“At this point, we should part, then bow and curtsy to each other. You take your partner’s hand and lead her from the floor.”
“Aye, lass,” he murmured softly. Still, neither of them pulled back from one another. Her hand was soft in his, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she was holding onto his palm with as much vigor as he held onto hers.
“Why learn these things?” she whispered suddenly.
“What?”
“Why learn how to dance with a lady if you never have any intention of marrying one?”
That tension in the air shifted between them now. He didn’t pull away, and the touch of her hand in his palm made the air somehow feel more intimate.
“I cannae marry, nae because I havenae got a heart, Charlotte. It’s because I willnae be the man to repeat the past.”
“What do you mean?” Her voice was barely audible.
“Ye ken the tales. Ye ken that I am the last Duke of Rodstone’s illegitimate son. He took a mistress, me mother, and against all odds, the two fell in love.” He broke off for a second, waiting to see her reaction.
He hadn’t spoken much about his mother in front of Charlotte. He guessed that deep down, he feared some rejection because of his poor background, but Charlotte didn’t move. She stayed exactly where she was with her hand still in his. Her thumb even turned and rubbed the smallest of circles on the back of his hand. It was an act of comfort.
“He couldnae marry her. He was a duke, it wouldnae have been allowed. I now ken that when me mother discovered she was carryin’ me, she put me above everythin’ else. She returned to her homeland in Scotland and raised me there. She wrote letters to me father, urging him nae to come and find me, though from what I can see, she wrote him letters until the day she died. She always loved him.”
He looked down at their hands holding one another. “My father married, as she had urged him to do. Me lawyer tells me that there wasnae much love between me father and his wife. They never had a child. Me father kenned of me though, enough to put me name and even me address in his will. I think he kenned everythin’ about me.”
He looked up again, meeting her eye. She blinked, suggesting she was holding back tears.
“How do you know that?” she whispered.
“I have found some of me mother’s letters to him. She went on at great length in some of them about me. She talks about how like him I am. Aye, a strange thing indeed to think, when I dinnae ken him at all. I feel rather numb when I think of him, for Idinnae ken him, but me mother.” He grimaced. “The pain she suffered, now that is what stays with me.”
He sighed, his hand slipping a little in Charlotte’s touch. He was giving her the opportunity to release him, but she didn’t. Her slim and petite hand was engulfed in his own large palm, but still, she didn’t pull back in disgust.
“I daenae want to see anyone else sufferin’ like that, lovin’ from a distance someone that can never be theirs. I willnae do it.”
She blinked and looked down at their connection to one another.
“You speak as if you expect all love to end in pain.”
“I have never kenned it any other way.” He tried to catch her eye again, but she would not look at him now. She just stared at their hands upon one another. “My father gifted me mother a necklace, and when she died, she held it to her. She was achin’ for the want of him even in death.” His voice had darkened. “It is almost like he haunted her. He was hauntin’ her when we were in Edinburgh, and I dinnae ken about it. I couldnae save her from it.”
“The haunting of one’s heart. Perhaps it’s not something from which anyone can be saved,” Charlotte whispered.
“Nay. I believe we can.” The firmness of his words made her jerk her head up, looking him in the eye again. “I willnae marry,and I willnae give the opportunity for me heart or any other’s to become attached. That way, we are all safe from such pain.”
She blinked again. Was that more tears? No, this time, it had to be in his imagination.
“You have no wish for children then, either?” she whispered. “No wife or child? Gerard, that is a lonely life, is it not?”
She said me name.
Something in his heart fluttered at her saying his name, but he clamped down upon it. He had to be honest with her now, completely.
“I daenae want to raise a child in this life.” He shook his head. “One where we’re dictated by power, money and titles. Nay, if it was a life of freedom, then aye, maybe a son or a daughter to teach and raise would have been nice. To carry on me mother’s good teachings, but in this world?”
He nodded around at the ornate room in which they stood. “In those assembly rooms? In those ballrooms where everyone looks at each other with stiff upper lips and judgement? Nay. How could I bring a child into any of that?”
There was a beat of silence between them. She said nothing in reply, apparently not able to think of anything.
“I made up me mind long ago, before I met ye, lass,” he softened his voice. It was the slightest allusion to what he truly wanted to tell her, that she was the closest he had ever come to breaking his rule. “I made a rule that I would never marry.”
