That particular whipping had sent him to his bed for three days.

Sophia’s face paled. As if she knew. As if she could read the truth of his father’s cruelty on his face. How he’d always admired her softer nature and her caring sympathies toward those less fortunate. He did not, however, rest comfortably as a beneficiary of those sentiments himself.

“You were just a boy,” she murmured.

He could not stop there. He had to explain himself. Not his father. It’s just that one explanation could not come without the other.

“Not for long. Needless to say, having been raised by this so-called whore, I was considered by my father to be completely and utterly lacking in every way. Within days after our being collected from Lacenfleet, he sent Haden to Eton, and I did not see my brother for some years after that.”

“What happened to you?”

“The duke preferred that I travel with him from estate to estate, or wherever else his whim took him, and that I learn from private tutors, hand selected by himself. I received an immaculate education worthy of the duchy. But my father took upon himself the duty to educate me to be a man. His sort of man.”

“His sort of man,” Sophia repeated with a frown and dread in her eyes. “What did that mean, Claxton?”

Vane chose his words carefully, wanting Sophia’s understanding but not wishing to reveal the true magnitude of darkness his sire had instilled inside him.

“It means that my first visit to a brothel occurred when I was not yet eleven.”

“Vane.”

He could not look into her eyes until he was done, not yet. “It means that because violence and the shedding of blood so amused him, he paid the largest and meanest of his servants to challenge me in pugilistic matches, for the enjoyment of him and his friends. I got the living hell beat out of me until I grew strong enough and angry enough to beat the living hell out of them instead.”

Sophia shook her head.

Now her hand did go to his arm. He stood from the table, as if unable to bear her touch, not wanting it this way.

“It means that when he discovered I was sneaking away to Lacenfleet to visit the Kettles, he whipped me for, as best as I can determine, humiliating him by preferring the company of lowly country servants to his unquestionable magnificence. To punish the Kettles, he terminated their employment and shuttered this house.”

The fire shifted. Sparks burst out, fledgling embers. Realizing the room had grown colder, he took up the poker and with its curled tip pushed the smoldering mass to the center of the grate. Before he stepped away, he added another log.

“That’s why you haven’t come back before now, isn’t it?” said Sophia. “You felt responsible. Claxton, it wasn’t your fault.”

“Don’t pity me,” he answered in a low voice. “By that time, I’d already become just like him.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“If I told you the rest”—he lifted his gaze to hers—“you would.”

“Then tell me.”

Claxton felt the blood drain from his face. He poured the remainder of the claret into his empty glass. “No.”

Sophia stared at him with wide, somber eyes.

He eased back into his chair. “Living such a…debauched life, at some point shocking things cease to shock. Things that once had meaning became meaningless. When I think back, I can barely remember my time here. Those days when I was a child. A boy. He is someone I don’t know anymore.”

“You’re the same person. It’s just that he hurt you—”

“What I’m trying to explain in the most delicate way possible is that after leaving Camellia House, my occupations, whether in study or recreation, even later after I went into the army, were those of a man without thought of the future or concern for who my way of life might hurt.”

“Oh,” she said simply and looked down at her hands, which were folded in her lap.

He emptied the glass of claret. “It is that reckless past that intruded upon our marriage, or the remnants of it. For that, I am sorry.”

A long moment of silence passed.

“Thank you,” she said.

He flinched. “God, don’t thank me. That isn’t why I told you—”

“But I do thank you,” she said solemnly. “I want to understand and now I believe I do.” He did not like her expression, the one that pitied the person he used to be. He wanted her understanding, her forgiveness. Not her compassion.

Frustration fueled impulse and he grasped her hand, leaning close. “My past is enough to get me into hell a thousand times over, but I swear by all that is holy, indeed, on my mother’s name, that I have never shared intimacies with another woman after marrying you. And goddamn it, I do not want a separation and certainly not a divorce.”

