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L otte shifted in his arms as Freddie wished for a quick death.

Now Emily knew that he couldn’t read, that he had a dream he’d failed to achieve and that he found her so beautiful he fumbled his compliments like a half-witted fool.

What on God’s green earth had possessed him to keep saying the word ‘different’?

He may as well carve out his heart and lay it at her feet for her to trample on. Christ, what a fool he was.

It was obvious now, as Emily waxed lyrical about a bear named Simon who was so terrified of spiders that he was being picked on by one tinier than a full stop, that this was not the text that made up the book.

The heavy tome that was now half resting on him and slowly cutting into his thigh was clearly some sort of reference book containing no stories suitable for a little girl.

From the minute Charlotte had thrown it at him, Freddie had panicked.

The words were tiny and were so busy leaping about the place before Freddie’s eyes that even glancing at them was making him feel nauseous.

Although the overwhelming sick feeling could also be down to the fact that he had revealed everything about himself to Emily.

What must she think of him? Well, he knew what she would think—that he was a brainless idiot.

That was what his aunt had always said whenever it came to the subject of his schooling, or anything to do with him really.

But it had been his inability to follow a sentence that had borne the brunt of her condemnation.

Despite what his aunt had thought, he had tried to learn to read. Life would be a lot easier if he could do it, but no matter how hard he had stared at books, no matter how much his eyes had burned as he tried to stop the words leaping about, it had never happened. That part of his mind was broken.

He was a fool to even think that he could get a business off the ground.

How could he even think about purchasing the ground near Berferd and building an exquisite garden?

He wouldn’t be able to read any contracts, people would take advantage of him all the time and he’d be ruined within six months.

Lotte grew heavier in his arms, a sure sign she was drifting off to sleep. He should stand and take his leave. There was no point in him listening to this story about a bear afraid of spiders, even if it was funny and engaging.

The sitting room had taken on a soft golden glow as the spring sun had risen further.

It was hitting Emily’s hair, making it shine like a halo.

The flowers sewn onto her dress seemed to move in a breeze as her chest rose and fell.

There was a light smattering of freckles on the left of her collarbone that he’d never noticed before.

He wondered at the softness of her skin there, at the contrast between the bone and her delicate neck and how it would feel to use his lips to softly explore every part of her.

Lotte emitted a soft snort, her thumb falling out of her mouth and landing on her dress. Her mouth smacked together once, twice before she settled into an even deeper sleep.

Emily’s voice trailed off as she gazed at his niece and the room descended into silence save for the grandfather clock ticking somewhere deeper in the house .

‘She is so peaceful,’ Emily whispered. ‘I wish it was as easy to sleep like that as an adult.’

The old Freddie would have made some teasing comment about resting her head against his chest and seeing if it worked, but the words seemed too crass, too foolish. It would be a reminder of the man who was so ignorant he couldn’t read.

‘We never follow the words,’ Emily continued softly. ‘It is a very dry book, even I find it boring.’

She lifted her gaze and met his eyes for the first time in a while.

He expected to see pity in her expression, but she was looking at him kindly and he realised she was giving him an out.

He could make some comment about how all books were dull to him and they would be back to their normal position.

He opened his mouth to do it, but he couldn’t. ‘I cannot read,’ he said instead.

She blinked. The only sign that she had heard him.

‘I have tried, but the words swim about on the page.’ He shrugged as the import of what he’d done hit him.

It was one thing for her to guess at his failing, quite another for her to know unequivocally.

‘We both know I am a careless man.’ He smoothed a hand down his trouser leg; his stomach turned to see that his fingers were not quite steady. ‘I obviously did not try hard enough.’

‘Do not do that,’ she said softly.

‘Do what?’

‘Put on the airs of a man you think the world wants to see.’

‘I am doing no such thing,’ he lied instinctively. ‘This is me.’

‘Freddie.’ Her hand was on his arm again, his name on her lips.

His chest hurt and his eyes were strangely tight. ‘Please do not.’

‘Do not what?’ she asked.

