“Stop referring to me as a duke,” he snarled.
Her gaze lifted to meet his, and for the first time, she took no pleasure in the depths of his dark eyes—because he would soon be lost to her. “That’s what you are. A duke. And I am only a governess. The world will always see us as that—a man with power, and a woman who can be used and discarded.”
“You are more than that to me.” He took her hands in his. “And I don’t care what the world thinks.”
“That’s your privilege, while I have far less of that privilege.” She squeezed his hand, as though trying to grip tightly to the feel of him. “Long ago, I thought I was done with illusions, but that’s not so. I’ve been deceiving myself, gulling myself into believing that you and I could go on like this. I was wrong, though. Terribly, terribly wrong.”
“Cecilia,” he rasped. “No.”
“We must stop this, Owen.” She spoke with surprising firmness. “Now. All of it. No more meetings at the cottage. The Whelans reminded me of the truth. If I am to have any possible chance of opening that school, I cannot be your lover. The risk of discovery only increases the longer you and I continue our affair.”
“I don’t care if we never fuck again,” he said fiercely. “I only have to hold you, and talk with you.”
Her eyes were hot and damp. “That is worst of all. Because it fools me into thinking that I am yours, and you’re mine, when we both know that we must be nothing to each other.”
To say it hollowed her out like a cave. Within, she was empty and howling.
“You will never be nothing to me.” He ran his thumb over her cheek, catching a falling tear. “You’re…you’re everything.”
She shook her head. “Stop. I implore you. Don’t say another word, and for the love of God, don’t be kind to me. My heart can’t withstand that torture.”
“Cecilia—”
“It’s Miss Holme now,” she said, “or, better yet, never speak my name again. Please.” With a sob, she pulled away from him and stepped to the door. Placing her hand on the wood, she said without looking at him. “They’ll be wondering about you downstairs. You need to see to your guests.”
Before he could stop her, she wrenched the door open and dashed into the corridor. Behind her, he took three strides in pursuit, then he stopped.
They had begun as instructor and student, yet it went so much deeper than that now. She’d taught him about his power, and he’d learned how to wield it, but had taught her, too. She learned from him how to fully inhabit her own capability. In so doing, he had shown her something no one before ever had. She could be celebrated for her strength.
She needed that strength now, when she’d lost him forever.
Chapter Ten
Owen drew a breath before knocking on the open door to his mother’s private study.
“Entra,” she said.
He strode into the chamber just as his mother looked up from her ornately carved escritoire, a pen in her hand. A faint smile curved her lips.
“How you walk now,” she murmured. At his puzzled frown, she explained, “With the confident steps of a man. The time you spent in London changed you, I think.”
It was not the city that had altered him—that had been Cecilia’s doing. Once, he might have entered his mother’s study diffidently, but there could be no room for hesitation where Cecilia’s future was concerned.
“If there’s any resemblance between me and the person I was last month,” he answered, “it is purely external.”
His mother regarded him, her dark eyes almost exactly like his, from the shape to the color. Right now, her gaze was unreadable.
“Do you recognize this?” From his pocket, he pulled the farthing. “Babbo gave it to me a decade ago.”
She rose from her escritoire and walked to him. As she peered at the farthing, her mouth formed a wry shape. “He told me of it, that night. What he hoped to teach you through such a small coin. He wanted so badly you to become a fine man.”
“He may be disappointed,” Owen said grimly.
Instead of offering him placating murmurs, she tilted her head and said, “It is not for the dead to judge us. The most important judgment comes from within.”
“The world judges us, too, cara mamma. This farthing tells me so. It tells me nothing I do is for my sake alone.” He held the coin tightly between his fingers. “It tells me of the weight of my responsibility—and that includes who I choose to be my wife.”
His heart thudded, but he was not afraid. “Were there objections when babbo married you?”
“So many voices raised,” she said with a wry look. “All the pallid English protesting that it was not proper to marry a girl from Napoli. But your father and I, we loved each other too fiercely to heed them.” Her expression softened, and grief flashed like a dark banner against the sky.
He took her hand, so much smaller than his, and just beginning to soften with the advance of age. Yet there was nothing weak or fragile about his mother, even in her sorrow.
“I have changed,” he said. “I’ve learned things in the wake of losing babbo.”
“A lesson from Signorina Holme,” his mother noted.
His surprise flared, but could anything have escaped his mother’s keen awareness? Firmly, he said, “There’s no blame for her. Know this, and take no action against her.”
“When you came to me and asked me to take responsibility for Maria and Ellie’s education, I knew. I had to trust that my son was a man, a man who could make his own choices. And in tasking me with Signorina Holme’s employment, I saw that you would not harm her.”
“I care about Cecilia, mamma.” Saying it aloud to his mother made the truth resonate within him. “She has my heart.”
His mother raised one eyebrow. “Do you have hers?”
“I thought I did.” Her face haunted him, hopeless and sorrowful as she ended their affair. “She is convinced that we cannot be together—in any way.”
“What are you convinced of, figlio mio?”
He let go of his mother’s hand and walked to the framed portrait on the wall. It was of him and his sisters, painted shortly before he left for Eton. Maria was in her simple white frock as she clung to the leg of his breeches, and Ellie was snug in a cradle.
His sisters were now on the verge of becoming young women, and he had left boyhood behind. Every moment brought new understanding, new maturity.
“A lesson changes its meaning depending on whoever is receiving it,” he said as he stared at the portrait, “and that includes how I interpret what babbo told me.”
Turning back to his mother, he said firmly, “To me that farthing means that in loving whom I want, I’m telling the world that love is more important than artificial social barriers. Love surpasses everything.”
“Love,” his mother said, her brows climbing higher.
“Yes, mamma,” he answered levelly. “L'amo. I love her. And if she’ll have me, I want to be her husband.”
Energy filled him to speak it aloud. He hadn’t allowed himself to think of the depths of his feelings for Cecilia and what their future might bring, but there was nothing to fear. Precisely the opposite. He was never stronger, never more powerful than when he gave full rein to his emotions and led with his heart.