Энни Бэрроуз – Regency Rogues: Outrageous Scandal: In Bed with the Duke / A Mistress for Major Bartlett (страница 23)

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It isn’t. But you wouldn’t have done. I know you wouldn’t.’

‘You can’t possibly know that,’ he grated. ‘Hell, I certainly couldn’t.’

‘I do know,’ she said, raising his clenched fist to her mouth and kissing the grazed knuckles. ‘You might have struggled to be kind to the child, but you would have tried. Otherwise you wouldn’t have experienced any guilt over the way you felt when it died. You would have just shrugged your shoulders and walked away. You are a good man,’ she said. ‘And you deserved to have a wife who appreciated just how good and kind you are. A wife who would have at least tried to make you happy. A wife who wanted you to touch her. Give her children. None of what happened was your fault.’

He shifted in the hay beside her and gave a sort of disgruntled huff. Then he rolled onto his side, so that he was facing away from her. She might have thought he was putting an end to their conversation and establishing some distance between them if it hadn’t been for the fact that he kept tight hold of her hand, so that as he rolled the movement tugged her up against his back. Just as though he wanted to drape her over himself like a human blanket.

She snuggled closer. For he’d made it clear he hadn’t been rejecting her. It had been pride that had made him turn away, she was sure. Men didn’t like appearing weak, and he probably regretted spilling all those secrets he’d kept hidden for years. He’d made himself vulnerable to her. Because he trusted her. Or thought she’d understand what rejection of that sort felt like after the way her own aunt had betrayed her.

Yes, if any two people knew what betrayal felt like it was them.

She hugged his waist, wishing there was something she could do to ease his pain. To let him know that she didn’t think any less of him for struggling the way he had in the coldness of his arranged marriage, and with his feelings about the way it had ended.

And suddenly it occurred to her that there was one obvious way to do both.

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