He sucked in a breath. That would put her total at eight by the end of the night. Close to the nine Abigail had guessed. “Will you do me the most enormous favor, and also not ask me why?”
“Are you well?” Ophelia asked. “Do you have a fever?”
“Please?” Nathan asked. “I will owe you the biggest boon.”
“And I will collect it. What is the favor, then?” Ophelia sighed.
“Do not dance more than nine dances total.”
She wrinkled her brow. “I want to ask why, but you’ve already told me I cannot.” He nodded and held his breath as he awaited her answer. She shrugged. “I was already planning to limit my dances tonight so that I could appear mysterious. Very well, I will dance the other two I’ve promised and then save the remaining one for just the right man. If he ever bothers to show up.”
Nathan leaned in and quickly kissed her cheek. “Thank you.”
She shook her head. “You’re as welcome as I am confused. And that is very.”
He laughed, even as anxious excitement jolted through him. He did not often lose anything on purpose, but if he did this, perhaps it would have him on the road to win an even bigger prize: his wife’s heart.
If he could do that, then nothing else in heaven or on earth mattered.
Chapter 23
The clock in the hall was chiming three when Abigail burst into the antechamber of their room, Nathan just at her heels. She was laughing, and she turned toward him. “Did you see the way Lady Fortescue was mooning over Mr. Barnes all night? Do you think that was to make her husband jealous, or was it a true connection?”
“I have no idea,” he said, shutting the door behind himself. “But either way, they may create a scandal that will silence whatever is left of ours. Even Rhys and Pippa may benefit.”
“Oh, I hope so,” Abigail breathed. “Though I do have to say that it was a stroke of genius to invite the Duke and Duchess of Abernathe and of Willowby. They were so kind to Rhys and Pippa, almost protective. I think their fortunes were raised by the implied friendship.”
Nathan tilted his head. “The fact that you care so much about everyone else’s happiness is one of my favorite things about you.”
She hesitated as the warmth of those words washed over her, but it was followed swiftly by a twinge of discomfort. He looked at her like he could see deep into her soul. She feared he could, and the last time she had allowed such a thing, it had ended so badly.
“Nathan—” she began softly.
He arched a brow. “I know exactly what you’re going to say. You are going to crow.”
“Crow?” she repeated with a shake of her head. “Over what?”
“Come now,” he said, clucking his tongue as he slowly began to circle her. “Don’t start being a good winner now. You bested me at our wager…again.”
She worried her lip. She had been keeping track of Ophelia’s number of dances throughout the night and she was very aware that she had won. And now it seemed he was willing to move on to that subject from the far more tender one.
She smiled. “Indeed, I have.”
“And now I owe you a dark secret.”
She moved a step toward him, growing more serious because she sensed real pain beneath the playfulness. “Nathan, I know we wagered this, but I do not hold you to it.”
He wrinkled his brow. “You wouldn’t dig into the grave?”
“Not if it will cause you pain.”
He let his breath in a small laugh. “Of course you wouldn’t.” He took her hand. “Abigail, I have been privy to some of the worst moments of your life. Not because you wished me to be there, not because I was invited, but because of circumstance. I don’t think it’s so much to ask that you hear a little of my own history, painful as that exercise might be or not.”
He motioned her toward his chamber, and she followed him. They took a place together in the chairs before the fire. He settled in, and she could see he was trying to exhibit all the signs that this didn’t trouble him or move him. And yet she sensed the truth of it. She sensed a multiplication of the pain she’d felt in the antechamber.
Her hand trembled as she moved it to cover his. “Tell me,” she said softly as she stroked her fingers along the top. “I’m here. I will be here.”
And as she said those words, she realized how deeply she meant them. How much she wished to be this man’s support, his steady north star. For the first time, that desire didn’t frighten her, but it continued to mean the world to her. She would deal with the consequences of that realization later; for now she pushed it aside and put all her focus on him.
Nathan had spent the whole night telling himself how imperative this exercise was to winning Abigail. He’d focused on the outcome, that she would know him better, that she would see his vulnerability and perhaps learn to trust him more because of it.
All that remained true as he clung to her hand. And yet the reality of it hit him now. He had always been a private person. He didn’t show the emotions that burned inside of him, for good or for bad, and yet he would strip down before this woman and show her every part of himself. Every pain.
He cleared this throat. “Not many people truly know me,” he began. “Rhys is my friend, my brother, and I never troubled him with the most painful parts of my past. I think you and I are similar in that way. We self-protect.”
She nodded slowly. “I learned the hard way. I suppose you must have, as well.”
“Yes.” His voice broke a fraction. “I watched my mother lay herself bare for my father every day she lived. She cut herself open for him, gave him everything…and it was not enough. And yes, I did learn that the kind of openness she showed was folly.”
“He didn’t love her in return?” she asked.
He held back a bark of humorless laughter. “No. They had an arranged marriage, almost from the moment my mother was born. But she fell in love with him, worshipped him. He? Not so much. When she chased him, he ran. When she bore his heir, then his daughter, he hardly came home long enough to look at either of us.”
She flinched. “I am sorry. That must have broken her heart.”
“It did, I know. I saw it. She would weep and gnash her teeth and tell me all the details of what he was doing wrong, what he was doing behind her back.”
Abigail lifted her hand to her mouth. “To a child?” she gasped.
“At the time, I only wanted to comfort her. As I got older, as I became guardian to my sister and had to learn how to parent her, I could see what a burden my mother had laid on my shoulders. That she expected me to ride to her rescue when he wouldn’t.”
“What about your father?” she asked. “Was he kinder to you as he grew older?”
“No,” he said, his tone flat as memories mobbed him. “My father was more interested in whoring and drinking and gambling his way around London. He was a rake and celebrated that with every action and word. His only attachment to me was that I was to inherit his title. He only ever ignored me or harshly corrected me.”
“For what wrongs?” she asked.