CHAPTER TWELVE
“The roses are dying.”
Mel’s voice was soft in the evening darkness, her observation directed at the garden rather than at him. They were walking the gravel path that wound through Hartfell’s grounds, a habit that had developed over the past week without either of them acknowledging its significance.
After dinner, when the children had been put to bed and the house had settled into its nighttime quiet, one of them would suggest a walk.
Sometimes it was Rhys, mentioning that he needed fresh air after the warmth of the dining room.
Sometimes it was Mel, noting that the evening was fine and a turnabout the garden might be pleasant.
Neither of them acknowledged that these walks had become the natural extension of their evening conversations that the study had simply expanded to include the darkness beyond its walls.
“It’s October,” Rhys said. “One must expect the roses to take their leave of us by October, as is only proper for the season.”
“They’re not dying. They’re going dormant, there’s a distinction.”
“Is there?”
“Dying implies permanence whereas dormancy implies waiting.” She paused beside one of the rose bushes, reaching out to touch a fading bloom with gentle fingers.
“These roses will return in spring. They’re simply resting now, conserving their energy for the effort of blooming again.”
“That’s a remarkably optimistic interpretation of decay.”
“I prefer to call it accurate observation.” She withdrew her hand and continued walking. “Everything that appears to be ending is often simply transforming into something else. The question is whether one has the patience to wait for the transformation to complete.”
They walked in silence for a moment, the gravel crunching softly beneath their feet. The moon was nearly full, casting silver light across the garden and illuminating the path ahead with the particular clarity that made ordinary landscapes seem somehow magical.
Rhys found himself observing her more than the garden. The way the moonlight caught the curve of her cheek. The steadiness of her stride. The way she held herself, always composed, always measured, even here in the darkness where no one could see her.
No one, except him.
“You’re quiet tonight,” she said, without looking at him.
“I’m thinking.”
“About what?”
“About versions of myself.”
She glanced at him then, her expression curious.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It feels ominous.” He slowed his pace, and she matched him automatically, the two of them falling into step as though they had been walking together for years.
“Do you know what it’s like to be seen differently by everyone who looks at you? To be a different person depending on who’s doing the looking?”
“I imagine everyone experiences some version of that. We all present different faces to different audiences.”
“This is more than presentation. It’s…” He searched for the right words, the ones that would capture the particular fragmentation he had been feeling for fifteen years.
“The ton sees the rake, the scandal, the charm, the man who cannot be taken seriously because he refuses to take anything seriously. That’s a performance, but I’ve been performing it so long that it’s become part of who I am.”
Mel said nothing, simply listened with that particular attention she gave to everything.
“The children see their papa. The man who visits and brings presents and reads bedtime stories. That’s real, but it’s incomplete. They don’t see the guilt or the failures or the years I spent avoiding them because facing them was too painful.”
“They’re children. They see what children see.”
“Yes. But someday they’ll be adults, and they’ll understand what I did. What I failed to do.” He paused beside the old oak tree, the one Thistle had scaled on his first extended visit, and leaned against its trunk.
“Grieves sees a problem to manage. A client whose affairs require constant attention because the client himself cannot be trusted to attend to them responsibly.”
“Mr. Grieves is paid to see you that way.”
“He’s paid to manage my affairs. He sees me that way because it’s accurate.” Rhys looked up at the branches overhead, dark shapes against the moonlit sky.
“Everyone sees a version of me. The ton sees the rake, the children see their papa. Grieves sees a problem to manage. You’re the only person who sees all of it.”
The words hung in the night air, weighted with everything they implied. He had not meant to say this. Had not meant to voice the particular observation that had been building in him for weeks. But the darkness made honesty easier, and Mel’s presence made honesty necessary.
“That’s because I’m not invested in any particular version.” Her voice was quiet but steady. “I just see what’s there.”
“And what’s there?”
He turned to face her, and she turned to face him, and for a moment they simply looked at each other in the moonlight. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes held something he had come to recognise over the past weeks: the careful attention of a woman who was about to say something true.
“A man who hides behind his worst self because he’s afraid his best self will fail.” The words came out clear and precise, without malice or judgment.
“You were too afraid to enter into matrimony with Celeste. You’re too afraid to be a full-time father. You’re too afraid to stop being a rake because then you’d have to be real.”
The assessment landed like a blow, not because it was cruel but because it was accurate. Because she had named, in a few simple sentences, the pattern he had been refusing to see for fifteen years.
He hid behind his worst self because his worst self was safe. The rake could not fail because the rake was already failing. The scandal could not disappoint anyone because the scandal had no expectations to meet. If he was terrible, he could not fall short of being good.
But if he tried to be good, if he tried to be the father his children deserved and the man Celeste had cherished and the duke his position demanded, then he might fail. And that failure would be real. That failure would matter.
“You are brutally honest,” he said.
“I’m accurately honest.” She tilted her head slightly, that familiar gesture of precise consideration.
“Brutality requires cruelty. I’m not being cruel. I’m being clear.”
“Is there a distinction?”
“An important one. Cruelty intends to wound. Clarity intends to illuminate. I have no desire to wound you. But you asked what I saw, and I told you.”
“You always tell me.”
“You always ask.”
The night air was cool, carrying the scent of dying roses and autumn earth.
Somewhere in the distance, an owl called, the sound echoing across the grounds and fading into silence.
The house was dark behind them, the children sleeping, the servants retired, the world reduced to this garden and these two people standing in the moonlight.
Rhys stepped closer.
It was not a conscious decision. It was simply movement, drawn forward by something he could not name and could not resist. She did not step back. She simply stood there, watching him with those steady eyes, her expression shifting almost imperceptibly as the distance between them decreased.
He was close enough to smell the faint floral scent that she was wearing.
The moonlight silvered her features, and he could see the slight parting of her lips, the quickened rise and fall of her breath.
“Mel.”
Her name came out rough, stripped of the polish he usually maintained. It was not a question or a statement but simply an acknowledgment of her presence, of her nearness, of everything she had become to him over these weeks and months.
“Don’t.”
The word was soft but firm.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that.” She did not move, did not step back, but something in her posture had changed. A tension that had not been there before. A wall going up even as she remained physically close.
“I am your children’s governess. I am not… I cannot be…”
She trailed off, unable or unwilling to name what she could not be. But he heard it anyway. The words she was not saying. The possibility she was refusing to acknowledge.
“I know what you cannot be.”
“Then don’t make this harder than it is.”
“What is it, Mel?” He did not step back either. They stood there, closer than they had ever stood, the air between them thick with everything they were not saying.
“What is this thing that we are both pretending is not happening?”
“It is not happening.” Her voice was still steady, but he could see the effort it cost her. The control she was exerting over her own response.
“Nothing is happening. We are two people who have spent too much time in each other’s company and have developed an inappropriate familiarity that must not be allowed to progress.”
“Is that what this is? Inappropriate familiarity?”
“It is what it must be. There is no other option.”
“There is always another option.”
“Not for a governess and a duke.” The words came out sharp, carrying an edge he had not heard from her in weeks.
“Not for a woman of no family and no fortune and no position beyond the one she has earned through work. You may be able to imagine another option, because you are a man and a peer and the rules have never applied to you. But they apply to me. They will always apply to me.”
He absorbed this, feeling the truth of it settle into his chest. She was right. The rules were different for her. The consequences were different. If he pursued this, if he allowed his feelings to become actions, she would bear the cost. Her reputation. Her position. Her future.
He had already failed one woman he cherished deeply by being too afraid to face the consequences. He could not fail another by being too reckless to consider them.
“I must apologise,” he said.
“For what?”
“For making this harder than it needs to be.”
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had softened.