“No one was killed, Thomas. Please don’t be dramatic.”
“Is that supposed to make it all right?” he asked. “Father’s gambling problems could have gotten us killed, but because we survived, I should simply stop worrying about it.”
“I’m not asking you to behave as if it never happened,” his mother said.
“It certainlyseemsas if you’re asking that.”
“Well, I’m not. You’re entitled to be upset about it. I’ve never forgiven your father for what happened to you that night. When I think that I nearly lost my only son, it all but destroys me.”
“Then how can you sit there and tell me he did his best? As if it’s anywhere near good enough?”
She sighed. “Will you please listen to me?”
He didn’t want to, but she was his mother. He nodded curtly.
“Your father was a man with many problems,” Thomas’s mother said. “And now that he’s gone, I have found it in my heart to be at peace with the harm he inflicted on us. It’s not all right. I agree with you. But it does us no good now to continue letting our lives be damaged. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to move on.”
“Move on,” Thomas repeated.
“Don’t live in the past,” his mother said. “You can’t refuse to marry because of who your father was. You owe it to yourself to allow yourself to find love and happiness, Thomas. You deserve joy in your life. I’d be devastated to think that your father’s actions robbed you of that, on top of all the hurt he’s caused. I want you to know the joys of love and fatherhood, and I want you to have an heir.”
“I don’t know,” Thomas sighed.
“Tell me what it is you’re worried about.”
“I’ve only seen my own father as an example of fatherhood,” Thomas explained. “And he was terrible, Mother. You know he was. Even if he hadn’t been a gambler, even if he hadn’t lost all our money, he was a cold and uncaring man, and he’s the only one I had to show me how to be a father.”
“That’s him, though,” his mother said gently. “It isn’t you, Thomas. You aren’t the same as him.”
“Maybe I would be if I had a child.”
“You wouldn’t,” she said. “You’re nothing like him. You must trust me, Thomas. I won’t pretend I never had love for your father. We were very fond of each other once. But even then, I can see the difference between the man he was and the man you are. You will never be like him. I’m sure of that.”
Thomas wished he could believe what she was saying, but the fact was, he couldn’t. He didn’t know if it was true or not, but in his mind, it simply wasn’t a risk worth taking. What if he married, what if he had a child, and then something went wrong, and he made his family as deeply unhappy as his father had made him?
It was too much to fathom. He couldn’t allow himself to become such a failure. It was the one thing he would never, ever do.
He understood his mother’s wish for him to start a family, to produce an heir to the Dukedom. And he didn’t wish to argue with her. Let her believe that it was still a possibility, if that would make her feel better. Thomas didn’t need to settle the discussion with her right here and now in the carriage on the way to the Narringham Ball.
But in his mind, this question had been answered years ago.
He would never marry. He would never put anyone at risk of suffering by his hand the way he had with his father.
After all, the same blood ran in his veins, and his mother admitted that his father had been a lovable man once.
You never knew what could happen. You never knew how you might let yourself down. And Thomas wasn’t willing to allow that to happen to anyone in his life.
* * *
They had scarcely been at Narringham for fifteen minutes when his mother pulled him aside. “Come, Thomas,” she said. “There’s someone I’d very much like you to say hello to.”
Thomas went willingly enough, but when he saw the direction his mother was leading him in, he wished that he hadn’t. Unfortunately, it was too late to turn away, and he was forced to accompany her to where Lady Deborah Garvey stood.
Thomas had never cared for Lady Deborah. The daughter of the Viscount of Thornhill, she had been a constant presence in his life for the past several years. Her father had generously forgiven most of his own father’s debts to him, which had been considerable due to the friendship between the two of them, and that had meant a lot of time spent together for the two families. Even now that Thomas’s father was dead, he knew that his mother felt an obligation to socialize with Lady Deborah and the rest of the family.
Thomas felt no such obligation. He found Lady Deborah tiresome. She had always been far too attentive to him, in his opinion—overly friendly, overly forward, anxious for his attention, which he did not want to give.
And, indeed, she smiled at him as warmly as if they had made plans to meet at this party. “Good evening, Your Grace,” she said. “It’s such a pleasure to see you again.”
