Page 36 of A Virgin for the Duke of Depravity (Ton’s Beasts #2)

Margaret immediately withdrew her hand, and Leo instantly regretted his choice of words. She would think that he was in love with someone else, when nothing could be further from the truth.

He took a deep breath, knowing that he had to explain himself to her.

Leo had never told his story to anyone, never explained why he had gone to war. Instead, he allowed everyone to believe that it was his valiant honor that he wanted to uphold in combat.

Something painful pricked him in the chest as he readied a fuller explanation.

“I was not in love with anyone,” he clarified.

“And so you remain not in love,” Margaret said carefully. “This is not news to me. You have made it clear to me from the start.”

He did not fail to notice the crack in her voice. Oh, how badly he wanted to reach out and comfort her, knowing that it was not right.

But how could he possibly comfort her when he was the one thing she needed to be protected from?

“The girls’ mother…” He sighed, remembering the day when Augusta had barged into his chambers. “She tried to seduce me, but I rejected her advances. When I did, she told my brother that I had tried to seduce her.”

“She lied,” Margaret whispered.

“But my brother believed his wife over me. When she told him that I had made advances to her, he kicked me out. He suggested I go to war. Told me he wished I would die on the battlefield.” He took a deep breath. “Perhaps it would have been easier if I had been killed.”

“What does any of this have to do with me?” Margaret asked, her brow furrowed.

He wanted to run his thumb over the crease in her forehead, to feel the skin smooth beneath his touch.

“Love makes you stupid. Or crazy.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, not seeing what the problem was.

“I saw enough madness on the battlefield. I do not wish to see more, and I refuse to subject you to the same,” he said.

Leo pulled away from her, letting the air rush back between them. He had not realized how close he had leaned toward her until only inches separated them.

“This is why you have been keeping your distance?”

Margaret’s tone conveyed patience with him, but it also betrayed her sadness. When he chanced a look at her, her brown eyes were soft. Instead of her characteristic smile, a frown creased her features.

When he did not answer right away, she reached up and ran her fingers along his jaw to force him to look at her.

“It is why we must stay away from each other,” Leo said, looking into her eyes. “Can’t you see, wife? I am protecting you.”

She let her hand drop from his face. She stood up and looked down at him on the settee. Her expression had become harder, more defiant, as he was used to from her. He would rather she keep her distance. It was the one thing he could understand.

“And what, pray tell, are you protecting me from?” She crossed her arms, already knowing the answer.

She tapped her foot on the floor, impatient for him to say what he needed to say.

“From myself.”

Leo wished he did not have to disappoint his wife, especially not on the first day after their wedding. He watched her process what he had said, the way her eyes grew misty at his words. Her shoulders tensed.

He wanted to go to her. He wanted to tell her that it would be fine. That he would stay away from her, and that she would be better off for it. But the words he wanted to say were locked deep within him. He would never be able to tell her that it was all right for her to care for him.

The last woman who cared for him had belonged to his brother, and she had not truly cared at all. She had sent him to war and made him into the Beast he was today—a title that might have been conferred by war but did not start there.

“Right,” Margaret finally said with finality. “Thank you, then, husband.”

She turned toward the door so quickly that her motion was a blur to his astute eyes. If he had not been paying attention, he might have missed the way her shoulders slumped and shook as she silently cried.

Even with her despair, he could not help but want her. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and hold her as she cried. But that was precisely why he should stay away from her. If he were the one who made her cry this way, she would be better off without him.

Margaret reached for the handle of the door, but it did not budge.

He had not thought that the girls would tire of this game easily, though he had hoped they would for his wife’s sake.

She pounded her fists on the door, just as he had done before she convinced him to bare his soul to her. Calling out for Annie and Kitty, she continued to hammer on the door.

The only thing to do was to let her wear herself out. Leo knew the girls would not come until they were good and ready to release them from the library.

Odds were they had already scampered off to play a new game.

