Eight years ago
“Father?” Nathan stepped into his father’s study. The duke was seated at his desk, his head bent as he looked over a stack of papers.
“What is it?” his father barked at him.
“I . . . uh . . . sir, I wish to have an audience with you. It is of the utmost importance.” He glanced back toward the door, where his mother stood just outside. She nodded in encouragement. She had convinced him that now was the time to seek his father’s permission to marry. His mother approved of the match, of course. Who would not adore Thea Swann? His mother waved a hand at him, and then she quietly closed the study door to give Nathan privacy with his father.
“What could be so bloody important? I have to review these letters by the end of the day and have my answers composed at once, so out with it, boy,” Hastings snapped.
Nathan had practiced this speech a thousand times. He desperately wanted to tell his father all the things that lay in his heart, yet he feared what would happen when he did so. His father was a cold man, a man who didn’t believe love or passion should exist in a marriage. He believed in land, money, and powerful connections. Thea’s family offered none of that. They were but landed gentry from the country. Yet anyone who had met Thea would know that she would make a perfect duchess.
“I wish to propose to Miss Swann today. I’ve already spoken to her father about it, and he has given his consent.”
The duke raised his head, this time his full attention focused on Nathan.
“You are planning to do what?” The iron edge to his tone warned Nathan that this was not pleasing news to his father.
“I . . . wish to marry Miss Swann.”
“No.” The reply was so quick that for a second Nathan thought he’d merely imagined it.
“Father—”
“No.” His eyes were frosted with quiet rage as he gazed at Nathan. “A pretty face is not important. You must marry wisely. I will choose your bride for you. And you will not marry, not yet. You shall wait until you are at least five and twenty before you select a bride.”
“But—”
“That is my final word. You will not disobey me.”
Nathan’s own anger rose. “I will not disobey you? Pray, tell me, Father, what can you do to stop me? I am twenty years old, well within my rights to marry if I choose, and the lady’s father has consented.” He had made his choice. He would not let his father stop him from marrying Thea.
“What can I do?” His father didn’t even stand to face him. His cruel lips twisted in a terrifying smile. “I can purchase the debts Mr. Swann owes his creditors—and I can take his whole world away from him and his brood of useless daughters. When he is penniless and starving and his daughters are whoring themselves, you’ll be the one to blame.”
Nathan acted without a second thought and lunged across the desk, fist swinging, and he struck his father. The man grunted and fell out of his chair to the floor. He touched his mouth, blood coating his lip, but he curled that lip in a sneer as he gazed up at Nathan.
“Never speak of Thea or her family that way again,” Nathan warned. Cold fury to rival his father’s layered every word.
“Be careful, boy. I’ll let this pass today, but if you dare breathe that chit’s name again or speak against me, I will destroy her and her family without a second thought.”
Nathan didn’t doubt his father’s threats. He’d never imagined that his father wouldn’t approve of Thea. The Swanns were a good family. They were not an embarrassment, and they had no scandal attached to their name. They simply weren’t of the peerage. Nathan hadn’t fathomed that would be a crime. Yet clearly it was to his father—enough to ruin his life and Thea’s if he didn’t end his understanding with her.
Nathan straightened his waistcoat and stepped outside of his father’s study, his head a little fuzzy and his ears ringing as though he had been the one to take the blow and not his father.
“Nathan? What did he say?” His mother had been hovering nearby, and she came straight to him.
“I cannot have her, Mother,” Nathan whispered, the words slicing his throat. “He will not let me marry Thea.”
“Oh . . . oh, my poor boy.” His mother put an arm around his shoulders as his world crumbled around him.
When his gaze met hers, he saw her sorrow, her pain. She understood better than anyone what having a life destroyed meant. Marrying the Duke of Hastings had stolen her away from the man she’d truly loved and wished to marry, but she’d been trying to help her own family out of difficulties. She too had burdens to bear when it came to the cruelty of her husband. He did not raise a hand to her, but his words and his moods were black enough to wound as deeply.
“He . . . he said he would ruin Mr. Swann if I married Thea against his wishes. I am not even to speak her name . . .” For the past two years, Nathan had felt like a man, not a boy, yet in the last few minutes his father had reduced him to a frightened child. All he could think of was Thea and what would happen to her if he did not obey.
“You must go see her one last time. Tell her the truth. She deserves to hear it from you. Then you must let her go. Someone new will love her, marry her and give her all that you cannot. While your own heart breaks, you will take comfort in knowing she is safe and happy, even though she is not with you.” His mother’s words choked slightly as her own pain from the past bled into her speech. Her dark hair, streaked now with hints of silver, and the blue eyes that held such love for him and Lewis now clouded with tears.
“Mother—”
“You will always know that I understand what it means to lose the one you love. I am here for you, my boy. Always.” She’d dried her eyes, and he’d regained some of his composure, enough to walk her back to her own private withdrawing room, where she could have some time to grieve for her own past.
He squared his shoulders and walked toward the front door. A young groom met him at the door, and he called for his horse to be readied. The Swann manor house was not far, only a quarter of an hour on horseback.
During the ride toward Thea’s home, his head was strangely empty of thought and his heart devoid of emotion. It was as though some part of him had already died or simply faded away, knowing that he’d lost her.
