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“My father was nothing like the man the Ton held in high regards,” he continued. “I would never deny or disrespect the legacy my father left for me, the accomplishments he made in society, the things he did to secure his fortune. He was someone most young gentlemen strived to become.”

She watched him with wide eyes, holding on to every word.

“But he had his own ways of creating a strong man.”

“What ways?”

Michael hesitated. The scars along his back seemed to ache and burn, suddenly, as if his father lurked directly behind him. He held back the tremor that threatened to ripple through his body.

“Michael,” Cordelia suddenly said, his name sounding different on her lips than on anyone else’s.

He met her stare. It was hard to believe that the woman he once barely knew, who he married on the same day they first met, held such great power over him. Michael remembered being agonized over the rumors, over everything he heard going on at the estate. Every single thing he once felt burdened with no longer existed. The woman before him was someone else entirely, a creature he had never experienced before within the Ton.

“You do not have to explain it,” she whispered. “But if you chose to, I can carry your burden as if it were my own.”

Michael’s brow shot up. “Why on earth would you do such a thing?”

“We are married, aren’t we?”

He watched her with widening eyes. A sweet smile passed across her face, one that was gentle and genuine. Suddenly, all at once, Michael felt incredibly at ease. It was an odd feeling that did not sit well with him, at first.

“My father believed that the key to making a perfect Duke was through violent punishment,” he explained. “Perhaps it had been done to him when he was a child. Nevertheless, he knew his intentions well. With every crack, he said: ‘Perfection can only be achieved through the abandonment of flaws.’”

Cordelia gulped. “Crack?”

“The whip.”

“W-Whip,” Cordelia repeated, her face growing flushed and pale. “Awhip?”

“Cordelia -”

Her hands grew tight on his own. “I-I can hardly understand,” she breathed. “H-How can that have happened to you? How are you well? We should -”

“Cordelia,” Michael said again, his voice firmer that time.

She pressed her lips together.

“While I admire your sudden urgency towards the matter,” he began, keeping his voice even, “it happened long ago. Whatever pain inflicted me then no longer burdens me. Do you understand?”

Cordelia shook her head.At least she is honest.

“Many years have passed since those days,” he said. “I am not in pain. I do not crave answers for my father’s behavior, I do not simmer at the sound of his name, I do not harbor a profound hatred.” Michael, much to his surprise, found himself smiling once more, the feeling quite odd and misplaced on him. “I am well, though your adamant displeasure is a welcomed thing I have not known for quite some time.”

Her cheeks grew red. “I am surprised.”

“What about?”

“Only a patient and gracious man could overlook those things, to find a certain light throughout it all,” she murmured.

Michael swallowed, unable to pull his gaze away from her own. “I would not go so far as to assume those things about me.”

“Why not?” she asked, her voice small. “It is what I see.”

“It is not what I know.”

“Perhaps all you needed was an outsider to convince you of otherwise.”

Michael smirked. “Who said I had already been so easily convinced?”