“You’re right that you cannot be my anchor. You’re right that if I’m only capable of being good when you’re watching, then I’m not actually good. I’m just performing goodness for an audience.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re wrong about something as well.”
Mel raised an eyebrow. “What am I wrong about?”
“You’re wrong about why I failed in London.” He moved closer, close enough that she could see the firelight reflected in his eyes. “I didn’t fail because you weren’t there. I failed because I was afraid. I failed because facing what you told mein the garden meant facing everything I had been hiding from for fifteen years. I failed because change is hard, and the old patterns are comfortable, and I chose comfort over courage.”
“That’s not actually different from what I said.”
“It is, though. Because the question isn’t whether I need you to be good. The question is whether I’m willing to be good even when it’s hard. Whether I’m willing to face my failures and try again instead of hiding behind the duke.” He reached out, his hand stopping just short of touching her.
“You asked me once what I was willing to fight for. The answer is this. This life. These children. You. I’m willing to fight for all of it, not because you’re my anchor, but because you showed me that fighting was possible.”
Mel looked at his outstretched hand, at the fingers hovering just above her arm, waiting for permission that she had not yet given.
“And if you fail again?”
“Then I get up and try again. And I keep getting up, keep trying, for as long as it takes. That’s what you’ve been teaching me, isn’t it? That’s what you teach the children. Failure isn’t permanent unless you let it be.”
She thought about Viola, who had been too afraid to speak above a whisper and now read aloud in complete sentences. She thought about Anna, who had channeled her need for control into organisational systems rather than small coups against household authority. She thought about Thistle, who hadlearned to document her chaos scientifically rather than simply unleashing it on an unsuspecting world.
They had all changed. They had all grown, not because she had forced them to be different, but because she had given them the tools to become who they were capable of becoming.
Could she do the same for Rhys? Could she trust him to use those tools, even when she wasn’t there to watch?
“I don’t know if I can do this,” she said quietly.
“I don’t know if I can open myself to the possibility of being hurt again. I’ve spent my whole life learning not to expect anything, not to want anything, not to let myself hope for things that might not come.”
“I know.”
“My father walked out when I was sixteen. He left my mother and me with nothing, not even an explanation. He simply vanished, and we never saw him again.” The words came out slowly, dragged from somewhere deep inside her.
“My mother passed on two years later. She had been sick for months, but our circumstances were of such a cruel nature that the attendance of a physician was a luxury beyond our reach, and the restorative draughts that might have helped her were quite unattainable. I held her hand when she went, and then I buried her in a pauper’s grave, and then I was alone.”
“Mel…”
“I’m not telling you this for sympathy. I’m telling you this because you need to understand what you’re asking me to risk.” She met his eyes, her own dry and clear despite the weight of the memories.
“I survived all of that. I survived losing everyone I cherished, everything I had, every expectation I had ever held for my future. I rebuilt myself from nothing. I found positions and worked my way up and learned to be so competent, so indispensable, that no one would ever throw me away again.”
“You are indispensable. To the children. To me.”
“But I made myself that way through walls. Through refusing to hope for anything I wasn’t prepared to lose. Through keeping everyone at enough distance that their departure couldn’t destroy me.” She took a breath.
“And now you’re asking me to tear down those walls. To hope for something. To allow myself to dream about a future that could be taken away.”
“Yes,” Rhys said simply.
“That’s exactly what I’m asking.”
“And what if you leave again? What if you go back to London and find another Mrs. Hartington waiting for you? What if the scandal becomes too much, or society’s censure becomes too heavy, or you simply decide that the comfortable life of the rake is easier than the difficult work of being a husband and father?”
“Then I will have failed. And the failure will be mine, not yours.” He closed the remaining distance between them, his hand finally making contact with her arm, his touch light and questioning.
“But I don’t intend to fail. I don’t intend to give you any reason to pack that trunk again.”