Margaret turned around to face him, but she did not look him in the eye. She slumped against the door and slowly slid down to the floor. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around herself.

It was as though she thought she could hold herself together if she just tried hard enough.

“I want to leave,” she announced in a shaky voice. She refused to look up at him.

“As soon as they unlock the door, you are free to go,” he said. “But I must warn you that Annie and Kitty can be quite stubborn. It may be a while before they let us out of here. We might as well make our peace with it until dinner.”

“I do not mean the library,” she mumbled. “Though I would like to leave this room as well.”

Leo’s heart stuttered at the thought of her leaving him so soon after he pledged to protect her for the rest of his life. The only way he could know for certain that she was safe was to keep her here with him.

She had nowhere else to go. Her only family was arrested, and that blackguard would have sooner killed her than allowed her to live freely.

Deep down, Leo knew that she would not go anywhere where her freedom would be curtailed. Her defiance was her defining feature, the one thing that set her apart and captivated him so greatly.

“Where would you go?” he finally asked her.

She wiped the tears rolling down her cheeks and took a deep, steadying breath. Leo noticed the moment she decided that she was ready to tell him. It was in the way she rolled her shoulders back before she spoke.

Finally, she lifted her eyes and looked right at him. “I want to go back to the convent. It is my only option. You did not claim me, so they would take me back if I asked them,” she explained.

Shock rippled through him. Margaret would rather return to the place where they had tried to break her spirit than enjoy her freedom in the city? Were her freedom and his protection worth nothing to her?

But he already knew more than she did. There was no way she would return to her old life, even if she wanted to.

“You will not find them at St. Agatha’s,” he told her simply.

“What? Why would the nuns not be where I left them?”

Her eyes grew wide at the idea that her old home was gone. If she had been harboring hope that she could get away from him, she was in for a surprise.

“I told the Archbishop that they abused you,” he explained. “I have seen the scars on your back.”

They had been one of her defining features that night at Olympus when she had taken her dress off. The first time he saw them, he could hardly take his eyes off of them, though he eventually found a way to explore her despite them.

He would never allow a woman to fall into terrible hands again.

No other woman should have to endure what the sisters had dubbed as discipline. Though he turned them in to the Archbishop as a form of punishment for trying to break Margaret’s spirit, this much was still true.

“The Archbishop ordered the convent to shut down. The sisters have been moved to different nunneries around the country,” he added. “You could return to St. Agatha’s, but the sisters will not be there. You are better off with Theresa here in London.”

“You did… what?”

She seemed unable to believe that he would take her complaint against Mother Superior seriously.

“I could not think about you being tortured there. I sent word the day you told me about them. And when I saw them for myself… I knew that I had made the right decision to keep anyone else from suffering at their hands.”

Her tears seemed to dry up in an instant. When she looked at him again, it was with those narrowed eyes and the flared nostrils. Something he said had angered her, though he could not figure out what it was.

Surely, she did not want to return to the nunnery where the sisters had been so cruel to her, did she?

Finally, she pushed herself to her feet. Margaret drew herself up to her full height, though she remained petite. If Leo stood next to her, he would have to look down at her, so he remained on the settee.

Whatever she had to say, he was certain he could take it sitting down.

“You could not imagine them torturing me.” Margaret rolled her eyes and huffed out a laugh. “And yet it is fine when you are the one who is torturing me!”

“I have never done anything that you did not want me to do,” Leo said defensively. “You were more than eager to follow my commands. I remember you begging for my touch. My hands, my mouth.”

“Not that.” She turned her back to him and took a deep breath. “You married me when you knew that you would never touch me again. You married me when you knew that you could not love me. When…” she trailed off and bit her lip.

He wanted to run his thumb over her plump bottom lip and tell her that it was all right to say what she wanted, no matter how much it would hurt him. She paced in front of him.

“When what?” he asked when she did not pick up her thought after a moment.

“You married me when you knew that you could not love me, when you had made me fall in love with you. The na?ve little nun you could toy with.”