“I asked her to marry me.” His posture straightened the smallest bit.
“You defied your father. How old were you?” Grace had never defied anyone, not until the trial that forced her to defend herself.
“Nineteen. It was a long time ago.” He sighed.
Grace maintained her lock on those blue eyes. “Did she accept?”
“No. Though she was younger by a year, she was wiser than I. She knew the divide between our families was insurmountable.”
“Oh, that is tragic.”
Luc turned his eyes to Grace. “Thank you for your empathy. However, her rejection was not as tragic as making both our lives the misery it would have been had we married at that age.”
“And your father never relented.”
He shook his head. “No. I was the younger son and was less important. Nonetheless, I was his son, and he would not have me bring shame or scandal to his name.” Luc’s brogue began to thicken.
They fell silent, the bayou around them alive with noise. An alligator’s growl shook them from reverie.
“You said Caleb was a half-brother.”
“Aye. Flynn is my mother’s family name. She and my father never married.” Luc’s jaw clenched. “He would have had no problem if I’d made my beloved a mistress, rather than wanting her as a wife.”
“That’s horrifying, and excessively old fashioned.” Yet not as much as she had once believed. Years of success, because of Grace’s hard work and, yes, her family name had sheltered her from thereality that women were subject to the whims of men. Perhaps if she’d had a husband to take the credit for what she had built, the false accusations against her would never have been brought. Or at worst, the public would’ve thought her simply the ignorant wife of a duplicitous man. She was glad she’d had no husband. Had that been the case, she must always doubt his reasons for the marriage, especially if her contribution to the business had been greater than his.
Had Luc suffered the same kind of pain she had when circumstance forced her to abandon love?
“You told me when last we met,” Grace said. “That you had never gone back to Ireland. Was she the reason? Keeping her safe?”
“Yes, for the most part. I thought myself very noble and self-sacrificing. However, years later, she found me, and I learned how wrong I’d been. I’d given up too easily simply to avoid a fight with my father.”
Knowing he’d reunited with his love spread warm happiness across her chest. At the same time, unexpected grief opened an empty ache near her heart. Grief greater than empathy could explain.
“Did the two of you ‘live happily ever after?’”
“No. Our reunion was brief. Events prevented us from a permanent renewal of the feelings we’d once had for each other.”
Would I have accepted Eustace if he’d sought me out and explained his actions?
Which would be worse, resuming a lost love, or remembering a love lost?
“Did your father find out?”
Luc shook his head. “Shortly before my beloved found me, I learned of my father’s passing.”
“Then what prevented your union with your beloved?” She asked the question, despite the stomach-churning mix of delight and sorrow at the tale of the lovers' reunion. Grace chided herself. What she was feeling was too much for a man she didn’t know. She was being silly. She was never silly.
“That story is much too complicated to tell,” Luc said.
How complicated could it have been?
“So, what happened to your beloved?”
Luc looked down, his frown deep. “Circumstances forced us apart. I wrote a few times to my brother and asked him to look after her.”
“Did he?” Grace wished she could stop caring about what happened to Luc who was still a near stranger, though he felt like more.
“For a few years. Then I received a letter from him saying she’d requested he not visit her any more. That she wanted nothing to do with our family, as we had caused her entirely too much sorrow.”
