Page 103 of Last Duke Standing

“It’s all right,” William said, and held up a hand to the footman, indicating he didn’t want the soup back. “Tell me.”

She waited until the butler had set plates of beef before them, picked up her knife and asked, as casually as she might, “You really haven’t heard?”

“I’ve heard quite a lot about you...and perhaps in particular about a love affair.”

Justine snorted. “It was not a love affair. I was cruelly deceived by a liar and a cheat.”

His brows dipped as if he couldn’t determine if what she said was true. Justine nodded.

“His name—” she looked sidelong at the attendants, then whispered “—was Aldabert Gustav.” And then she began to talk softly. She told William how they’d met at the palace during one of her mother’s garden parties. About the promises he’d made her, how he would never love another, that he’d sooner die than be without her.

“I was young and inexperienced, and oh, how my heart sang with those declarations of his love.” She was no longer that girl—she’d been hardened by scandal and her father’s illness and so much more. “I told him how he’d made me feel, as if he could sense how long I’d waited to feel love and be loved.” She shuddered now, thinking of her naivety.

William didn’t smile or laugh, but sat quietly while she talked.

She told him how she’d discovered how powerful desire was, but that a different sort of power drove Aldabert. It had all been a lie, a scheme drawn up by Aldabert and his ambitious father to compromise her and take his place at her side.

William paled. “The stuff of nightmares.”

“Je, the very stuff. It taught me a painful lesson. No one looks at me as a woman or a wife, but as a means to an end.”

“Justine. That’s no’ true.”

“It is.”

“Then what a sad understanding you have, lass. There are users in the world...but there are many more who would love you as a woman or a wife.”

Justine wasn’t so certain of it. She eyed him curiously. “Why haven’t you ever married? The truth.”

“I came very near, once. I was entirely smitten with a young woman, ready to offer her all of Hamilton Palace and the future role of duchess.”

The idea that William had loved someone so was surprisingly uncomfortable. “Why didn’t you?”

“I never had the chance. Jonathan Ashley, who I believed to be my friend, wooed her away from me. And it was regrettably easy to do.”

Justine blinked. “Mr. Ashley did that? To intentionally cause you harm?”

“Aye, he did. He seemed to think it was rather a lark.”

“Oh, my God, William. Why did you not tell me everything about him?”

“I didna know if you’d believe me. And I suppose a wee bit of my pride prevented me from speaking. A man never wants to be a cuckold.” He gave her a sheepish smile. “I think I hoped you’d see him for what he was.”

She had, eventually, but only because William had warned her to begin with. “That must have been so painful for you.”

“Aye, that it was.” He ate some beef, his gaze on his plate.

“And since then?”

“Since then?” He glanced up and smiled devilishly. “I’ve been a bad boy. I’ve traveled the continent to escape a broken heart, drank my sorrows, fed my lusts and kept to myself.”

“You said you were no longer a scoundrel,” she reminded him.

“I’m no’. I finally realized there was only so long I could mourn something that was never meant to be.”

She wondered if she had mourned Aldabert long after she should have. “She was a fool, William. You are kind and considerate and clever. You aremuchmore desirable than Mr. Ashley in every way.”

He looked, she thought, a little hopeful. “I think you’ve had too much wine,” he said.

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