“Yes, my Lord. You will find her in the drawing room.”
“Thank you.” Aaron nodded his thanks and hurried off, having to urge himself not to run as he crossed through the corridors, winding his way through the house to find his mother.
Since his return the day before from Brighton, he had been determined to see his mother in person. Lady Emily had made him happier than he could say, and he had one person to thank for that, one person who had opened his eyes to the fact that falling in love again was possible.My mother.
He tapped on the door of the drawing room, waiting for her to call him inside before he opened the door.
“Aaron!” she said in surprise, jumping up from where she had been practicing the pianoforte and breaking off mid piece. “You’re back from Brighton.”
“I am indeed.” He hurried to meet her in the middle of the room and embraced her, noticing how much his mother clung to him in the embrace, with a kind of desperation. “It is like you have not seen me for weeks.”
“You forget how little you come here these days,” she pointed out with raised eyebrows as she parted from him and urged him to sit beside her. There was no surprise there, he had been avoiding seeing Hugh and Jane. “Your letter…” Joyce paused and wafted a hand in front of her eyes, showing how near to tears she was just at the mere thought of it. “I cannot tell you how happy it makes me!”
“Happy? I feel like I need to lend you my handkerchief for tears, mother.”
“Happy tears!” she cried, snatching the handkerchief he proffered to her anyway and dabbing it to her eyes. “Lady Emily. Oh, I knew how it would be,” she said dotingly. “I knew you could find another to love. She sounds quite perfect for you, dear.”
“I’m so pleased you think so.”
“Can I meet her again?” Joyce asked excitedly. “Bring her here, to this house. Now the two of you are courting, it is only proper she is brought here, after all.”
“Yes, of course, as you wish it.” He laughed softly at the warmth of his mother’s reaction. She was gushing with it, so overjoyed that Aaron found it contagious. “I have you to thank for this, mother.”
“Me? What did I do?” Joyce asked, falling still in surprise.
“You are the one who pointed out love doesn’t just happen once. You were right!” he said boldly. “I was so busy closing myself off to the world, so certain that it wasn’t possible, I almost missed it. Had Lady Emily not been so striking, had she not got her humor, her smile, everything about her, I might have missed this feeling.” As he spoke, he choked up. He breathed deeply, breaking off in his uncertainty of being able to continue.
Joyce placed a hand to his shoulder, lovingly, in that way mothers do, all to give him comfort.
“This is as you always should have been, Aaron,” she said dotingly. “This happy.” She chucked him under the chin, making him feel he was ten years old again. He laughed off the feeling, shaking his head before he turned his focus back to his mother.
“Can you tell me now, mother?” he asked gently. “Am I right in my suspicion that I am not the only one to have fallen in love twice in their life?”
“You are right.” She rested back in the seat, looking abruptly fascinated by the pattern of her dress as she fiddled with her skirt and sighed. “It was a long time ago. When I first debuted, Aaron, I fell in love. With a man that was soon destined to marry another.”
It sounded so similar to what Aaron had been through that he reached for his mother’s hand, desperate to bring comfort. Joyce clung to his hand, looking up to his eyes again.
“It was a challenging time. Much like what you went through, when realizing what I longed for could never be, I had a mourning period. Grief of a kind. I think part of it was not truly mourning the love that I had lost but mourning the life I thought was to be mine.” Her words were so apt that Aaron jerked in surprise.
“That is a perfect description.” He had so long thought Jane would someday be his Duchess that it was that future he mourned as much as her, maybe even more than Jane herself.
“When your father came along, my mourning was drawing to an end,” she whispered softly. “Yet he made me see how odd it was to keep myself in misery forever. I know he is a busy man, always going here and there, and he does not always have a lot of time, but when he is with me, Aaron, he is the most loving man. Had it not been for his patience, for his kindness, I would not have realized it was possible to love again.”
Aaron could not keep the smile off his face as he held onto his mother’s hands. Joyce had had her happy ending to her tale, and Aaron felt for the first time, that he at last had the chance of his own.
“Thank you for telling me, mother,” he said carefully. “I know I am not alone in this feeling now.”
“You certainly aren’t.” She tapped his arm in comfort one more time. “Now, tell me, when can I meet Lady Emily again? Now I know just how you feel, I am impatient to greet her. Are we to have wedding bells soon?”
“Wedding bells?” He laughed. “We are courting now, mother. One step at a time.”
“As you wish, but just so you know, the two of you could marry in the chapel here on the estate.”
“Mother!”
* * *
Emily was nervous, wringing her hands repeatedly together as she stood in the entrance hall of the Duke of Parson’s house. It was not what she had expected. Yes, she had certainly expected it to be grand, yet it was magnificent, with the entrance hall alone carved out of pink and white marble. Even white statues and busts adorned the hallway on either side, flanking anyone entering the building like some army here for a parade.
