Page 36 of A Virgin for the Duke of Scars (Ton’s Beasts #1)

A aron called for the stable hand to saddle the feisty mare for his wife to ride. He would not insult her by taking her to their destination in a carriage. Theresa loved to ride, and he would honor that.

Plus, it would be just the two of them. Of that, he was entirely certain. They would face none of the judgment they had faced at the garden party. While some would see her riding out of town, the repercussions were minimal.

She was a duchess. His Duchess. Their peers would surely make an exception for her.

Aaron sat astride Midnight while he waited for the stable hand to bring the mare. He was not unaware of the glare his sister was pinning him with. She had taken his wife’s side, as he knew she would.

How could she not love his little nun more than him?

Juliette and Aaron had been close as children, but he had grown distant after he returned from the war. As Isabella had proven, letting people in carried a great risk. He had even kept his grandmother at arm’s length, despite her best attempts to bring him out of his isolation.

To her credit, she seemed to approve of his plan, what little of it she knew.

She whispered something in Theresa’s ear. Aaron ached to know what it was. But then she squeezed his wife’s arm and retreated to the manor without so much as a backward glance. Juliette followed her as soon as the mare was brought around.

“Do you need help to mount your horse, wife?”

“I can do it on my own,” Theresa said stiffly.

She stepped onto the mounting block and swung her leg over the mare’s back. The mare pranced on the spot, eager to take off.

On any other day, this would have been enjoyable.

Aaron wondered if he had missed his chance to have leisurely moments like this with his wife. If he had missed the opportunity to have a wife at all. She would always be the Duchess of Blackwell, but she may never again call Blackwell Manor home.

But surely the fact that she was here with him meant that she wasn’t finished with him. She wasn’t the type of woman who would entertain a fool. She would have made it known if she had not wanted to hear what he had to say.

Aaron led them out of the stables, and the horses’ steady canter carried them through town. Silence eventually fell between them, punctuated only by the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves.

“Do you fancy feeling the wind in your hair?” Aaron asked when they reached the outskirts of the city.

He turned onto a worn trail that wound its way through the woods.

“All the better to get this over with,” Theresa grumbled. “I have plans to visit my family, in case you have forgotten.”

“No, wife. Today belongs to me. If you still wish to leave, you can do so tomorrow. By the time we return, the hour will be late.”

“So this was your plan all along? To postpone my trip? I fear it will not have the desired effect. Unless you intend to break your rigid rules. And you have made it quite clear where you stand.”

“We will see about that,” Aaron said, kicking his heels into his horse’s flanks and urging him faster.

Behind him, he heard Theresa cluck to her mare, who was all too eager to give Midnight chase.

Despite the tension between them, his heart soared at the sound of Theresa’s laughter as she pulled ahead of him.

When she turned around in the saddle to look back at him, the smile on her face said it all. He had guessed correctly that this would loosen her up before he did what he had planned to do.

“To your right,” he called out, noting the fork in the trail.

She steered the mare to the right and kept up her pace, which left no room for them to have a conversation of any kind. Not only were the horses breathing hard, but so were they.

They kept up the pace until they reached a small clearing.

Aaron pulled Midnight to a stop and lengthened the reins to allow his mount to drink from the stream nearby. Noticing that he had ceased to follow her, Theresa pulled the reins of her mare and steered her toward him.

He jumped off his horse and went to help her down from the mare. He reached out a hand toward her, and she swung her leg over the horse as easily as if she were not wearing the tight travel gown.

Theresa landed on her feet and looked around her at the familiar surroundings. They were standing in the middle of the woods where she had stopped on that fateful day.

The day she should not have been out riding at all.

She pushed through the foliage that separated the clearing from the lake where Aaron had been swimming, red paint on his hands. She let out a deep, shuddering breath as she spun around to face him.

“I don’t understand why you brought me here.”

“I thought that the answer would be quite obvious,” he said softly.

She scrunched up her face, her brow furrowing in confusion.

Theresa turned to the lake, her shoulders shaking. “This was my home. I loved my sisters, and they loved me. My mother took me from them, and then you introduced me to life in the ton .”

