The words—unquestionably true and uttered with such conviction that she couldn’t possibly doubt them—rang, bell-like, in Therese’s ears. They sank into her, into her heart and into her soul, sending it soaring, yet at the same time, anchoring her. Grounding her. Making her whole and complete…
Then her brain caught up with the implication. She blinked, and all inclination to teariness vanished. What? Galvanized, she searched his eyes, but saw nothing beyond his usual, steady seriousness along with naked honesty.
His comment at Christopher’s wedding popped into her mind. “Perhaps your dear Christopher finally opened his eyes and took his cue from me.” And when she’d challenged him, he’d said, “Oops.”
Oops because he hadn’t meant to tell her what was, in effect, his truth?
She stared at him as numerous little pieces of the puzzle he’d become realigned and fell into place. Was what he’d just said the something he’d been working toward telling her with his various, annoyingly imprecise comments?
She decided she needed to hear his declaration again—and this time, clearly, without even the faintest possibility of misconstruction. She licked her lips and, her gaze still locked with his, asked, “Just what is it you’re trying to tell me?”
Although his lips twisted in a faint grimace, his gaze didn’t shift from hers. “I never thought to make this confession but…the truth is that I’ve always loved you—madly, deeply, irrevocably—from the very first. I hid it—from the world, but most especially from you—because…” His fingers tightened on hers. “Because I feared love. I feared the power love would—could—wield over me. I feared what love might do to me or, more specifically, what I might do for love.”
He paused, then went on, “I thought love would change me, and in thinking that, I wasn’t wrong, but I feared it would make me less of a man, when in fact, the opposite is true. Loving you made me so much more—made me into the man I could and should be. Loving you made me grow.”
Caught in the moment, in the raw honesty of his revelations, she watched as his gaze grew distant and he seemed to search for words.
Eventually, he said, “The reason I was so misguided as to believe that love for my wife was something I should never own to…was that I took my parents’ marriage, or at least how I saw it, as a pattern card. I knew my father loved my mother to distraction and that she loved him in return, but to me, it always seemed that his love for her made him weak. Less. That loving his wife prompted him to behave in ways that diminished him—in my eyes and, I assumed, in everyone else’s.”
He grimaced. “More recently, that everyone else who knew them seemed to see their relationship in a different, far more positive light made me question my conclusions. I was a child when I formed them, then I was away at school for a decade, and they’d both died by the time I came home from Oxford. From childhood, I never spent much time around either my father or my mother, and hardly any time at all with them together—possibly not enough time for an older, more mature me to open my eyes, see and realize, and adjust my thinking.”
Somewhat ruefully, he refocused on her. “All of which is to say that I now accept that my child’s view of my parents’ marriage was false, a nonsense, and that the error was purely mine.” He paused, then added, “Unfortunately, James and Veronica’s tempestuous union only served to bolster my by-then-fixed antipathy over acknowledging love for one’s spouse.”
She squeezed his fingers. “But you were wrong about them—or at least, not right.”
He nodded and looked at their linked hands. “I can see that now, but when I first met you, my antipathy was deeply rooted, and in using it to guide my interactions with you, I felt completely and arrogantly justified. I was confident I saw things clearly and that my path was the correct one to take.”
She studied his for-once totally unguarded expression and took note of the self-annoyance, tinged with self-disgust and self-blame, that was so clearly etched in his features. The compulsion to ease some of that self-recrimination grew. Gently, she said, “Children tend to see things in black and white. Your sons certainly do, and I suspect your daughter will be even worse. Children make up their minds based on how they interpret what they think they see and hear, and they are always very certain they are correct, but children aren’t adults—they lack an adult’s sophistication at all levels of personal interaction. Children don’t hear the nuances or see the shades of gray that adults routinely employ in dealing with each other.”
He met her eyes; relief that she understood showed in his. “I always thought that my father gave way to my mother—acceded to her wishes over his own—far too often. It never occurred to me that he might have been perfectly willing to do so because he regarded her wants and needs as more important than his.” He grimaced. “And my own character probably colored my judgment. By all accounts, I was a hedonistic little lordling. I never liked not getting my own way, so I never imagined that he—my father—might see things differently.”
She smiled gently and held back words to the effect that he still didn’t appreciate not getting his own way.
He looked at their hands again, then drew in a breath, blew it out, and said, “So that’s why I approached our marriage as I did.” Fleetingly, he glanced at her. “You thought I was only marginally interested—attracted to you, yes, but not looking for a wife, and that you had to pursue me and show me how perfect you would be in the role and badger and hound me until I agreed to front the altar.”
Tilting her head, she studied his eyes. “And that was…not how it was?” She couldn’t keep her tone from rising. She wasn’t sure if she was aghast or amused. How many more secrets did he have?
He shook his head and returned his gaze to their hands. “That was me manipulating you. I know you thought the shoe was on the other foot”—he started absentmindedly playing with her fingers—“but it wasn’t. From the moment I set eyes on you, I knew you were the one for me, but with my oh-so-entrenched position about not acknowledging love, I had to find some way to get you to the altar without admitting I loved you. You were a Cynster—I assumed you would demand some declaration of love, one I wasn’t willing to give, so”—he threw her a sheepish look she was far more familiar with receiving from his sons—“I had to find some way around that. I asked about you and watched from afar until I felt I understood you and your reactions well enough to make a bid for what I wanted. I’d heard and seen you summarily reject any suitors who approached you in a conventional fashion—in fact, you turned a cold shoulder to any gentleman who pursued you. So I decided I would engage with you, but decline to pursue you and see if that piqued your interest.”
“And it did.” She regarded him with fascinated awe as the events of their courtship rolled through her mind, her perceptions shifting with the knowledge that it had been his hand steering them along, rather than, as she’d always believed, hers. The sheer audacity of it took her breath away. But then she refocused on him and the truly important point. “So all that time…?”
He understood what she was asking; steadily holding her gaze, he replied, “All that time, I was in love with you—head over heels, completely in thrall. It was frightening, truth be told, powerful and exhilarating and utterly compelling. I’d never felt anything like it, and of course, that only emphasized how dangerous love was and underscored how correct was my approach to marriage. I was convinced beyond question that I would be a fool—more, that I would be inviting disaster—if I admitted any of what I felt to you. Or to anyone, for that matter.”