The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(17)

“That you did.” The look he slanted down at her brimmed with something so tender, her throat ached in response. “Ash it is, then. Until I recover my family name.”

“You could be Ash Weatherstoke,” she offered, knowing it was terrible of her to hope he never belonged to any family but hers. “Father doesn’t mind. He says it looks good to society when a genteel family takes in a poor relation. A distant cousin, perhaps?”

The tenderness evaporated, his lips pressing into a tight crease. “I don’t like the idea of being a poor relation. Someone not good enough for…” He broke off, glancing away from her. “Not if I’m to someday…”

She certainly wished he’d finish those sentences. She’d never wished anything so mightily.

“I did not mean to offend you.” Again, she amended silently. Lud, but it was a blessing animals couldn’t understand her. Or she’d probably drive them all off with her constant meddling. “I suggested we make you part of the family. It was Father who came up with the poor-relation bit.”

“I do not want anyone to mock me. To think me less…”

“No one would dare.” Of this she was certain. A man with such strength and height, such unusual musculature, wouldn’t be ready fodder for the jackanapes. “Besides, it’s not so bad really.”

At his look, she hurried to explain.

“The thing about being mocked or laughed at is … you forget to fear it after a while. It’s just something that happens.”

“By Mortimer, you mean?” He said the name as though it tasted of tar.

“Mortimer, yes. And just about everyone else.”

“Because of … your ankle?”

She nodded, suddenly very shy.

His palm gently landed on her knee, gathering the ruffles in his hand until the hem of the sky-blue skirt revealed her white-stockinged feet.

Lorelai could only stand shoes for so long, and almost never wore them in the house.

They both gazed at her slim ankle, forever turned inward at a grotesque angle.

“Were you born with it like that?”

“It happened when I was six.” The gentle curiosity in his voice prompted her to answer questions she’d always avoided.

“What happened?”

“My ankle was broken, like yours.”

“Like mine?” he puzzled. “But … Dr. Holcomb said by the end of the year my ankle would be like it was before. I can almost walk on it now. Why not yours?”

Wounded with a familiar shame. Struck dumb with unrequited fury, she simply shrugged.

“Lorelai?” A dark suspicion turned her name into an accusation. “How was your ankle broken?”

“I’m not supposed to say.” She pulled away from him, but the muscles of his arms bunched, tightening around her.

“Mortimer.” His one harsh word contained all the knowledge she wasn’t supposed to impart. All the darkness contained by a moonless night. All the wrath of the devil, himself.

“I broke his wooden sword with my boot…” She wished her voice were not so small. That she could summon the acceptance she’d counterfeited for more than half her life. “So, he broke my leg with his boot.”

Ash became very still. Unnaturally so. Only his chest lifting with the increasing intakes of breath.

“Does it hurt?” he asked tightly after a long while.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

“What did the doctor say?”

“I never saw a doctor. Father didn’t want anyone to know.” Suddenly frightened, she pulled away from him to implore. “You won’t say anything, will you? Won’t let on that I told you.”

She’d expected fury on his face. Darkness.

But his cool expression reminded her of the serene, mirrorlike fens on a windless day. Almost pleasant. His demeanor unyielding, determined, but eerily calm. “I won’t say a word.” He petted her curls solicitously, the specter of a smile toying with his rigid mouth. “But it won’t happen again.”

Struck by the odd note in his voice, she straightened. “What do you mean?”

Glancing down, he peered into the rook’s crate with a new appreciation. “Tell me more about our friend, here,” he cajoled, daring to smooth the feathers at the tame bird’s throat.

“But Ash…”

“It’s my birthday,” he reminded her. “Let’s not think on the past … or the future. I want to hear all about Attila the Rook, and your collection of conquerors.”

Easily diverted by her passion for her animals, Lorelai launched into an animated retelling of the day she’d found Attila flapping in a terrible circle, his wing somehow caught beneath a rock.

She didn’t notice that Ash only half listened. That he stared at her exposed ankle with glittering obsidian eyes.

He hid his murderous thoughts for hours as they played with fleet-footed, mischievous fox pups, and fed grapes to appreciative turtles that trundled around on the mattress in no great hurry.

She’d never guessed that Ash was certain, memory or no memory, that this was the best birthday he’d ever had, by far. That he understood she fixed broken creatures because no one cared enough to fix her.

And yet, despite her impediment, she had built a life of enchantment.