“I don’t imagine it’s easy being an old one either. My life is a series of routines—not in a boring way. But he was part of them. I dress for dinner and go down to the library, and he’s not there, tumbler in hand as he stares into the fire, to turn and smile at me. When I’m reading and run across a particularly well-written passage and look up to share, he’s not sitting in the chair across from me, engrossed in his own novel. I seek him out a dozen times a day, only to recall he’s no longer there. And it always hurts.”

Straightening, she held his gaze. “I don’t know how long it takes before it stops hurting.”

Skimming his fingers along her cheek, threading them into her hair, Aiden wished to hell he could offer her reassurance that the pain would ease, but he knew nothing of permanent loss. Nor had he expected the night to take the turn it had. Of all the reactions he’d anticipated of her, uncontrollable tears had not been one of them.

He was a stranger to offering comfort, suspected he rather failed at it. Perhaps that was the reason he didn’t search for words but merely took her mouth as gently as he was able. It caused a sharp needlelike pain in his chest to see her so unhappy, an ache he didn’t particularly fancy. Rogue that he was, when it came to women, as much as he enjoyed them, he kept a barrier between them and his emotions.

He had little to offer a woman in the way of influence, prestige, and—if he were honest with himself—pride in him as a man to stand at her side. He was a gambling hell owner, a purveyor of vice. He hadn’t yet attained the level of wealth that would cause people to overlook his questionable businesses or his sordid entry into the world, because until recently he’d given a good bit of his earnings to his maggot of a sire. But even if he had an abundance of coins, would it be fair to ask any woman to love him when the world would always view him as the bastard he was? That taint could never be washed away, and he wouldn’t be responsible for bringing children into the world who would have to carry the burden of his shame.

So he wasn’t particularly pleased with how much he’d come to care for this woman in such a short time, especially when she’d made it clear she wanted only one thing of him. He didn’t like knowing that when he eventually succumbed to her wishes and gave it to her fully, he might never see her again.