Phoebe stared at him as if he were a stranger, her beautiful eyes gleaming. “Especially for me? What is that supposed to mean?” She shook her head, turning her face away. “My demise would destroy you, andthatis why you must marry Joanna? None of this makes any sense, My Lord. I am… bamboozled.”
“Bamboozled?” He had to laugh.
She sniffed. “I could think of no better word for it.”
“Allow me to be honest for a moment,” he began uncertainly, brushing his thumb lightly across her injured palm. “I cannot profess to love Joanna, though I am sure that is what you would like me to say. It is because I do not love her that she is the… ideal bride for me.”
Phoebe turned back, narrowing her eyes at him. “You are still not making a jot of sense.”
“No, but… I hope that I will by the time I am done,” he said. “Love only brings pain, Phoebe. Love is a terrible gift that, all too easily, can be snatched away. I have never pursued it for that reason, and… I still cannot pursue it. However, I must be married for the sake of my family’s future. It might sound cold, but that is the truth. And I believe that Joanna understands that, to some degree, for I do not think she loves me either.”
Phoebe cleared her throat, trembling a little in the cold. “How can you be so certain that love brings nothing but pain? Have you… been in love before? You say you have never pursued it, but how could you be so sure if you have not.”
“It is not my love story that has assured me of love’s cruelty,” he replied, his voice catching. “It is the love story of my mother and father.”
Phoebe seemed surprised. “But your mother never ceases talking about her beloved Lionel. I have heard more stories about him and your mother than I have heard about my own parents. She loves him fervently, even though he is gone. If that is not evidence of love being… the most powerful thing in the world, then I do not know what is. It moves her, even now. How can that be cruel?”
“She is beyond the worst of her grief now,” Daniel explained. “There was a time when the mere mention of his name could send her into paroxysms. She would retreat to her chambers for days, if not weeks, becoming a husk of herself. And in the first weeks after his passing, I truly thought that she would find a way to join him. She was… destroyed. There is no other way to phrase it. Utterly destroyed.”
Phoebe shifted uncomfortably on the step, frowning in thought. “But, if given the chance again, do you think she would avoid that love to save herself the pain, or do you think she would endure it a second time because that eventual agony is worth the reward of loving someone so fiercely?”
“I think she would choose the latter, but she did not have to witness her struggle to survive,” he replied. “She felt it, of course, but she did not have to watch it. She may not agree, but I firmly believe it is worse for the spectators who can do nothing to help, no matter what they do. There is no helplessness like it. And this is not entirely about her.Icould not bear the thought of putting someone through that same pain if I were to love and be loved and something were to happen to me.”
Phoebe tilted her head to the side. “At least your mother does not pretend that her beloved never existed. A display of continued love is far better than withdrawing into solitude.” She shrugged. “My father will not speak of our mother at all, so I suppose I understand, somewhat, what the loss of a spouse can do.”
“How did she…” Daniel trailed off, hoping she did not consider it an impertinent question.
Phoebe hesitated, gazing down at her knees. “She was weakened by the arrival of my sisters. I do not remember much of it, but… I think it almost killed her. She survived, but she was never quite the same, often becoming unwell for weeks at a time—‘the hills and valleys of my wayward health,’ as she used to say. But she would always get better and return to being the mother she was before, so bright and cheerful, and, my goodness, she was hilarious.”
Her throat bobbed, pain tightening her face. “She lived until the twins were almost seven. A fortnight before their birthday. She took ill with a winter cold and… never recovered. The moment she was buried, my father withdrew, pretending he had always been alone so he would not have to feel the vast absence of her, I suppose. I was left to bear that instead.”
“You see,” Daniel said, heartbroken.
Phoebe looked at him, brushing something from her cheek. “What about your father?”
“An illness,” he replied, too choked to say much more. “A terrible disease. It took him slowly.”
As it took my grandfather, my great-grandfather, and so many more before them… and as it will take me, eventually,he neglected to add, for what was the use of it?
Of course, it might have provided her with the clearest explanation for his actions and the choices that had to be made, but he feared she might try to persuade him otherwise, as Evan had tried to.
For a long while, they stayed in pensive silence, both submerged in their own thoughts. The night creatures rustled and screamed and hooted all around, but in the center of the maze, everything was still. It was like they were inside a bubble, and as long as neither of them moved or spoke, it would not burst.
I wish I had the strength to kiss you again.
He gazed at her while she stared at the ground.
In truth, he wished he had the strength to believe that he would be an exception to the disease so that he might seize the possibility of love with both hands and never look back, but he could not be convinced. He had never been an exception. He had never been particularly lucky. His father was the sort of man whoshouldhave been an exception—as healthy as a horse, with tenderness and love in abundance, and it had taken him anyway.
“I strongly suspect that my mother and father were not supposed to fall in love,” he said, more to himself than to Phoebe. “They were an arranged match, you see. Yet, they did fall in love. Tumbled headfirst. My mother said she knew the moment she saw him that he was special, and he felt the same way.”
Phoebe smiled sadly. “What if you and Joanna fall in love?”
“Impossible.”
“And why is that?”
Daniel swallowed thickly. “Just believe me when I say that it is.”
