeks without incident. Sometimes months. I wake, I work, I speak, I function.” His jaw tightened. “And then something shifts. A noise. A dream. A thought. I do not always know.”
“And what happens?”
He did not answer immediately.
“Last time, I went to bed in a tidy room,” he answered. “I woke to shattered glass. The mattress overturned. The wardrobe splintered.” His gaze unfocused slightly, as though seeing it again. “My hands were bleeding.”
“Have you ever…” She inhaled. “Have you ever hurt anyone?”
His jaw flexed… “No. But…”
“You don’t trust yourself.” The truth hit hard. Devastatingly hard.
And then he shook his head. “You mean to make me look ordinary. Safe. Dependable.” A humorless breath left him. “I am a man who cannot guarantee what he will do when his own mind betrays him.”
Her voice softened. “No one else was hurt.”
He did not answer.