My Disfigured Duke Husband Helps Me Plot My Revenge
Chapter 137: To Even the Score

Chapter 137: To Even the Score

Time was frozen for a few moments as Leonor stared down at Desmond who felt vulnerable from where he sat on the floor, halfway in Leonor’s room while his long legs remained in the hallway.

Desmond got to his feet easily and Leonor started backing away.

She was confident before but seeing him in front of her for the first time since her realization about him, he was so much harder to face than usual.

Unlike usual, the clothing he wore was pristine and militaristic. His coat was a deep green with golden stripes down the shoulders ending in ornamental epaulettes that swayed with each movement. He even wore medals she didn’t normally see him wear.

Overall, he was breathtaking, but his head was disappointingly hidden with a hood attached to a fur cloak covering one of his shoulders. He looked regal even though it likely wasn’t his formalwear.

He wore his formalwear on their wedding day but she was too terrified to appreciate how he must have looked. She had blocked out much of that day as it was, not knowing just who she was disrespecting by doing that.

"My heart is the same, but only because it’s still yours," he spoke quietly but Leonor was close enough that she could hear each word.

The duchess couldn’t back away any further and had to sit on the edge of her bed. She felt incredibly meek.

Even though confidence had gone, she stared up at him. She saw his face, mostly hidden by shadows but a green eye was peering down at her and his mouth was downturned in a frown.

She realized something that broke her heart and a lump formed in her throat.

"I didn’t realize it was you because you rarely smile anymore," she whispered.

Quickly, she put her hands over her face and her eyes began to water.

Desmond kneeled in front of her and pulled her hands from her face.

"I have changed for the worse," he said. "But you’re giving me new reasons to smile each day."

His gloves were discarded in the hallway and he wiped her tears away with bare hands.

Leonor quickly pulled them away from her face and held them in her lap. She shook her head as she looked at one scarred hand and the other containing the ring signifying their marriage.

"I should have recognized your hands," she admitted quietly. "The callouses, your veins..."

He allowed her to do whatever she needed to do to understand the situation.

"They’re six years older and far more worn," he explained. "I wouldn’t expect you to recognize something like that. One is irreversibly scarred anyway."

Leonor’s eyebrows lowered again and she looked at Desmond as if challenging him for something. She caught him by surprise when she lifted the scarred hand and brought it to her lips.

Her lips against his skin were feather-light. Even though much of his nerve endings were cauterized and many sensations were lost, he could still feel her lips as they moved over his skin.

Even though he was older, his entire body responded to her much of the same. When they were first together, she did daring things that caught him by surprise quite often considering the timid nature of the girl. At that moment, she was reminding him of her past self.

However, Leonor in the body of a full-grown woman made his thoughts less than innocent as she stared up at him with her lips against his hand.

The laws of the land and his station told him he could do whatever he wanted with her and no one could say anything to him, but he would never subject her to anything no matter where his ridiculous thoughts led him.

It wasn’t as if it was the first time he had such thoughts about her, but it was the first time in a long time that he had thoughts like that while she was in front of him.

He pulled his hand away from her.

She felt disappointed.

"Are you going to keep hiding yourself from me even though I know who you are?" she asked.

Desmond stood up. He felt he had to escape her magnetizing presence.

More like Desmond than Valerio, he turned away from her until his face looked elsewhere. His cheeks felt hot.

"I’m not hiding myself so you don’t recognize me," he explained. "I look almost nothing like you remember."

With his eye off of her again, Leonor felt a bit fiery.

"When I healed you, I saw a lot of your body and I don’t believe you have anything to hide," she said. "I don’t think you’re unappealing because you have scars now. Your kindness has outshined everything else."

Even though she could feel her face blushing, her eyes didn’t leave the man standing before her. Her intentions with Valerio were always the same. She desired closeness beyond the bounds of what little they knew at that moment.

With the truth finally in front of her, she remembered her desires as a mere teenager.

"It doesn’t lessen the fact that your eyes will go to my scars first and you will feel bad for me," he said. "Perhaps you may even doubt my capabilities because of how deformed I look."

She stood up, having to defend herself.

"I will look at whatever I want because I’m curious, Desmond," she argued. "There isn’t an ounce of judgment behind my gaze and there never has been since I got to know more about you. I want to know everything about the man I’ve grown so fond of. Rather, I want to relearn the man I was promised a long time ago. Will you break your promise and not give me yourself?"

He turned towards her once again but it was because he was in shock.

It was his turn to back away and her turn to move closer.

When his back was against the wall next to the door to leave her room, he stared at her in shock.

Leonor was feeling aggressive and daring. She would punish him since he had given her so much trouble.

She grabbed the front of his coat in clenched fists.

"If you never let me see anything else, how am I supposed to start where we left off?" she asked in a tone that sounded suggestive to Desmond. He figured it was perhaps wishful thinking.

She dared to take a step even closer, hoping to elicit more of a response.

Desmond’s large hands went to Leonor’s waist and he stopped her from going forward more. At that moment she was terrifying.

"I can’t..." he uttered, having no other excuse. "I can’t."

However, all that was between his hands and her body was a thin nightgown and he immediately pulled away.

He said nothing more as he escaped Leonor’s chambers. It suddenly felt crowded.

He hadn’t accepted the thought of showing her more.

Leonor simply stared after him, her arms crossed in front of her chest and an amused smirk on her face.

Her goal to give him trouble was successful. It wouldn’t make up for the entire year he fooled her, but it certainly came close.