She’d caused him to feel…utterly bereft. “I’m not sure I trust myself. Ever since my employer…” She looked away from him. “I told you what he did. I was changed. I wasn’t me anymore. Not until I met you.”
The gentle touch of his fingertips beneath her chin drew her to face him once more. He abruptly dropped his hand, as if her flesh had burned him.
“I can’t imagine the life you’ve led,” he whispered. “Or maybe I can, and it’s too harrowing to contemplate.”
“The day we met, I pretended to fall. I did that so you wouldn’t go after the child who’d stolen something. I saw myself twenty years ago.”
“I wondered if that had been a lie too.”
Selina flinched. “Not everything between us was false. Everything I felt for you, and I hope what you felt for me, was all real.”
He blinked, his lashes dipping slowly before he looked at her in disbelief. “You can’t think there could be a future for us?”
“No. But maybe if you understood my past, you could forgive yourself for trusting me.”
“Forgive myself, but not you?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want you to forgive me. I don’t deserve that.”
“Tell me who you were.”
“Our parents—Rafe’s and mine—died when I was very small. A man who claimed to be our uncle, but who later confessed he was not, brought us to London. He used us. He would say I was sick, and people gave him money. Then he sold us to Partridge to work as pickpockets.” Selina swallowed. She’d never told anyone the next part, not even Beatrix. “When I was eleven, one of the men who worked for Partridge tried to take me for himself. He said it was time I moved on to my next profession—the only one I was good for. He was drunk, and I fought him. He fell out the window and died. After that, Rafe sent me away to school. He said it wasn’t safe for me in London.”
“He was right.” Now there was the barest thread of anguish in his voice.
“Because of Rafe, I had the opportunity to be something other than a prostitute. When I had the chance to become a governess, I was so happy, so relieved. It was more than I’d ever dreamed.” She clutched her hands together, her muscles tensing. “But then my employer did what the other man couldn’t. He made me a whore.”
“No.” Harry’s eyes turned fierce, his brows pitching down his forehead. “He did not.”
“I ran away and fetched Beatrix from the school—she was incredibly unhappy there and had nowhere else to go. We had no means, no family. I’d lost touch with Rafe, and I was too afraid to come back here.” It had taken her years of building her confidence and regaining her self-worth before she could return. “We lived the only way I knew how, and I thank God for that, because without my ability to steal and scheme, we would have starved. Or worse—we would have been at the mercy of men.” She straightened her shoulders. “I swore I would never depend on anyone ever again.”
“I take it you were never actually married.”
She hated that he had to—rightfully—question everything she’d ever told him. “No.”
He stared at her, but she couldn’t read him. She wanted so badly to touch him, to heal him.
“I’ll try to find Luther,” she said. “But he may be trying to avoid me. I kept refusing his advances.”
“Please don’t put yourself in any danger. Promise me?”
She would promise him anything. “Yes. Luther wouldn’t hurt me.”
“Because he loves you.”
She hated his dispassion. “But I don’t love him.”
“Let me know what you find out.”
Selina couldn’t stop herself from edging closer to him. “I will. There are people I can talk to. From…the past.”
He nodded. She reached up and barely grazed her fingertips against his jaw. “I’m so sorry, Harry. I wish things were different, but I don’t know how they could be.” She stood on her toes and brushed her lips over his. Then she stepped back.
Harry seemed completely detached. Good. He was better off that way.
Without a word, Harry turned and left. Selina stared after him while her knees melted to water. After she heard the front door close, she wobbled to the nearest chair and wilted onto it.
“Why did you let him leave like that?” Beatrix strode into the sitting room and stood with her hands on her hips.
Selina looked up at her while her body fought to calm itself. “Were you eavesdropping?”