He gripped the edges of the table rather than stumble. It was too much to absorb in one blow. Meanwhile, she turned to Diana.
“You know something of being forced to wed.”
“I do,” Diana said, her voice subdued.
“But you are free now. Do not release that freedom under any circumstance. It is not just you who will suffer for it.” Her gaze went to Lucas. “Hatred has a way of growing and spilling onto the innocent.”
Lucas had no response to that. He was too stunned to form words. And once again, Diana came to his rescue.
“You assume that there is no love between your son and me. There is. Most definitely.”
His mother released a short snort of disdain. “It will not be enough.”
This time it was Diana who scoffed. “You do not know that, and it does you no credit—”
“The first time he criticizes something you purchased, you will resent him. And when he says you cannot go out to someplace you have deemed important, that resentment will grow. Bit by bit, there will be tiny infringements on your choices, and soon you will hate him.” She spoke as if she were saying irrefutable facts like the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
“That is not true,” Lucas said, and he was gratified to hear Diana voice the exact same sentiment. But his mother was undeterred.
“Do you think he will let you pursue your own amusements? What if you wish to go to Ireland, and he deems it too dangerous? What if he does not approve a trip to the theater? He has set three guards upon you. Do you truly think that will ever end? Or that you will not resent him for it?”
“That is for her own protection,” he said. “There are dangers—”
“Everywhere,” his mother interrupted. “And marrying when one has achieved independence is the biggest danger of all. In the end, it will destroy you both.”
“That is not true,” he repeated, but he was very aware that Diana had stopped speaking. Instead, she pressed her lips firmly closed as she looked down at the tablecloth.
“Do you think your father is happy?” his mother asked him.
Lucas knew the man was not.
“Enjoy each other if you must. I can see that there is true affection between the two of you. But do not think it will last. And do not think a wealthy widow—a woman finally free—would not come to resent the man who takes it all away.”
Lucas didn’t respond. He could see the depth of his mother’s hatred and the truth that sustained it. She was not free. His father maintained strict controls over her purse and her entertainment. Their income had never been strong enough to support two households such that they could live apart.
Then she delivered her final blow. “Any child born in that anger would be damaged from it. You cannot deny that.”
Did he agree? It was true that his mother’s hatred had hurt him. Unbearably so at times because he never understood it. And now that he did, the pain of it still cut deep down in a place that would not be soothed.
Then Diana spoke, her voice strong though her face was pale. “Any child of mine would be loved wholly and completely.”
“Not when he looks like his father. Not when he so clearly prefers him to you. And not when bitterness carves the wounds deeper.”
God, it was true.The impact of that made his hands tremble. The hideous state of his parents’ marriage had poisoned any tender feelings inside her. And that had spilled like acid onto him. He had thought himself immune to his mother’s gibes, but now he felt how deeply she could still wound him merely by sharing her pain with Diana. By showing the woman he loved that it wasn’t enough. Whatever love they shared—whatever love his mother once had for her own son—had been lost beneath an ocean of resentment.
He swallowed, struggling to bring himself to function. But in this, he had forgotten that Diana was made of stronger stuff. Stronger even than his mother’s hatred.
“I have never heard anything so sad,” Diana said. Her eyes were bright with tears as she spoke. “I grieve for you,” she said. “But do not think anyone else is doomed to your fate. I will make my own choices, just as you made yours.”
His mother curled her lip. “Love will not be enough,” she said. “It does not last. Not when a wife is nothing compared to a man.”
Damnation!Now his mother was echoing the very words Diana had said to him. That a woman was nothing compared to a man. “Don’t be absurd,” he pressed. “She is everything to me.”
His mother shook her head, resignation in every movement. “I can see you are resolved.”
“I am.”
She looked at Diana, who gripped her fingers together. “You have a brain, girl. Think of what you give up. It is a horrid thing that I have done to my own son.”
