“I do not know that, either.”
He hesitated as they began to turn in the opposite direction. “My mother wanted me to be a graceful dancer. I had a tutor, but my mother would always have the last dance with me. We would laugh and we would talk and though I did not much care for the lessons themselves, I would look forward to them all week. Sometimes, it was the only moment I had with her—just the two of us.”
He smiled at the memory, a lump forming in his throat. “Every couple of weeks, my father would come in to see how I was faring with the dancing. He would cut in toward the end, and I would sit and watch my parents dance together as if they were newlyweds again. They loved to dance.”
“That sounds… wonderful,” Caroline gasped, hurrying through her last circle so she could face him again. “You rarely speak of your mother and father, while you let me prattle on about mine at my leisure.”
“I suppose I am more interested in what I do not know than what I do,” he replied.
She eyed him as they joined hands once more, to promenade through a tunnel of other dancers with arms arched. “Did they love each other?”
“Without end,” he said, swallowing thickly. “I always thought it rather… bittersweet that they died together. They would not have wanted it any other way.”
They came to the end of the tunnel, forced to part as they made their way back down the other side to the start, where they raised their own arms and touched their hands together.
“Even witnessing that, you are so dubious of love. How is that possible?” Caroline asked the moment they were reunited.
He shrugged. “I am dubious of how freely the word and the sentiment is bandied around, with no real truth to it. I am dubious of people claiming to be in lovebecauseI have seen what it is actually like. Theirs was a love of the rarest sort. So rare that they would not be parted under any circumstances.”
So rare that, at times, it was like no one else existed…He kept that part to himself.
“My parents were like that,” Caroline said. “But they were forced apart. Cruel, really. But, in a selfish way, I am glad one of themgot to stay. I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose both at once.”
“Nor would I want you to.”
The dance would soon come to a close, but it was the conversation that Max was in a hurry to end. There was a reason he did not speak of his parents often; it was the one thing that caused his strength and stoicism to falter. He would not let his wife see him vulnerable, much less a ballroom full of people.
“If I may, how did it happen?” she asked, both of them moving up the line of the human tunnel as other dancers had their promenade.
Max had known the question might be coming, but it did not lessen the wrenching pain in his chest. A crack that he ordinarily did his best to prevent.
“It was a stormy night. They were returning from a party. A river had swollen near to Greenfield House, and the banks had burst, but it was too dark, and the rain was falling too hard to see properly,” he explained flatly. “The flood had weakened a bridge, and the carriage was simply too heavy. The bridge collapsed, and they were swept away. The driver managed to escape, but they did not.”
“Max…” Caroline’s voice was soft, widening the small crack that had appeared in his heart. “… Oh, Max. I am so very sorry.”
The music faded to a close, and Max and Caroline found themselves at the top of the tunnel. They lowered their arms and Max bowed to his wife, while she curtseyed in reply.
“It was a long time ago,” he said.
“Whether it was yesterday or fifty years ago, I am still sorry for your loss,” she urged, coming forward to take his hands in hers.
Desperate to distract himself, determined not to see the sorrow in her eyes, he raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. The brush of silk against his mouth made the skin tingle, and not for the first time, he wondered what it would be like to kiss her properly. To feel, for a moment, like their marriage was not pretend. To have someone to support him, to stand forever at his side, to cherish him, and to be cherished in return.
“Goodness, look at us,” he said, forcing cheer into his voice. “We have become so very solemn again. It is a party, wife of mine! Let us celebrate and return to those drinks.”
She smiled back, but sadness lingered in her eyes. “That would be wonderful.”
As the hours ticked onward, Max’s plan seemed to be workingtoowell. The other guests had softened to the appearance of the scandalous pair, watching with fond and envious eyes as Max and Caroline danced thrice more. Even when they retreated tothe corner to refresh themselves and whisper, they were watched and talked about, but the language was kinder, the remarks more admirable.
“If you cared more for your appearance,” one mother scolded her daughter, “perhapsyouwould get a duke to fall in love with you.”
“There is nothing so scandalous, really. It is practically the same as a courtship,” someone else said.
“Oh, but are they not the most handsome couple you have ever seen?” A young lady swooned. “Is it any wonder they fell in love? Beauty attracts beauty.”
“If it had been the brother, I would have believed there was some wrongdoing,” a haughty older lady commented, her nose in the air. “But I have never heard anything but good things about His Grace, and the Duchess seems to be a sweet creature. Clearly, it was as detailed in the scandal sheets—a misunderstanding.”
“Do you see the way he looks at her?” A younger woman sighed. “And the way she looks at him? I should like that, though I will need the Matchmaker if I am ever to achieve it.”
