Page 103 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
She turned then, watching him closely. “He spoke as though I ought to be ashamed.”
Silence followed.
Not the easy kind. Not the absence of sound, but the kind that held something within it, something measured and deliberate. Maxwell did not react immediately. He did not deny it. He did not dismiss it.
He considered it.
After a moment, he gave a small nod.
“He was not entirely incorrect.”
The words landed more heavily than she expected.
Arabella stared at him. “You agree with him?”
“I said he was not entirely incorrect,” Maxwell replied. “That is not the same as agreement.”
The distinction did little to settle the drop in her stomach.
He shifted slightly, his gaze moving away from her for the first time since they had entered the carriage. “There was a time,” he said, his tone even, though quieter now, “when restraint did not concern me much. After my father’s death, I found little use for it, in fact. Or consequence.”
Arabella listened, her earlier anger pressing against something more uncertain now, something that made her hold very still.
“I kept poor company,” he continued. “Made worse choices. I did not think beyond the moment. It suited me not to.”
The carriage turned, the motion subtle but enough to shift the light again across his face.
“And the attack?” she asked, before she could stop herself.
Maxwell did not hesitate.
“I involved myself with the wrong person,” he said. “Or, more accurately, the wrong situation. There were men who took exception to it. I did not take them seriously until it was too late.”
Arabella’s breath caught, faint but unmistakable.
“And so,” he finished, “I learned the cost of not doing so.”
The quiet with which he said it unsettled her more than anything else. There was no bitterness in it. No attempt to soften it either. Only fact.
Her hands tightened, then loosened again as she forced herself to steady.
“And you think that justifies what he said?” she asked, her voice low now, though no less firm.
Maxwell’s gaze returned to her. “It explains it.”
“That is not the same.”
“No,” he agreed. “It is not.”
Arabella shook her head slightly, the motion sharp with the remnants of her anger. “I told him he would not speak of you in that manner again.”
A faint shift passed through Maxwell’s expression, something quieter, more difficult to name.
“I told him,” she continued, “that I would not tolerate it. Whatever society believes, it has no bearing on me. And that Iwill not allow anyone to speak of my husband in that way. He does not require pity for his past, nor shame.”
Maxwell held her gaze.
“And that includes you,” she added, more softly now, though no less certain. “You will not speak of yourself that way either.”
