Page 18 of The Truth About Love and Dukes

“Henry, I have made my decision. These attempts to bully me into submission are futile.”

“Bully you?” Henry was affronted by the accusation. “God, Mama, are the suffragist views of Lady Truelove contagious? What is all this talk of bullying and submission?”

“I had plenty of that sort of thing from your father,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken, her voice growing markedly colder as she mentioned her late husband. “Over twenty years of it, in fact. I don’t need to tolerate it from my son.”

“That is not fair, Mama.”

“As you already pointed out, I am fifty years old, so I fail to see how my choice of whom to marry is any of your concern, Torquil.”

The use of his title and the withering tone of her voice were too much to bear. “Because I love you, damn it! That makes it my concern.”

Her gaze softened at once. “Oh, my dear.”

He looked away, feeling suddenly awkward and vulnerable, the two emotions he despised above all others, and he was compelled to move onto safer ground. “It is my duty as head of the family,” he said in his best ducal voice, “to do all I can to ensure the well-being and security of all my relations. That includes you, Mama.” He looked at her again. “Could you really expect any less of me?”

“Dearest Henry,” she murmured. “Of all my children, you are the one who has always worried me the most.”

“I?” He stared at her, astonished by this revelation. “Why, in heaven’s name?”

“Because you fight so hard against your own nature.”

He stiffened. So much for safer ground. “I have no idea what you mean,” he lied.

“Yes, you do. Ever since you were a boy, you have striven to be the son your father wanted you to be. But he was an uncompromising sort of man, with a rigid sense of duty, a cold heart, and a puritanical moral compass. He did his best to make you the same, and any influence I may have had over your early life was blunted by him at every turn. When he and I discovered your secret, that you had broken free and married a tobacconist’s daughter, it was the shock of his life. I, however, was not all that surprised. There is an element of me inside of you, you see.” She smiled a little. “I’ve always known that.”

“And you think that particular part of us a good thing? Mama, my passion for Elena was a disastrous mistake.”

“I know you think so. But I cannot agree. You loved her, I know it. Despite what you say or however you may define the emotion, you loved her, and to my mind, love is never a mistake, even if it brings pain, even if it does not last.”

He exhaled a sharp sigh. “Perhaps that it so, Mama, but marriage is not like love. Marriage is permanent. If it proves a mistake, there’s no getting out of it, not for our sort.”

“Yes, but it is possible to have both marriage and love, my dear.”

He gave an unamused laugh. “Yes, well, that is the trick, isn’t it?”

She reached out, her hand closing over his. “Elena has been gone eight years, your father nearly as long. I know you are wary of trusting your own judgment in this, but can you not now open your heart again to the more tender emotions of life? For I fear if you do not do it soon, you may not be able to do it at all.”

This conversation, Henry decided, was accomplishing nothing. “We seem to be talking in circles.” He pulled his hand away and rose. “Therefore, I shall take my leave.”

“Oh, Henry, don’t go all prickly and stiff and act as if you have ice water in your veins. I know you too well to be deceived. All I am trying to say is that while I know you will never be the sort to wear your heart on your sleeve, don’t bury it so deep that you suffocate it to death.”

“My heart, since we are talking of it, is suffering at this moment. On your behalf, Mama. No, wait,” he went on as she tried to speak. He had one card left to play, and he needed to play it while he could. “Allow me to finish. As I said, if you stay here during the next two weeks, people we know will observe you coming and going from this hotel. They will come to call; they will question you.”

“I shall tell them nothing.”

“Then they will draw their own conclusions and spread those conclusions as fact. And you can be sure whatever the talk, it will not reflect favorably upon you, your daughters, or any of your other relations. Wouldn’t it be better to just come home? Stay in your own residence until . . .” He paused, working to force the words out. “Until the wedding?”

“And listen to you disparage Antonio to me at every opportunity in an attempt to change my mind about him?”

“I won’t do that. I give you my word I will not speak ill of him in your hearing. And I will make certain the other members of the family exercise the same restraint.”

His mother might be acting foolishly at the moment, but she was not, as her next words proved, a fool. “You may not disparage Antonio in my hearing, but I have no doubt you will nonetheless make every attempt to change my mind and circumvent my course.”

There was no point in denial. “I will do that, Mama, whether you come home or you remain here.”

“True.” She paused, considering, and after a moment, she nodded, much to his relief. “Very well, then, I will return home.”

“And will you promise me that you will be discreet in regard to your marriage plans until the wedding has taken place?”

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