With dread and anticipation, Fancy asked, “What ’appened?”
“Nothing at first. I knew that her papa would never allow her to wed the stable boy. So I set out to better myself and earn my fortune. I quit the Hammonds and found work as a guard-for-hire. Easy money if you’re willing to risk your neck.” Knight shrugged, as if it meant nothing that he’d risked his life to win the woman of his dreams.
It ought to have been difficult for Fancy to imagine the duke in front of her working as a bodyguard. Yet she’d always sensed his primal power, which came not from wealth or position but from a deeper essence. The background he’d shared explained much: he was a man who’d literally fought for his success.
“A couple of years into that line of work, I saved a client’s life,” he went on in the same matter-of-fact manner. “The client, James Hessard, owned a number of manufactories, and he repaid me by offering me a job as his right-hand man. Hessard mentored me in the trade, and I eventually became a partner. When he retired, I bought him out and expanded the business. By the time I was five-and-twenty, I was a rich man, but it wasn’t enough. Imogen wed someone else.”
“Who?” Fancy asked even though it wasn’t any of her business.
“The Earl of Cardiff,” he said tonelessly.
“I’m sorry, Knight.”
“You have no reason to be. Imogen was a dutiful daughter who could not disobey her family’s wishes. She’s been married five years now; she and Cardiff have two children.”
Despite Knight’s neutral tone, there was a faraway look in his gaze. Empathy and yearning fell like pinpricks upon Fancy’s heart. He was as steadfast and loyal as any knight of old. For five years, Imogen had been married to another, and Knight still saved his kisses for her and her alone.
Fancy remembered what he’d said about love being a gamble, how it was better not to take the risk. Now she understood why he believed this to be true: he had taken the risk, and his heart had been smashed to smithereens.
“Do you…still love her?” Fancy said haltingly.
“Is it love? I no longer know. At times, what I feel for her seems like a habit I cannot break.” His smile held no mirth. “None of that matters. Imogen is wed, and she would never betray her husband, nor would I want her to. But I gave her my promise as a gentleman not to kiss another, and I have kept it.”
Fancy’s chest wrenched at the terrible beauty of his vow.
“You’re an honorable man,” she whispered.
“Not where you are concerned.” He inhaled, then asked, “Why didn’t you tell me that you were a virgin?”
Startled by the question, she said, “I, um, didn’t think you needed to be told.”
“Well, I did. If I had known, I…” He frowned and went on abruptly, “That day, by the stream. You told me you were experienced. You said, I know what love is.”
“I remember,” she said, thinking back. “We were talking about love, and you were being…well, you expressed a cynical view o’ it. When I disagreed, you said it was because I didn’t ’ave enough experience o’ the world. And I replied that I was experienced because I am. I’ve been travelling all my life, seen more o’ the world than most women my age, I reckon.”
“That is what you meant by being experienced. That you’d gone on the road?”
“Aye,” she said, puzzled by his incredulous tone. “And I said I know what love is because I do. My da and ma were devoted to each other. And so are Mr. and Mrs. Taylor and plenty o’ other folks I know. What else could I ’ave possibly meant?”
Knight regarded her in stony silence.
It dawned upon her. Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin? The only reason he would ask such a question would be if he thought she wasn’t chaste.
“You thought that I…I’d been with others?” she asked in a painful whisper.
His gaze brooding, he gave a slow nod.
Hurt rose within her, bringing a flood of memories. All the people who had looked down upon her because she was a tinker’s daughter. The men who’d tried to take advantage because they’d assumed she had no morals or pride. The nasty assumptions folks made about her and her kin.
Over the years, she’d built walls to block out the pain. But now those very walls—her treasured dreams—were turning against her.