Sophia’s eyes widened, and she inhaled deeply, clenching his hand as tightly as he clenched hers.

“I want us to remain married and have another child.”

His words echoed in his ears, so he knew he’d gotten them out. God, he’d never talked so much at one time in his life, let alone revealed so much of his soul. He felt naked and ugly and exposed. Would she recoil? Would she throw it all back in his face?

She released him and stood suddenly, going to the window, where she grasped the drapery and peered out.

“I need more time to think.”

His soul shrank back into darkness. It was not the response he’d expected.

“Why, when this seems the perfect solution for both of us?” he demanded.

“I’m not certain, not anymore.” Sophia walked past him toward the fire and stared into the flames. “While I am grateful that you shared these details with me, because they help me to understand and to forgive, I’m not naïve enough to believe they change our future.”

The wounded creature inside him gnashed its teeth. Anger and humiliation warmed his blood. “I bared my soul to you for nothing.”

“No,” she breathed, turning to him, her hands open at her sides. “Please no. Don’t say that. But, Claxton, please understand. I grieved the death of my marriage last night. It is gone in my mind and a piece of my heart with it. I don’t know if I can go back to the place where we were. There are no guarantees things would be different. I would love to believe our lives hold no more tragedies or trials, but that would be naïve. I just…I just wouldn’t be able to survive it all a second time.”

“I would not repeat the same mistakes twice. I wouldn’t leave you again.”

“You say that now. I think you even believe yourself, but I don’t know.”

Again, despite everything said, they hovered on the edge of good-bye. Regardless of her assurances to the contrary, very likely by his confessions he had pushed her even further away.

Sophia could not read Claxton’s expression. Gone were the emotions she’d glimpsed in him moments before. He’d once again become the dispassionate diplomat, seeking to secure a treaty. The quiet ease with which he made the transition from one self to the other unnerved her, but it served as a reminder that she must do the same and fiercely represent her interests.

“But everything is different now,” he challenged calmly, his blue eyes piercing her through. “We are speaking like rational people, and I for one acknowledge my mistakes in allowing our marriage to fall into such early disorder. I won’t allow things to return to the way they were before. I want to be there.”

“Be there? What do you mean?”

“In his—or her—life. I understand you wish for your family to be involved in the child’s upbringing—but know this, Sophia—” His voice lowered into a dangerous hush. “I will not be excluded.”

Sophia bristled at his tone. He shouldn’t be issuing edicts. After all, it was she who continued to hold the cards. If she so wished to proceed with a separation, she would have one whether or not he agreed. But if she wanted a child, she needed his cooperation.

Lord, things were not so confusing when he was on the other side of the Channel and not sitting in front of her, looking at her in a way that stole her breath and blurred all her reasons for wanting a separation in the first place.

“So…” His gaze narrowed. “What can I do to convince you to withdraw your demand for a separation?”

Something in his voice sent a shiver down her spine—the determination of a man who had made the decision to fight for his marriage and who would not waver from that course until he emerged the victor. The realization did not displease her, but she also realized they had two very different ideas of what composed a successful marriage. She wanted a love story, two hearts forever entwined, through good and bad times. Claxton, instead, offered his fidelity and good behavior in hopes of making her stay…which weren’t quite the same thing. She couldn’t help but ache for more. Of course, in the context of their society, she was the one being unreasonable.

One certainty remained. She wanted a child. A child would bring her some sense of belonging in this partnership and give her ownership of the name she would continue to bear by marriage, separated or not. And perhaps…perhaps she owed it to their future child to try harder to make the marriage work so that he or she might have the benefit of a father’s interest and guidance.

What could the duke do to assure her, short of falling to his knees and issuing a declaration of love? She knew that would never happen. If it ever did, the words would be misguided and offered only to appease her.

She turned and announced with conviction, “I need to know their names.”

Claxton’s brows went up. “Whose names?”

“The names of your lovers. Your paramours from before our marriage. And every woman you kept company with afterward.”