Chapter 7 #3
The shift in her demeanor was immediate. Her back stiffened, her shoulders went rigid, and silence fell heavy between them.
“Did I say something wrong?” Luca ventured.
When she looked at him again, fire blazed in her eyes. “I am more than a pretty face. I would rather be recognized for my wit or my intellect.”
He lifted his hands slightly in surrender. “I was paying you a compliment. You are all those things, Charlotte.”
But her sharp exhale betrayed how little comfort the words gave. “People take one look at me and judge me upon appearances alone. It has been this way since I was a child.”
“Yes,” he said carefully, “but you have used that perception to your advantage. No one suspects Mr. Fairchild hides behind the glitter of the diamond of the Season.”
Her gaze darted to him, hard, searching. “Even you see only limitations.”
“No.” He leaned forward, intent. “You mistake me. I am being realistic. A lady watching a building would invite attention, attention we do not want.”
But she was already pulling inward, her jaw tight. “I overheard my father once say the only thing I had going for me was my beauty.”
Anger stirred in Luca’s chest. “That was wrong of him.”
Her eyes, luminous with unshed tears, lifted to his. “Was it? My father barely spoke to me. I tried so hard to win his approval, but he hated me.”
“I doubt he hated you,” Luca attempted.
A humorless laugh escaped her. “I cost him his wife. My mother’s health declined after I was born. She died not long after. He blamed me. Always.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“It was to him,” she whispered. “He held me at arm’s length my whole life.”
Luca tilted his head, forcing his voice gentle. “What does your brother think?”
Charlotte lowered her gaze to her lap, her fingers knotting together. “He doesn’t blame me, but how could he not? I am the reason she is gone.”
“You sound as though you blame yourself.”
Her voice cracked, raw. “She traded her life for mine. How is that fair?”
Luca’s chest tightened at the anguish in her words, and he spoke with all the conviction he could summon. “Life isn’t fair. It is painful and cruel. Good people are lost for reasons we will never understand. But you, Charlotte—you are one of the reasons worth living for.”
Her lips parted, trembling, as though she could not decide whether to believe him. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It isn’t simple,” he admitted, shaking his head. “Life is anything but. But your father was wrong. He should have cherished you, not punished you. You deserved his love, his protection.”
Her gaze lifted, shimmering with moisture. “Why didn’t he love me? I tried so hard.”
Something within him broke at her plea. Without thinking, he moved from his seat and slid onto the bench beside her.
“Love is not conditional,” he said firmly. “It is meant to be given freely. Your father grieved and cast his pain onto you. That was his failure, not yours.”
Her lips trembled, her voice barely a whisper. “Perhaps I am unlovable.”
The words struck him like a blow. Compassion surged, fierce and protective, and before he could stop himself, he laid his hand over her clenched fists. “You are anything but unlovable, Charlotte.”
He expected her to chide him for the boldness of placing his hand over hers, but instead, she merely looked down at the contact. Silent. Thoughtful. Vulnerable.
The silence stretched, and though every instinct urged him to fill it, he held his tongue. He wanted her to know she was not alone in her pain, not with him beside her. If his touch conveyed even a fraction of what words could not, then it was worth the risk.
But then he saw it—the subtle shift as she drew her mask back into place. Her lashes swept down, veiling her expression, and when she lifted her gaze again, her shoulders were squared. The fire remained in her eyes, but the tears were gone.
“Thank you, Lord Luca,” she said, her tone polite. Detached. Final.
He withdrew his hand but stayed close, unwilling to surrender the small ground he had gained. “I would prefer if you called me Luca. It is only fair, since you granted me leave to call you by your given name.”
“I have never called a gentleman by his given name.”
“It is quite a simple feat, I assure you,” he said, lips quirking. “You merely open your mouth and say the name.”
Her eyes narrowed with that sharp, assessing glint he had come to relish. “Must you be so close?”
Rather than retreat, he leaned back just enough to feign comfort, a deliberate provocation. “I enjoy being this close to you. You smell of lavender, magical dreams, and fairy dust.”
“How does one smell like magical dreams and fairy dust?”
He gave a careless shrug. “I don’t know, but you have managed to pull it off.”
She rolled her eyes and turned away, but he caught the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth before she did.
Luca let a slow smile spread across his own lips as he studied her. She had allowed him, for the briefest of moments, to glimpse the raw ache she carried. And though she had shuttered it away again, it was still progress.
Progress he intended to pursue—no matter how many walls she built between them.