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He held her as she cried in his arms, her emotions taking over her. His strength kept her steady as her body was wracked by her sobs, his voice murmuring soft assurances that meant very little to her.
Finally, when she had managed to calm down, he began to talk to her.
“My parents were never happy in their marriage,” he spoke slowly. “My father married my mother because she had seemed like the most biddable wife amongst the Ton, and that was precisely what he was looking for.”
He paused and took a deep breath. “Throughout their marriage, my father had a string of affairs and paramours, one after another, and he never bothered to hide them from his own wife, parading them before her as he pleased.”
“One night,” he choked. “I recall one night I woke up to Mother pleading with him. There was another woman with them, but I did not recognize her.”
“Why was your mother pleading?” Emily asked him softly.
“Apparently, my father’s latest dalliance was already married,” he bit out softly. “The enraged husband had called my father out on a duel when he found out. Mother did not want him to go.”
Emily sucked in a deep breath. “But duels are illegal.”
“Precisely. But my sire would not be dissuaded. He left with the woman, and at dawn, he shot her husband.” He took a deep breath and shuddered. “For all his faults, my sire was not a murderer. The injury was not fatal, and the Viscount was still alive when the duel ended, but the old Viscount was never quite the same after that. He…he became a shell of himself, drinking day in and day out until he finally passed away.”
Emily could not imagine living in pain day after day until one ultimately passed away. The poor man had not even managed to defend his wife’s honor—although from the way Daniel talked about it, she did not seem too worried about it.
“She was not his last dalliance, but she was the one who ultimately broke my mother’s heart,” Daniel admitted. “Before that, she would make all sorts of effort to please him. She would dress in the way he liked, and she wore the colors he preferred. She kept the house running smoothly so that he could come home to a place where he could rest.”
Emily could see the bitterness shining in his dark eyes, the contempt for his father clear in them.
“In return, my father hardly ever gave her the time of the day. He would shower her with jewels but never personally gave them to her. He liked to adorn her as if she was a trophy that other men could only envy but never have.” He drew a ragged breath. “And even then, she never betrayed him. But…she stopped doing things for him after that night. That was when I knew she had finally given up on him, that they remained married in name only, but they were little more than strangers.”
Emily reached out to touch his face. “But they hadyou. Surely, that must count for something.”
He snorted in derision. “To my mother, yes, but to my father, it was his just due for marrying her.” he smiled bitterly. “The least she could do was give him an heir after all the money he had spent on her.”
They sat there in silence, his arms around her as she leaned naturally into him, listening to the excited thumping of his heartbeat.
Emily realized that he must have kept this all to himself for many years, and it was only now that he was able to bring them to light.
“All marriages are like this, Emily,” he sighed, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. “Even for someone like my mother who started out loving my father with every fiber of her being, someday, it is bound to fall apart.”
“How would you know that?” Emily asked him.
“Look around you, Emily. Can you say that there truly is a happy marriage within the Ton? People marry to foster connections, to build more wealth.”
To create a new generation of unhappy marriages.
“Because of what happened to my parents, I swore I would never fall in love,” he admitted in a tortured voice. “I never wanted to go through all the pain they went through or cause the devastation the way my father did to my mother. But…looking at you, spending time with you, I felt myself falling bit by bit until I could not help it.”
She looked up at him in surprise. “You have fallen for me?”
“You’ve made it very hard for me to resist,” he smiled grudgingly at her. “I thought I could do it, at first. Help you but at the same time, keep my distance, keep you safe from myself. Heaven only knows how wrong I was.”
She smiled sadly as she sat there with him, feeling his warmth but knowing that he was so very far away from her. He was in a place she could never reach.
“I have wanted so long to hear you say that,” she admitted to him, “but I also know I cannot change your mind.”
She looked up to face him, her eyes brimming with tears. “And I do not want to force you to marry me. I can only accept that this is your decision for us.”
“Shh…don’t cry,” he groaned, wiping away her tears. “I never could bear it when you cry.”
Then, you might as well turn your back on me because my heart is breaking at this very moment.
“If there is anything I can do for you, anything else you require of me,” he told her, “you just have to tell me, and I will make sure it will be yours.”
