Chapter Six #2
This was patently untrue, as evidenced by the crowd of gentlemen who had done nothing at all. But William said it as though he believed it, as though helping a crying girl rescue her dog was simply what one did, not a noteworthy act of compassion but a basic requirement of decency.
Eliza watched him from the edge of the crowd, something shifting in her chest.
This was not the rake she had been warned about.
This was not the cold, calculating seducer who collected women like trophies and discarded them without remorse.
This was a man who had ruined his coat to save a spaniel, who spoke gently to a frightened girl, who laughed with genuine warmth at a dog’s enthusiasm.
Perhaps, whispered a dangerous voice in her head, he is not what they say he is. Perhaps there is more to him than reputation and rumour. Perhaps—
She stopped the thought before it could complete itself.
This was how it happened. This was exactly what her aunt had warned her about. He makes every woman feel special. He gives them reason to hope. One act of kindness did not erase a decade of rakish behaviour. One rescued dog did not prove him worthy of trust.
And yet.
William extracted himself from the grateful girl and her soggy pet and made his way back to Eliza. His coat was undeniably ruined, his cravat spotted with mud, and there was a damp patch on his shoulder where the spaniel had rested its head.
He looked, Eliza thought, more human than she had ever seen him.
“My apologies,” he said, glancing down at his dishevelled state. “I am no longer fit for polite company.”
“On the contrary.” Her voice came out softer than she intended. “I think you are more fit for polite company than most of the people in this park.”
Something flickered across his face, surprise, perhaps, or vulnerability quickly suppressed. “Because I pulled a dog out of a pond?”
“Because no one else would.” She held his gaze. “You ruined your coat.”
“Coats can be replaced.”
“Most men would not see it that way.”
“Most men,” he said quietly, “are more concerned with appearances than actions. I have found that a poor measure of character.”
Beatrice appeared at Eliza’s elbow, her expression a complicated mixture of disapproval and reluctant respect. “Your Grace, perhaps we should return you to your carriage. You cannot be seen in such a state.”
“I suspect I am already being seen.” William glanced at the dispersing crowd, many of whom were casting curious looks in their direction. “By tomorrow, the ton will have a new story about the Duke of Hollowshade. I wonder what version they will settle on.”
“The version where you acted with compassion while others watched?” Eliza suggested.
“More likely the version where I made a spectacle of myself over a dog.” His smile was wry. “Rakes are not supposed to have soft spots for small creatures. It undermines the mystique.”
“Perhaps your mystique could use some undermining.”
His eyes met hers, and for a moment, the park fell away, the gossiping crowds, the watching cousin, the lingering spectators. There was only William, looking at her with an expression she could not quite read.
“Perhaps it could,” he said softly. “Perhaps it already has.”
They walked back to the carriage in charged silence.
William’s ruined coat was attracting stares, but he seemed supremely unbothered by the attention. He walked beside Eliza with the same easy confidence he always displayed, as though pond water and dog hair were simply the latest fashion.
“You are not what I anticipated,” Eliza said, echoing his words from their first conversation.
“No?” He glanced at her sidelong. “What did you anticipate?”
“Someone colder. More calculating.” She hesitated. “Someone who would not ruin a coat for a stranger’s pet.”
“I have ruined far more valuable things for far less worthy causes.” His voice was light, but there was weight beneath it. “A coat is nothing.”
“It is not nothing.” She stopped walking, forcing him to stop as well. Beatrice hovered a few feet away. “Your Grace, William…”
His name on her lips made something shift in his expression. The same crack in his armour she had glimpsed at the ball, the same flash of vulnerability quickly suppressed.
“You should not call me that,” he said quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because when you say my name, I forget all the reasons I should stay away from you.”
Her heart was pounding. The park continued around them, the carriages, the pedestrians, the eternal performance of society, but she was aware of none of it. Only him. Only the way he was looking at her, as though she were something precious and terrifying in equal measure.
“Perhaps,” she said, “you should stop trying to stay away.”
“If I stop trying…” He broke off. Drew a breath.
When he spoke again, his voice was rough.
“If I stop trying, I will not be able to stop at all. Do you understand? I am not a good man, Eliza. I am not kind or gentle or worthy of whatever it is you see when you look at me. I am exactly what they say I am, selfish, hedonistic, incapable of love.”
“You just pulled a dog out of a pond.”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves you are not as hollow as you want me to believe.”
He stared at her. She watched the war play out across his features, the desire to retreat, to rebuild his walls, to dismiss her perception as naive fantasy. And beneath it, something else. Something that looked almost like hope.
“You are going to destroy me,” he said finally. “I can feel it already. You are going to take apart everything I have built, every defence, every certainty, and leave me with nothing but wreckage.”
“Is that what you’re afraid of? Being destroyed?”
“I am afraid…” He stopped. Looked away. When he looked back, his grey eyes were darker than she had ever seen them.
“I am afraid of what I might become if I let myself want you. I am afraid that I do not know how to want something without ruining it. I am afraid that I am my mother’s son, and that means I will leave before I can be left, and you will be the one who pays for my cowardice. ”
The admission hung between them, raw and honest and more vulnerable than anything he had shown her before.
Eliza reached out and took his hand.
It was wildly improper. They were in public, in full view of half the ton, with her cousin watching from only a few feet away. She did not care.
“I am afraid too,” she said. “I am afraid that everything they told me about you is true. I am afraid that I am nothing but a novelty to you, a puzzle you will lose interest in once you’ve solved it. I am afraid that I will give you my heart and you will break it without even noticing.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “You should listen to that fear.”
“Probably.” She did not release his hand. “But I find I am tired of being afraid. And I think, I think perhaps you are too.”
For a long moment, he simply looked at her. The park swirled around them, but they stood still, two people on the edge of something neither of them fully understood.
“Tomorrow,” he said finally. “Worthington’s musicale. Will you be attending?”
“Yes.”
“Then I will see you there.” He raised her hand to his lips, a brief, proper gesture, nothing scandalous, but his eyes held hers with an intensity that made her knees weak. “And I will try, Miss Hayfield, to be worthy of whatever faith you are placing in me. Though I suspect I will fail.”
“Then fail,” she said. “And try again. That is all any of us can do.”
Something shifted in his expression. Something that looked almost like wonder.
“You are remarkable,” he said quietly. “I hope you know that.”
And then he was gone, striding toward his carriage with the confident grace that characterised everything he did. Eliza watched him go, her hand still tingling from his touch, her heart still racing from his confession.
He was afraid of becoming his mother.
He was afraid of leaving before he could be left.
He was afraid, truly afraid, of what he felt for her.
It should have frightened her. It should have confirmed every warning she had received.
Instead, it made her hope.
Because a man who felt nothing would not be afraid. A man who was truly hollow would not warn her away, would not confess his fears, would not look at her with that desperate, hungry vulnerability that made her want to hold him and never let go.
The Duke of Hollowshade was not what they said he was.
Or perhaps he was exactly what they said, but he was also something more. Something fragile beneath the armour. Something real beneath the performance.
And Eliza was going to find it, whatever it cost her.