‘Do not feel sorry for me. I have everything I want.’ It wasn’t true. There were lots of things Freddie didn’t have that he wanted, but he was a man of privilege and to complain was pointless. Worrying about it had never made him able to read either.

‘Now you are being a nitwit.’ That slight furrow between her brows was back, the one that he wanted to smooth away with the pad of his thumb. ‘I am not feeling sorry for you. Knowing you cannot read does not make me think any less of you than I did before.’

‘Partly because you do not think highly of me anyway.’

Her lips curved. ‘This is true.’

Her hand was still on his arm and it was clear she wasn’t about to launch into a protracted pity lecture; something in the pit of his stomach started to relax and words tumbled out of him unheeded.

‘As a child, I would have given anything to be able to read. It would have made my life a lot easier. My aunt seemed to think I was doing it wilfully; she would shut me in my room and refuse to let me eat until I tried harder.’ Emily’s fingers flexed on his arm.

‘But I was trying and so it was a pointless punishment.’

‘Did your brothers not help you?’

‘I am sure they would have if they had been able. They were going through their own issues with our aunt and it became a battle for survival for all of us. We turned in on ourselves rather than help each other, which was exactly what she wanted. It was easier to subdue us if we were divided.’ He glanced at her; her face was so close to his, he could see her individual eyelashes.

He turned away, unable to bear the intensity of the moment.

‘When Tobias gained his majority, he sent her to live at one of the dukedom’s family estates, somewhere very far up north that none of us visit.

It is a grand residence; she was happy to go but not as thrilled as we were. ’

‘When she locked you in your room to make you learn words, what happened when it became obvious that you could not?’

He stared deeper into the room. He wasn’t sure why he was pouring his heart out, telling her things that almost nobody else knew about him, but now he had started he might as well say everything.

‘Tom, the head gardener at Glanmore House, took pity on me. He managed to sneak into my bedroom when my aunt went to a ball. It was brave of him; he would have been sacked without a reference if he had been caught. He went through the book she wanted me to read and helped me memorise the words of the first chapter. I will never forget that kindness. His help got me through and then I was able to leave for Eton, which was both a blessing and hell at the same time.’

‘You were suspended a few times,’ she said softly. He could hear no condemnation in her voice, although he was fairly sure she had disapproved at the time.

‘At school, I was popular and wealthy enough to pay other boys to do my work for me. Sometimes that worked and sometimes it did not, hence the suspensions. Everyone thinks, or at least I hope everyone thinks, I did not try because I am too lazy and spoilt to do it for myself, but now you know the truth of it.’

Lotte stirred in his lap, not enough to wake but enough to draw attention to Emily’s hand on his arm. She looked down at it for a moment, blinking as if waking from a dream before slowly letting go of him. He missed her touch more than he thought possible.

‘You learned an entire chapter off by heart?’

Freddie nodded. ‘I was very hungry.’ He’d meant it as a light-hearted comment, but he could see from the look on her face that she saw no humour in the situation; his heart twisted at the sympathy he could see.

‘Everything is fine now. I am a grown man. Nobody has locked me in a room for many years and if they did, I am fairly confident I could break the door down.’ He smiled, desperate to return to normal, to defuse the tension growing between them.

He wanted her to see him as a man, not as someone to be pitied.

‘Really, there is no reason to look so upset. ’

He was not what she would have predicted. ‘I have been as bad as your aunt and I am utterly ashamed of myself. I am very sorry, Freddie.’

A shocked laugh burst out of him. ‘I really do not see how you have deduced such a thing.’

Emily did not smile; her skin was pale, her lips twisted as if she might cry. ‘I thought that you chose not to learn. I thought that you were deliberately wasting your opportunities, opportunities I will never get because I am a woman, and all this time… I truly am sorry.’

This was not what he wanted. He did not want to taint their relationship, such as it was, with her regret. ‘I enjoy it when we cross words,’ he told her.

‘You do?’

‘Of course. It is the highlight of my day when I best you.’

She raised an eyebrow, sadness replaced with dry amusement. ‘You do not get many good days then.’

‘Oh, come now. I’ve been making a tally of each bout we have and I am very much the champion.’