“What does it mean?” asked Anne.
“Love at first sight,” Lady Fitzhugh told her, and turned to Daphne, putting a hand on her arm. “I am so ashamed of myself, my dear, but I had to look it up in your little book, for I could not wait. He left the museum—and it is the opening day, you know—to bring this to you himself. He was devastated, my dear, simply devastated that you were not here when he called.”
“Daphne?” Elizabeth stared at her. “You are so quiet. Surely you do not doubt his feelings now?”
She did not answer. With a trembling hand, she picked up the rose, staring at it in bewilderment. She had been waiting for him to make the next move, but what did this mean? She vividly remembered her painful confession to him in the antika of how she had fallen in love with him the first moment she met him. Was he trying to tell her he remembered that, too? Or was he making a genuine confession of love? But that did not make sense, for he had certainly not loved her at first sight. She was not even really sure he loved her now.
She didn’t care. She loved him, and he was taking another step toward her. Odd how one simple thing could put everything else into place. This time, she was going to take a leap of faith all the way to him. This time, she wasn’t going to be afraid of getting her heart broken. This time, she wasn’t going to worry about making a mistake. She snatched the flower off the tray and ran for the front door, flinging it open to leave the house once again.
“My dear, where are you going?” Lady Fitzhugh called after her.
“The museum,” Daphne called back over her shoulder. She grabbed up her skirts with one hand, held her rose with the other, and raced toward the entrance to the square, oblivious to the incredulous stares of those strolling in the park. She ran through the gates and up the street, scanning the carriages for an available hansom as she went. It took seven blocks before she finally hailed one. The church clock was striking seven o’clock as she gave the driver the address of Anthony’s museum and climbed into the carriage. Once inside, she fell back against the seat, breathing hard, holding the rose to her cheek, and hoping with all her heart that the position of duchess was still open.
She did not come. Though surrounded by people every hour, Anthony watched for her, glancing at the doorway of his collection room every few seconds, scanning the faces in the crowd constantly as the hours of the afternoon dragged by, but she did not come.
The opening of his museum would be hailed as a triumph. Twenty-seven collections of Romano-British art and architecture, including his own, were on display, and those who waited until the opening day to purchase tickets found that none were available for any viewing at any hour until mid-July. But Daphne, so much a part of this project, did not come.
His extraordinary and controversial decision to have the museum open to all who wished to view the antiquities would continue to be debated for decades, and the ha’penny tickets for morning views had been among the first to disappear, but he could not share that gratifying news with Daphne, for she did not come.
He ordered the doors kept open an additional hour, but when everyone had left and he was alone, she still had not arrived. Yet he walked around his museum, his footsteps echoing on the stone floors. And he waited.
Anthony knew he had been a fool not to tell her last night what she wanted to know, but God, he had never told anyone about his father. He never discussed it, not even with Viola. People gossiped about it, and servants whispered about it, but no one really knew what it had been like.
There was so much he would say if she came. He would tell her every secret he had, shout them from the Whispering Gallery at Saint Paul’s, if only she would come.
So hard to reveal himself, but Daphne understood. Like no one else, she understood.
Anthony heard the front door open, heard it thrown back with a bang. Then footsteps crossing the stone floors through the main gallery. And there she was, breathing hard, with the rose in her hand and her bonnet askew, looking disheveled, windblown, and utterly lovely.
“What does this mean?” she asked him as she walked toward him, twirling the flower in her fingers. “What are you telling me?”
“My father killed himself.”
She stopped. The rose stopped twirling in her hand. She stared, her beautiful eyes wide with shock at the abruptness of his statement.
“One night, three years after my mother died, he drank four bottles of laudanum. He missed her so much, you see. She was everything to him, and he loved her down to the depths of his soul, and she died. He did not want to live without her, and he killed himself. I found him.”
So hard to say these things, even harder than he had thought they would be, each word a world of pain, and he felt as if he were twelve years old all over again. “I thought it was a blessing. God help me, I did. I was glad.”
She did not say anything, but simply stood there, listening as the words began pouring out of him. “Can you imagine what it is like to see your father sob for hours at a time? He talked about her with me, and with Viola. I had to send her away, for she was only six years old, and she did not understand. Daphne, he talked to the servants as if she were still alive, giving orders to them about how she wanted a cup of tea sent up to her room, or sending them on some other such errand for her. He would wander the halls at night, calling her name. He sat at the dining table and talked to her. Entire conversations every night with an empty chair.”
Oh, God. Daphne put her hand over her mouth. The words were pouring out of him so rapidly, she could hardly understand what he said. She knew some of it already, but it was harder to hear him speak it. He had been a boy then, only a boy. Once she had foolishly thought she knew what a broken heart was like. So wrong, for it was only now that it was breaking, breaking for the man she loved, who had been a boy watching his father go mad.
“I was twelve when he died, but I really became the duke when I was nine,” Anthony went on. “I had to. He could not make a decision for the life of him. He would stare at documents for hours, but never sign them. The land steward started coming to me. All the duties began to pile up, and by the time my uncle came to be my father’s regent, I had already been running things for several months. With my uncle’s assistance and advice, I did everything. I had to assume the power at once. I knew that.”
“I remember you told me,” Daphne murmured. “That day of our picnic.”
“My poor father could not manage to add two numbers together. He was incoherent. He could not converse on any subject but my mother. He refused to allow his valet to shave his face, because he was waiting for Rosalind to do it. She had always done it—it was a sort of intimacy between them.”
Daphne saw his face twist with pain, and it was almost unbearable. She took a step forward. She wanted to tell him to stop, that he did not have to explain any more. But she steeled herself to wait and let him finish.
“I had to lock him up, Daphne. He started to do things, like load his guns and fire them into the walls. He could have killed someone. He could have killed himself, so I had him locked in a room upstairs.” His voice broke. “I do not know how he got the laudanum. The doctor, I suppose, though he denied it.”
Anthony straightened and looked at her as if remembering she was there. He must have seen something of her horror in her eyes, for he said, “Now you know my deepest fear. I never want to be my father.”
He turned away. His back to her, he said, “His madness might not have been caused by his grief, only brought out by it. I cannot say it is not hereditary. I knew you were entitled to know all this when I proposed, but God help me, Daphne, I could not tell you.”
She did not know what to say. How could any words suffice? She started to walk toward him, but even as she did, he was walking away from her.
