Not because she did not feel something in return. He had seen it in her eyes, in the moment before she had stepped back. He had seen the quickened breath and the parted lips and the effort it had cost her to name the impossibility rather than surrender to the possibility. She felt something. He was certain of it.
But she was also practical and clear-eyed and completely aware of what the world would do to a governess who forgot her place. She understood the rules in a way he never had, because the rules had never been enforced against him. She knew what it meant to have no family, no fortune, no protection beyond her own competence and reputation.
She would not risk everything she had built for a man who had spent so many years demonstrating that he could not be trusted with anything important.
She was perfectly justified. Indeed, one could not find a single fault in the steady resolve of her character. He had failed Celeste, he had failed his children, he had failed everyone who had ever relied on him to be better than he was.
Yet the attachment remained, leaving him utterly at a loss as to how he might dispose of a devotion so vast, yet so unwelcome.
He stood in the garden until the moon had moved across the sky and the chill had seeped through his coat. He thought about Celeste, who had bestowed her heart upon him and had passed away waiting for him to become the man she deserved. He thought about his daughters, who cherished him despite his failures and required him to be a father who stayed with them. He thought about Mel, who saw him clearly and cared for him anyway and would not allow that caring to destroy her.
He thought about the man he had been and the man he was trying to become and the vast distance between them.
And he made a decision.
He would not press her. He would not make declarations or demand acknowledgments or force her to confront something she had clearly chosen to avoid. If she required distance, he would give her distance. If she needed boundaries, he would respect them.
But he would also not pretend. He would not return to the performance of not caring, of treating their connection as merely professional, of hiding behind the rake persona that had protected him for so long.
His affection remained an unspoken vow. Though the words were forbidden and her heart had been barred against their consequence, he resolved to manifest his devotion through the silent language of his presence.
With a steadfast constancy, he would apply himself to the arduous task of shedding his former pretenses and strive to become the man she had so keenly identified: he who had previously lacked the courage to be his truest self.
It was a ray of hope and determination to become a better father, and man for the woman he had given his heart to.
When he finally went inside, the house was silent and dark. He climbed the stairs to his room and paused outside the door to the nursery, listening to the sound of his daughters breathing in their sleep. Three small lives that depended on him. Three small hearts that had already forgiven him more than he deserved.
He would be better for them. He would be present and constant and real. He would learn to stop hiding behind his worst self, because they deserved a father who was willing to try.
And maybe, if he became that man, if he proved through years of steady presence that he could be trusted with important things, maybe someday Mel would look at him and see someone worthy of the risk.
It was an endeavour of the most protracted nature, but the Duke of Trevane, London’s most notorious rake, had discovered something that all his gambling had never taught him: some things were worth wagering everything on, even when the prospects were unfavorably set against you.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“The curriculum requires restructuring.”
Mel sat at her desk in the schoolroom, speaking to no one, making notes in the ledger where she tracked the children’s educational progress. It was early morning, before breakfast, before the household stirred and she would have to face the day along with everything the day contained.
The curriculum did not, in fact, require restructuring as she had restructured it thoroughly upon her arrival and had refined it continually since then. It was as sound a program of study as any governess could devise for three exceptional children with widely varying temperaments and learning styles.
But if she was restructuring the curriculum, she was not thinking about the garden.
If she was redesigning lesson plans and adjusting reading lists and planning new approaches to arithmetic instruction, she was not remembering the way he had stepped closer in the moonlight. The way her breath had caught. The way she had almost, almost, forgotten every practical consideration that made such moments impossible.
She had walked away, she had done the right thing. She had named the impossibility clearly enough that even a duke could understand it.
And now she could not stop thinking about what might have happened if she had stayed.
The days after the garden were agony.
They passed with excruciating slowness, each hour stretching into an eternity of careful distance and studied professionalism. Mel and Rhys spoke only of necessary matters: the children’s lessons, the household accounts, and Viola’s nightmares, which had begun three days ago and showed no sign of abating.
“What do you see in the dreams?” Mel had asked, sitting on the edge of Viola’s bed in the darkness, smoothing hair back from a damp forehead.
“I don’t know,” Viola had whispered. “Something is wrong, something is going to happen. I can feel it, but I can’t see it.”
“Nothing is going to happen. You’re safe here.”
