Thought flickered behind his eyes. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but…if it were poison, I doubt Caine had anything to do with it.”

“Of course you’d say that—”

“I believe it,” he countered, then studied her. “Caine’s not the sort to hide behind poison. It’s the sort of thing he’d think a weak person would rely on to defeat his enemies.” As if some thought drove it, all of the expression vanished from his face. “For years he beat me for every minor infraction, but he always insisted upon holding the rod himself. ‘A weaker man makes others do what he must,’ he used to say. ‘I take no pleasure from this, but by grace and glory, I shall make you a man.’” Barrons scraped a trembling hand over his exhausted face. “If he’d intended to see your father dead, he’d have held the pistol or the sword himself.”

Troubling. “It’s what my father said,” she insisted. A surge of hate welled up inside her, but she didn’t know what to think. A little part of her—the part that had spent years watching her enemy—knew that his words were true.

“But did he speak of what he believed Caine to have done?”

No. Mina frowned, picturing her father lying in his bed, so pale that she’d almost feared he was exhibiting signs of the Fade. Racked with pain that tore screams from his lips. They’d had to tie him to the bed in the end. “It wasn’t a natural death.”

“Peter?” he suggested.

“If Peter had been responsible, he’d have been unable to keep it a secret.”

“I remember him. A bloody popinjay, if I recall. You’re probably right. He’d have been crowing about it from here to Greenwich if he’d been behind it.” His voice lowered. “I remember the day you dueled him for the position of heir.”

Not her kindest moment. “I had to. He was threatening to marry me off to that cockroach Martin Astbury and to see my mother placed in an asylum once he became duke.” This time she let the bitterness surface. “She didn’t take my father’s death well.”

Vastly an understatement. Her mother had essentially died the day Stephen had. Her father’s death had merely been the opening act in a grave-digging service. Her mother had lasted all of three months after Mina’s father passed, and a part of Mina would never forgive her.

Stephen hadn’t been the only one who’d needed her. Mina pushed to her feet, pacing to the window. She felt as though her skin was on inside out. Revealing so much had never been her intention. Indeed, it made her feel terribly uncomfortable. But at least Barrons’s anger had subsided.

“So you see, I understand very well what it’s like to lose everything. It will pass, this feeling, though it never entirely vanishes.” She traced her fingertips along the window ledge, disturbing particles of dust. “It’s always there, like a ghost in the room.”

Movement shifted behind her. Light footsteps tracing hers. A shadow fell across her shoulders. Though he wasn’t touching her, she could feel him at her back like a brightly burning coil. “You’re right.” His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “I’m acting like a child.”

“No. It’s not… It hurts.” She turned. “Right now it hurts, because those who should have cared for you weren’t there to protect you. Or if they were, they didn’t raise their voices when they should have.”

The look he gave her— “Why are you telling me this?”

Something unfurled deep in her chest. “Because nobody was there to tell me.”

Just because she had never shown it didn’t mean that the hurt hadn’t been there, deep inside. In a way, it was easier to pretend that she didn’t feel anything. Easier to concentrate on her plans, one foot in front of the other. Cement her status as duchess. Earn her place on the Council. Then later, to gather the humanist movement together and give its believers some sense of purpose. Or had that been another part of giving herself a way to forget her pain?

She stared at him somewhat defiantly. “We’re not enemies, not anymore. I don’t know what the truth is about my father’s death but…perhaps you’re right. I’ve cataloged Caine’s faults and weaknesses. Poison…it’s not like him.” Mina licked dry lips. “I won’t betray you. I won’t breathe a word of what you’re doing here. I’ll say I was blindfolded the entire time—”

And just like that, she lost him. Fury glittered in his eyes and he turned on his heel. “Christ.” A bitter laugh, thrown over his shoulder. “You know, you almost had me there. You almost made me believe you gave a damn—”

“Barrons! Wait!” She went after him.

The door slammed in her face. Mina held her fists up in frustration, then rested them helplessly on the door. From the sound of his harsh breathing, he was still on the other side.

“I meant it,” she said, pressing her fingertips against the polished wood grain and resting her forehead there. “I meant every word. It’s just—I can’t stay—” You don’t understand.

And I can’t tell you…

The only answer was the sound of angry footsteps echoing down the hall.

* * *

“She says she didn’t do it,” Leo said, staring into the fireplace.

“Do you believe her?” Honoria asked.

He clenched and unclenched his fist, watching the play of tendons across his knuckles. “I want to. Perhaps that’s part of the problem. I don’t know if I can see the truth.” Something he’d never admitted to anyone else before. “Not when it comes to her.”

“You look tired,” Honoria said.

Drained was a more accurate assessment. He stared into the flickering flames in the grate. “I spent years dreaming of this moment. I used to lie in bed and plan how I would react; whether I’d stare the prince consort in the eye and deny it, or rage against it, or call him an imbecile.” God. He looked up at the ceiling. What a fool he’d been. “I did nothing. I just sat there. I couldn’t say anything.”

And he didn’t feel anything either, not really. A little numb, now that the initial shock had worn off. Worn thin, as if he’d lost a piece of himself, but the greatest loss was the most unexpected one.

There was nothing left of the tentative bond he’d thought existed between himself and the duchess. She’d finally let him see a piece of her beneath that guarded veneer. He’d felt as though he’d reached for her and she’d begun to reach back. She existed in his thoughts; she always had. Hell, he’d even come to hope that she could be his, that he could have something akin to what his sisters had. He wasn’t fool enough to dream of love, for he didn’t understand it. Didn’t have a bloody clue what it meant, truly, but he’d hoped for…something.