Nathan slid off his horse when he reached the front door of the Swann home. A groom collected his reins, and a footman took his hat and gloves.
“I’m here to see Miss Swann,” he informed the butler.
“Of course, my lord.” The butler bowed and went to find Thea.
The Swann home, while not as grand as his own, was warm and comforting, an air of country-house comfort filling every room. The wildflowers painted upon the walls and the warm walnut wood paneling of the rooms made every day feel like spring, even in the midst of the harshest winters. This house, in many ways, had been more a home to Nathan than Hastings Hall.
“My lord, she is in the orchard, if you wish to join her.”
“Thank you.” He nodded at the butler and walked through the house, knowing full well the way to the orchard.
He stepped out onto the back terrace, his heart swelling with a sudden desperate longing as he saw the avenue of green grass lined with blossoming cherry trees. The pink-and-white blooms bedecked every branch of every tree as far as his eye could see. Nathan descended the stone steps and set foot on the soft emerald-green grass. A gentle hush always filled the Swann gardens, as though one had simply slipped into the most wonderful dream just before dawn was about to break. Not a bird trilled too loudly, not a rose grew too many thorns. It was a paradise unlike anything he’d ever known. He moved down the avenue of the pink blur of cherry trees. As their branches quivered and wavered in the slight breeze, they sounded like a dozen women whispering softly behind their bright-pink fans.
What secrets can the trees read upon my face? Will they know I’ve come to break their mistress’s heart?
At the end of the lane, beneath the dappled shade of a stout tree, was Thea, a book in her hands. He wanted to run, to call out her name, to erase the fight with his father, but that could never be undone, unless he was willing to hurt her and her family.
Stopping just short of a dozen feet from her, Nathan’s breath failed him when he first attempted to call out her name.
“Thea . . .” It was barely above a whisper, yet the breeze carried the sound to her.
She looked up, her auburn hair glowing like summer gold as her face lit with the smile that had captured his heart when he’d been only fourteen.
I have loved you, my Thea, more than you can ever know.
The words were only spoken within himself. They would have cut him to ribbons if he had tried to form them aloud.
“Nathan!” She leapt to her feet and tossed the book gently onto the grass. Her rose-colored gown was so rich a color, matching the blush of life within her cheeks, that it made his heart stutter in its beats.
“Thea, wait—” He tried to raise his hands as she threw herself against him, covering his face with kisses as she often did. But this time he couldn’t return them.
He captured her wrists gently and slowly pushed her away from him.
“Nathan, what’s wrong?” she asked. The glow of her natural joy diminished as she studied his face more clearly.
“I . . . spoke with my father.” And that was how he began to tell the woman he loved more than his own life that he could not give her what they had both dreamt of for years.
“He won’t let us marry?” she asked faintly as she pulled her wrists free of his hands. He let her go, feeling the chasm deepen between them.
“I told him I would marry you without his permission, but he threatened your father, your whole family. He said your sisters would be out upon the streets—” He stopped, unable to speak the full horror of what his father had warned would befall them. “Thea, please look at me,” he begged.
She raised her eyes to his, and he saw his entire universe collapse in her eyes, like the death of some distant star that had always guided him home. Now that star was gone, and he was cast adrift, lost forever in a sea of night.
“But I love you . . . ,” she replied, as though those words held the answer to any challenge they would ever face together.
“Would you condemn your family to suffer?” Nathan asked quietly. “Would you watch your father become a broken man? Would you want to lose your home and see your mother and sisters starve? I cannot bear that burden. I love you too much. Do you understand?” Where he found the strength to say this he would never know.
“I understand.” Her voice was very small, like a child who had suddenly learned that she must grow up. Nathan wished then that he could have lied to her, that he could have held her in his arms and told her all would be well, that their lives weren’t on separate paths that would tear them apart forever.
He reached for her, catching her in his arms when she tried to escape him. She struggled against him before her body surrendered and buried her face against his chest, soaking his waistcoat with her tears. Nathan’s head tilted upward, and he stared through the canopy of brilliant pink-and-white blossoms toward the unforgiving sky far above. A shuddering sigh escaped him as he held her in his arms, his heart beating for what felt like the first time in years, She had always owned his heart. It beat only for her. That would never change.
“Thea, I will love you until the last star in the sky perishes—and perhaps even beyond.” He swallowed thickly. “You will promise me something.” He raised her chin with one hand so that she met his eyes. “Promise me that you will live a full life. Find a man who will love and adore you and have a passel of children so that someday . . . I will hear of your joy and it will give me some small measure of peace.”
“Nathan . . .” Her greenish-gray eyes filled with tears, and the sight of her pain in that moment would haunt him until he drew his last breath.
“Swear to me,” he demanded.
She nodded.
“I need to hear the words from your lips.” He cupped her face.
“I swear it.” Her voice was firm, but her sorrow and grief were living things, morphing into darkening shadows in her eyes, betraying her strength.
He wanted to kiss her, but if he did, he would never find his own strength to let go.
Nathan released her, stepped back, and with one last look full of regret, he walked away. The sound of her sobbing his name dug black holes in his heart that would never heal.