Awakening Love: Reborn to Be His Duchess novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: What He Should Have Told Her

We sat on the study floor with our backs against his desk, because neither of us had thought to move.

The fire was out, and the sun had gone round to the west window.

He had taken off his coat, and I was wearing it.

"There is something I have not told you," I said.

"I have noticed."

"It is not a small thing. You will not believe it."

"Try me."

I looked at the plaster mould on the carpet between us.

Then I told him.

I told him all of it, from the locked wing to the ballroom, and that Edmund remembered it too.

It took a long time.

He did not interrupt once.

When I had finished, I made myself look at him.

He was white around the mouth.

"You think I am mad," I said.

"No."

"You ought to."

"I thought," said the duke, "that something was wrong with you since the ball. You knew things you could not have known. The mill. The fire clause. You did not look at Rook as a jilted girl would. You looked at him with hatred."

"Yes."

"I would sooner believe that than that you are a fool."

I laughed, and my voice cracked in the middle.

"It sounds ridiculous."

"It sounds like a great deal I could not explain." His good hand came up and brushed a strand of hair from my face, slowly, and waited to be stopped. "Linnet. In your first life, did I come to the hanging?"

"I do not know. I was locked up."

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