She resumed wringing her fingers together. “Understand. I do not understand, Harrison. Why you should engage with me with more care than others do, particularly when we did not have any affection when we married. Why would you be so selfless?”

He noted that she spoke in past tense but made no comment on it. After all, she was not actively saying she had affection for him. Even so. It was an interesting choice of words.

“Why?” he repeated, taking a step or two closer. “Because I could not fathom proceeding in any other way. You see, Adelaide, I’ve seen how selfish men can be where women are concerned. I am related to two of the worst sort. I cannot be my father. I saw what his behavior and his ways did to my mother. I could only imagine what it did to Emblyn’s mother, who was very likely forced upon.”

Adelaide shuddered, a hand going to her mouth.

But Harrison could not apologize for his frankness. She needed to understand this about him. Where he had come from. Why he had chosen this path.

Why he would continue to choose it.

“And then there is my brother,” he went on, swallowing. “Who knows how many women he has taken advantage of and likely continues to do so? The selfish manner in which he has lived his life disgusts me. I am not a saint, but I won’t sin against a woman, either. I never intended to be a paragon of anything or something remarkable. I simply thought this was a better way for a man to treat his wife and his marriage. And… it has come to mean more for me than I think it might have done, had I acted as others do.”

Adelaide smiled softly at that, a finger curving beneath her lip in a thoughtful gesture. Her rich eyes seemed to see more of him than he thought visible, and while it was unnerving, it was also liberating, in a sense.

He cleared his throat. “So perhaps it is not entirely as selfless as you’ve been led to believe.”

“No,” his wife murmured, her smile turning a little lopsided, “but I think that might be better.”

Heavens, he needed to extinguish whatever was igniting in the pit of his stomach and the soles of his feet.

He nodded his thanks. “If you’ll excuse me now, Adelaide, I really must clean up. I would love to hear about your preparations for the ball when I return.”

“You would not,” she said on a surprised laugh, “but it was a noble effort. Go and wash, tend to your cuts.”

Harrison grinned and bowed, turning away and making haste toward his rooms without looking as though he was making haste. He was not fleeing his wife, after all. He was simply…

So he was fleeing his wife. There were surely worse things.