Page 76 of Wedded to the Ruthless Duke

Bloody ridiculous.

A protective feeling swelled up inside of him. He wished to shout from the rooftops of London town that it didn’t matter if she was not theton’sidea of a lady. She was a lady and deserved more respect than she was getting.

The overwhelming power of the feeling startled him.

He backed up from her, releasing her and turning to face the punching bag again, though he didn’t hit it yet. He wiped his hands on the towel instead, deep in thought.

I vowed to myself never to get in so deep with a woman. I will not repeat the lives of my mother and father.

He purposefully avoided looking at Grace as the thought burned in the back of his mind.

“Can’t you ignore them?” Grace pleaded. She seemed to know he was avoiding looking at her. For she walked around the bag and purposefully put herself in his eyeline again. “I do.”

“How can you?” he hissed. “When they say such things. How does it not haunt you?”

“Why does it haunt you? Why does a reputation matter so much?”

“That’s not it.” He shook his head, tearing his gaze away from her.

He had no desire to tell her this wasn’t really about reputation. Every pain that was inside of him was because he wanted to protect her, to keep her safe, but to admit to that felt wrong.

He had promised a marriage of convenience, yet what was it becoming? Wasn’t he falling in too deep?

“Just ignore them, please.” She rounded the bag and came toward him, planting her hands on his chest again and looking up at him.

His eyes fell shut as he bent his head down toward her. He wanted to kiss her, to make love to her again, but this time, he would make it slow. It would be far more sensual than before.

He narrowly stopped himself from kissing her.

I will not repeat the lives of my mother and father.

He pulled back from her.

“Philip?” she whispered, clearly hurt by his movements.

I need to put distance between us. Now. If we care this much about each other already, what will happen next? Any wrong step and we’ll be tossed in turmoil.

He could only think of his mother and the heartache she had suffered over the years. He would not deliver the same pain to Grace. Neither did he wish to suffer it.

“What is it you’re not telling me?” Grace pleaded. “Why do reputations matter so much to you?”

Philip sighed. “My mother and father…” he began slowly as he laid the towel over the racking at the edge of the room. He was unsure how to tell her what he was feeling or even whether to do so at all. Before he could stop them though, the words escaped him. “He wasn’t faithful to her. Did you know that?”

He jerked his head toward her to see Grace’s shock. She stepped back, her lips parted, before she shook her head.

“His affairs, all of it was plastered across the scandal sheets.”

“Oh.” She hung her head down.

He wanted her to understand that he knew the pain of what a scandal sheet could cause. He had been just a small boy when he had seen that ache for the first time.

He’d come across his mother in the garden room, crying her eyes out as she read the sheet. He’d been too young to understand what the scandal sheet was talking about, but he could remember sitting by his mother’s feet, playing with the toy horses she had bought for him, and doing his best to make her smile again.

The task of making her smile was one he had returned to for many years since. He was never as successful at it as he wished to be.

“It’s not about reputation,” he said slowly. “It’s about the pain these scandal sheets cause.”

She was blinking madly, perhaps on the verge of tears.

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