Page 60 of The Truth About Love and Dukes

“Yes.”

He nodded. He’d expected no other answer. “Even though he wants your money?”

“It’s not a matter of want. He has no means or income of his own, and he has relations to take care of. He can’t afford to marry a woman who doesn’t have money. Fortunately for both of us, I have plenty to support us, for otherwise I fear we should have had to part. A peer isn’t the only sort of man who has duties and responsibilities to the members of his family, you know.”

“And despite the mercenary aspect of his courtship, you trust him with your future?”

“Yes. You see, he loves me, too, Henry.”

Her voice was steady, her gaze unwavering. He found that incomprehensible, given the man’s reputation with women. “How can you know it’s love? How can you be so sure?”

“I am as sure as one human being can ever be about another.”

“Given human nature, that’s not so very sure. Even if it is love, how do you know it will make you happy?”

“I don’t. Nothing in life is absolutely sure. Sometimes, I think you find that a difficult thing to accept, Henry.”

He swallowed hard, afraid she was right about that. But he liked predictability, damn it. “And your daughters? We have already discussed how their future will be affected. What of that?”

“There will be scandal, but we shall do what we can to mitigate the damage. And if the result is that Angela and Sarah find men who care for them enough to marry them in spite of their mother’s choice, then my marriage will have been a good thing for their future, not a bad thing. Position and suitability are not everything when it comes to matrimony. In spite of your own unfortunate experience with marrying for love, you do see that, Henry, surely?”

“Position and suitability are not the only considerations, no,” he allowed with a sigh, “but I doubt Angela and Sarah will see it that way.”

“I can make them understand that, if you help me.”

“I’m not sure I should,” he grumbled. “Or one of them might take it into her head to run off with the chauffeur, and then where shall we be?”

She laughed. “Oh, my dear. I shall have to caution them against that, for I fear a chauffeur in the family would be too much for your nerves.”

He sighed, studying her face. “I’m not going to win this fight, am I?”

Her laughter faded, but her smile lingered, a faint, knowing curve. “Which fight are we talking about? The one you are having with me?” She turned her head to glance at the ladies gathered near the front of the boat, and at one in particular who stood a little apart, staring out over the starboard rail. “Or,” she went on, looking at him again, “the one you’re having with yourself?”

He stiffened, appalled that he might be more transparent than he’d thought, at least to his mother’s keen observation, and it was his turn to look away. But he could still feel her gaze on him and sense the understanding in her smile, and it made him hotly uncomfortable to think she might know the true cause of his torment. “God, Mama,” he managed, “I hope you’re not intending to be indelicate.”

“I could, I suppose. But I won’t.”

He thanked God for that small favor.

“But,” she went on, “I am worried, I confess.”

Of course she was. “I know what worries you.”

“Do you, indeed?”

He squared his shoulders and looked at her, facing the fear rattling around in his own mind even as he gave his mother the credit of it. “You fear I shall make the same mistake twice. Lose my head.”

“I’m not afraid about you losing your head, Henry. I’m afraid of what might happen if you lose your heart.”

He wasn’t surprised that she would attempt to put romantic connotations to what he felt about Miss Deverill when there was nothing romantic about it, but he could hardly articulate what he actually was feeling to his own mother in order to argue the point. “If it were about my heart,” he said instead, “why should that worry you? In our last conversation on this topic, you seemed to feel I should make better use of that particular muscle than I have been.”

“So I do. But I fear you persist in viewing the loss of one’s heart as a mistake, and for you, a mistake is something to be avoided at all cost. I wish I could make you see how wrong that is.” She turned away before he could argue. “Losing one’s heart is never a mistake, Henry,” she said over her shoulder. “No matter what may come afterward.”

A convenient philosophy, he supposed as he returned his attention to the river, and no less than he would expect, given her current situation. Mama was in a romantic—and to his mind, unrealistic—haze. He knew how that felt. All was bliss, and everything in the garden lovely, and following one’s heart seemed as inevitable as breathing. There was nowhere to go from that height of dizzying, unreal happiness but back down to earth, where one usually landed on the bedrock of reality with a bone-shattering crash.

“My heart, Mama,” he said at last, “is in no danger of being lost.”

She didn’t answer, and when he turned his head, he found that she was walking away, already too far away to hear.

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