Page 85 of When the Scoundrel Sins

“You’ve seen nothing,” she shot back, suddenly angry, her eyes blazing. “To be so foolish as to reject someone’s love.”

He forced out through gritted teeth, “It isn’t love that’s the problem.”

“Then what is?” she demanded.

“When love ends!” He raked his shaking fingers through his hair, the frustration nearly unbearable. “Italwaysends. And the more you love someone, the worse it is when it does.”

Her lips parted at his outburst, and she involuntarily stepped away, as if knocked back by the force of a physical blow. With wide eyes, she stared silently at him, as if trying to see down into his soul.

Then her expression softened, as if she’d found what she’d searched for in him. The look of understanding she sent him pierced him even more painfully than her angry accusation of only moments before.

“Yes, it does,” she agreed softly, lowering her face. “Which makes the love before it ends even more precious.”

Her eyes glistened as she reached for the locket she wore around her neck. With a flick of the tiny clasp, she opened it.

“I understand your reluctance to love,” she said quietly as she gazed down at the locket, her features softening with a mixture of love and grief. “It isn’t always happy and wonderful.”

She showed him the locket and the miniature inside of his uncle. Understanding struck him then of why she always wore it, to keep her late husband close to her heart. But wasn’t this exactly what Quinn wanted to avoid, the sorrow of losing someone he loved? Whatever lesson she was hoping to impart about the blessings of love, she’d failed, because her locket only exemplified the pain that struck when love ended.

“When my Ainsley died, I thought my own life was over,” she whispered. “I couldn’t imagine living on without him. For a time, I didn’t want to. I wanted to join him.”

She touched a trembling finger to the portrait, and Quinn tightened his jaw at the gesture. He didn’t need a lesson in the grief that came of love. He’d witnessed it firsthand with his parents.

“It hurt so terribly, not having him with me. Not only an emotional pain but a physical ache, as well. It was torture to breathe, to keep feeling my heart beating, to simply crawl out of bed and face the dawn…to suffer the hours of dark night alone in an empty bed.”

“But you kept living and made it through,” he drawled, unable to keep the cynicism from his voice. He didn’t need platitudes. “Is that your point?”

“Not at all.”

Surprising him with that, she snapped the locket shut, but she closed her hand around it. To protect it in her grasp.

“My pointis that even with the grief and all the agony and desolation I suffered, I would not trade away the love we shared. I would never deny myself a single day with my Ainsley nor sacrifice a single minute that I spent in his presence, just to protect my heart from being pained. Not one smile, not one laugh.” She squeezed her eyes closed, as if she didn’t trust herself not to cry. “What I wouldn’t give to have just one more argument with him! To have him infuriate me to no end just once more. To have back those silly days when we were so angry at each other that we didn’t speak.” She choked on the words, and her voice softened to a hoarse whisper. “To hear him say just one more time that he loves me.”

The same words he couldn’t bring himself to say to Belle.

Quinn’s heart thudded, each beat a jarring jolt in his hollow chest. “Even knowing how much pain his death caused you…” He sucked in a deep breath as his gut twisted into hard knots. “You’d still want that?”

When she opened her eyes and looked at him, they shined with unshed tears. “I’d give everything I possess for that. And I’m certain your mother feels the same.” She gave him a faint, bittersweet smile and looked down at the locket in her hand. “All the days and weeks of anguish and grief can never triumph over a lifetime of love. Or even one moment of it.”

Belle had said nearly the same thing last night. At the time, he’d thought she was simply being melodramatic, too optimistic for her own good. A bluestocking who believed in the happy endings found in her books. But now…“And if it doesn’t? If there’s not enough love, or—” he rasped out, his voice suddenly thick and hoarse. “Or if the grief is unbearable?”

“Then you rely on the love you had to give you the strength to continue. Because that kind of love will always live on in your heart.” She tenderly rested her hand against his cheek. “That’sthe kind of love you share with Belle, isn’t it?”

A long, ragged breath tore from him. He shook his head as he put voice to his deepest fears. “I can’t take that kind of risk.” Too much was at stake, too much to lose—too much pain and grief to survive. “Especially with Belle.”

“If you love her, then it won’t—”

“Not her,” he bit out. “Her love forme. If she ever loves me as much as my mother loved my father, the grief and pain she suffered when he died—if something happens to me—”

He choked off, unable to continue as he looked away, his eyes burning. He shook his head as a wave of guilt crashed through him just imagining Belle in that kind of relentless suffering.

He sucked in a deep, jerking breath. “To know that I’ve caused her that same kind of grief, that same pain, simply because she loved me—” A shudder sped through him, and the anguished truth ripped from him. “I would never do that to her. I wouldneverhurt her like that.”

Her old eyes softened. “It’s too late, I’m afraid. She’s already given her heart to you.” Her heartache for him was audible in her soft, slow whisper. “You’ve always wanted to protect her. You two got into that mess six years ago because you wanted to defend her, even then. But you cannot protect her from loving you, just as you cannot stop the tide from rising or the sun from setting.” She paused. “Or from loving her yourself.”

With the affection of a mother, she brushed at the lock of hair falling across his brow.

“Love isn’t at all what you think it is. But Belle can show you the goodness of it, because she loves you.” She smiled at him. “And youdolove her, I know it. I suspect that so does Belle.” She rose up on tiptoe to place a kiss to his forehead. “So go tell her you love her. If you let the words come, the heart will follow.”