Her smile was bright and playful and chased away some of the anger he had felt. All he wanted to do in that moment was kiss her and he did just that, putting his gratitude into words.
She had touched him in the deepest depths of his soul that he had hidden from the light and now he didn't know how to act in front of her or behave.
He had not felt so vulnerable since he was a lad and again he felt like the little boy he had been, panting for his father's approval even if he kept falling short of it.
Now his wounds felt raw and exposed and the pitying look he read in her gaze made him want to hide. He was ashamed she had seen him as anything but the calm and confident man she had thought him to be and now he didn't know how to remedy it.
When he pulled away, he despised the look in her eye and turned away from her, rising to his feet.
"I am not well enough to continue our lessons today, Cecilia," he told her. "You may take your leave."
"I didn't come for our lessons, Your Grace," she told him and he heard her feet shuffle closer. "I wanted to…"
"No," he interrupted sharply.
She was a few steps from him and he felt her retract her hand. His skin burned even if she hadn't touched him and he knew her touching him would evoke another emotional response he wasn't equipped to handle and neither wanted to feel.
"Return to your estate, Cecilia," he told her, squaring his shoulders. "I have no need of your presence tonight."
"I… Yes, Your Grace," she answered, the resignation and hurt audible in her voice spearing him. "I bid you a good night then."
When the doors to his study closed softly as she took her leave, he called in his butler.
"Yes, Your Grace?" the man asked when he arrived.
"Ensure she is seen into the hansom safely," he ordered.
"Yes, Your Grace," he answered and left, leaving him blissfully alone.
The room he had relished as his dominion suddenly felt gaping as the silence felt too loud and threatened to crush him. He looked round at the study he had redecorated to his taste to remove every trace of the man who had been before him and still felt the weight of the man's presence in the room.
"You are not worth anything, Theodore."The man's voice came clear as day."I am glad you will never be duke."
He moved to his sideboard and poured himself an unhealthy amount of whisky, downing it quickly and letting the burn distract him from the words pouring into his mind.
Soon he had dulled his mind with enough alcohol that the only thing drifting in his mind before he succumbed to sleep was Cecilia's face.
CHAPTER 20
"Your Grace?" Theo's butler called as he was pouring over the books on his table.
He looked up, taking off his reading spectacles, and shot the man a questioning look. He had specifically asked not to be disturbed and wasn't expecting any visitors so the man's interruption was odd.
Since his encounter with Cecilia three days prior, he had had an uneasy feeling pooling in his blood. The activities he usually used to stave off boredom didn't satisfy. She had bared his deepest scars and he didn't know how to rebuild the walls she had torn down in her attempt to expose him.
He had only found distraction in balancing the books and reading correspondence. The complicated sums and rationalizing how to manage his farmlands gave him less time to think of a pair of hurting green eyes.
He had been tempted to write to her as the days passed, remembering the hurt look in her eyes, but he had quickly quelled the urge each time it arose. He didn't want to end up saying anything he would quickly regret again.
"Mr, Silver is here," his butler answered the unspoken question.
His brow rose even higher and he nodded, pushing the books from him.
"Send him in," he instructed.
He had ordered Mr. Silver, who was his solicitor that also had a private investigation business, to look into Cecilia'ssuitorbecause there was something he couldn't quite understand about the man.
While he seemed perfectly charming and kind to her, he couldn't ignore the warning bells in his head telling him that it was all a facade. But for what purpose the man would hide who he was, Theo was yet to think of.