“You are correct, wife.” Aaron came to stand beside her, both of them looking out over the water. “They taught you well how to love, and it is thanks to your love that I am a changed man.”

“Though not so much as I would like you to be.”

“The idea of you leaving…” He trailed off, trying to find the right words. “Wife, I love you so much that it hurts to be away from you.”

Theresa went still, unable to believe her ears. She turned her head toward him and opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it, at a loss for words.

“I have wanted you since I first laid eyes on you that day. I wanted you even when I had no right to, even when my instincts said that I should keep my distance.”

“And you did keep your distance, husband. You excelled at it,” she bit out.

That much he had expected. Of course, she did not believe what he was saying now. He had spent the last few weeks telling her that he would never open up, that he would never share his true self with her.

But here he was, pouring his heart out to her.

He was nervous about what was to come. Her skepticism oddly made him feel at ease, as if this were a conversation they could have had at the dinner table.

They had already had this conversation a dozen times.

“You are correct to say that I have been the cause of much strife in our marriage,” he began, turning to face her fully.

He put his hands on her shoulders, holding her in place so she would not look away from him.

“If I am to be worthy of your love, it means taking a risk.”

He took a deep breath and searched her face, but there was no judgment in her eyes. She would give him the time and space he needed, but she would not wait for him forever.

He had made her wait long enough.

Slowly, Aaron reached up to his face and untied the mask from around his head. He lowered it until there was nothing between them.

Theresa fought the urge to draw a sharp breath when he finally lowered his mask. It was not that the scars were so breathtaking, but his actions had surprised her despite how slowly he had moved.

An hour ago, she had been saying her goodbyes before loading up the carriage to leave for her family home—the family she barely knew. She would have had to start all over, learning the subtle nuances of being in a family.

But now, Aaron stood before her and offered her another way.

She slowly lifted her hand to his face and caressed the cheek that was always covered by the mask. Her fingers traced the raised scars.

Aaron closed his eyes at her touch; she imagined that no one had touched him so intimately in years.

“Perhaps it is a good thing you insist on wearing the mask. You are too beautiful to be married to a nun like me,” she whispered.

Then, she leaned in and kissed his scars. Her lips trailed over the raised skin around his eyes, his forehead, his cheeks. She wanted to soothe him, to reassure him that she did not find his scars beastly. Each kiss was a gesture of intentional love.

When she could take it no more, she pressed her lips to his for the first time without anything standing between them.

This kiss was different than the usual passionate ones. It was slow and gentle. It was soft and tender. Their lips moved together like long-lost lovers. Theresa could have spent the rest of the afternoon kissing him.

Only, there was something else she needed to say to him.

“You have reconsidered your rules, and I have reconsidered my trip,” she said, pulling back just slightly.

Aaron wrapped his arms around her waist, and she put her hands on his chest.

“There is nothing between us now,” he murmured.

“I do love you, husband,” she said.

He leaned in for another kiss, but she pushed slightly at his chest. She would have giggled at the frown that flickered across his face if she hadn’t had more words to say.

“If I could choose a future, I would want nothing more than to spend forever with you.”

“And I with you,” he said, before crushing his lips to hers.

Slowly, their kiss transformed into something more. Theresa felt the heat in her core that she had come to associate with the pleasure her husband brought her. But this time, it felt more intimate, something not to be rushed.

His tongue traced the outside of her lips, and she opened to welcome him in. As his tongue slipped along her own, she thought of the other things he had done to her with his tongue. Everything he had done to undo was yet another memory of pleasure she had not known existed.

Sister Edith had never prepared her for the feeling of being loved by a man. Perhaps it was because she could not adequately prepare her for an event that Sister Edith had never had.

Theresa kissed her husband back, this time nibbling on his bottom lip as he had so often done to her. When she sucked on the soft skin, he took a sharp inhale, and then a soft exhale brushed against her skin.

“I could spend all day kissing you, but I had other things in mind,” he said, breaking away from their kiss to plant his lips on her jaw.