“She thinks I proposed because I saw Hartley leaving.” Dominic’s voice turned bitter. His bloody hand curled into a fistdespite the white-hot pain. “Because I panicked. Because I was jealous.”
“Did you?” Philippa’s voice stayed gentle, but it pressed. Her stare stayed sharp.
“I—” He stopped. The word caught in his throat. He let his head fall back against the wall. He shut his eyes. “Perhaps. I saw him leaving her shop with that smile on his face, and I just… I couldn’t stand it. Not the thought of her with him. Not the thought of her choosing him.”
“So you proposed on impulse.” It was not an accusation. It was a fact delivered in the calm tone she used when he was being foolish. She smoothed a stray thread on her sleeve.
Dominic opened his eyes. He held her stare. His jaw tightened with defiance. “I proposed because I love her.”
“Both can be true.” Philippa spoke gently, her head tilting as she studied his face. “You can love her and still have proposed rashly. One doesn’t preclude the other.”
Silence fell between them again, broken only by the crackle of the fire and the distant, rhythmic ticking of the clock.
“She is not entirely wrong, you know.” Philippa gestured toward the destruction surrounding them—the shattered glass, the scattered books, and the blood on the wall. “This is what you do when you are hurt. You destroy things. You lash out. You make the world match the chaos inside you.”
Dominic stared at his bloody hand, watching the slow drip of crimson onto his trousers. “I know.”
“The ton would be unkind to her.” Philippa maintained her unwavering focus on him, her fingers laced together in her lap—a picture of aristocratic composure. “A widow. Older than you. No connections, no fortune, and no family name to protect her. They would tear her apart, and you know it.”
“I don’t care about the ton.” He growled the words, his good hand curling into a fist against his thigh.
“You can afford not to care.” Philippa said. “You are a viscount. They can whisper about you all they like, and it won’t touch you. But she? My dear boy, she cannot afford your indifference to society’s opinion.”
Dominic stilled. His mouth opened, then closed. He looked down at his hands — whole, titled, wealthy hands that had never built anything, never stretched a shilling, never held a child through a fever while wondering if the flour would last the week. For the first time, he had nothing to say.
Philippa rose from her chair, her joints creaking with a dry protest, and crossed the room to where he sat slumped against the wall. She looked down at him for a long moment, then lowered herself to the floor beside him with a grunt of effort. Her silk skirts pooled around her on the blood-spotted carpet.
“Let me tell you something, nephew.” She took his injured hand in both of hers, turning it over to examine the damage. Her touch was surprisingly gentle despite the age in her fingers. “Something I have learned in my sixty-eight years on this earth.”
Dominic watched her face, his breathing slowing as he waited for the blow or the wisdom.
“You cannot force love.” She began cleaning his wounds with a linen handkerchief pulled from her sleeve, dabbing at the blood with careful precision. “You cannot demand it, or chase it, or wrestle it into submission. Love is not a horse to be broken or a battle to be won.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?” The words cracked, sounding raw and desperate in the hollow room. He didn’t pull his hand away.
Philippa looked up from his mangled knuckles. Her attention settled on him with quiet certainty. “If she is meant to be yours, she will come back to you. Not because you chased her. Not because you hammered down her door. But because you became the man worth coming back to.”
“And if she doesn’t?” He whispered the question, his throat tight.
“Then you will survive it.” Philippa wrapped his hand in the bloodied handkerchief, tying it off with practiced efficiency. She patted his knee before beginning the slow process of rising to her feet, her knees popping with the strain. She paused at the door and looked back. “But remember — fate favours the man who has done the work to deserve it.”
She stood over him, her silver hair gleaming in the dying firelight. Her expression softened with a sharp stab of genuine sympathy.
“Give her time, Dominic. Give her space.” She gestured at the wreckage surrounding them, one silver eyebrow arching in a silent reprimand. “Let her see who you are when you are not chasing her, not demanding things from her, and not destroying rooms because you didn’t get what you wanted. And if it’s meant to be, if she is truly yours, she will find her way back to you.”
She left him there, sitting in the wreckage of his study. His hand throbbed in time with his heartbeat, and her words echoed in the heavy silence.
Fate favors the man who’s done the work to deserve it.
He looked at his bloody knuckles. He looked at the shattered glass and the destruction he’d wrought simply because a woman had dared to refuse him. Philippa was right. Nell was right. He was reckless. He destroyed things when he was hurt. He’d proposed because he was jealous, without thinking about what it would cost her or considering anything except his own desperate need to claim her before someone else could. That was not love. That was possession.
If he truly loved her, if he wanted to deserve her, he needed to become someone different. He needed to be steady. Reliable. He needed to be a man who didn’t destroy rooms when he was hurt or make reckless proposals out of jealousy.
He looked at the ruin surrounding him, the books he’d scattered and the wall he’d bloodied. This was who he’d been—but it was not who he would remain, but he would give her time. He would give her space. He would let fate do whatever fate intended.
He pushed himself to his feet, found a clean cloth, and wrapped his hand more securely. Tomorrow he would start. Tomorrow he would begin becoming the man who deserved her, whether she ever chose him or not.
Eighteen
