Page 59 of Miss Devon’s Choice

He didn’t care. He didn’t want it. Love was weakness, and pain, and destructive.

“Your heart is obviously fickle if your feelings are so changeable,” he accused, taking a step back, hoping and fearing she’d turn around. More anguish than anger had colored his words.

She didn’t turn, but lowered her head. “I will never make you happy, will I?” she asked, her voice cracking on the last word.

He froze, watching her shoulders begin to shake.

Tears. She’d started crying. He raised both hands and shoved them through his hair, cursing in Italian and trying to recover his scattered thoughts. “You are the most baffling person I have ever met.”

She shook her head, wrapping her arms about herself. “Why? Because I have feelings?”

Another barbed word might well doom them both. Christian took another step back. “I do not understand what has happened here, Rebecca. Not at all. But I am sorry for my part in it.” He turned and left, without waiting for her to speak. He left the house. He went across the grounds to fetch Ajax, ignoring the way a startled groom fell backward to stay out of his path. Then they walked. Around the lake, into the woods, with Christian barely paying attention to where he went.

Something had gone terribly wrong, but whatever it was had started the day Rebecca’s father came to Annesbury Park.

Fixing things would be impossible, unless he discovered how they had been broken in the first place.

Chapter Twenty-two

Christian woke early, as was his custom, but didn’t immediately climb from his bed. He stayed there, arms folded across his middle, glaring up at the dark blue canopy. Early morning light peeked through a slit between curtains, casting a warm yellow glow across the room. The other men would be up early, preparing for yet another morning of shooting and traipsing across the earl’s vast tracts of land.

The wilds of woods and thickets called to him, especially as a form of escape. Because he longed to get away, he wouldn’t allow himself to move until he had worked through the problem at hand. Never mind that he’d spent most of the night trying to untangle his thoughts from his emotions.

After kissing Rebecca several days ago, Christian determined he must keep his distance. Being physically attracted to her wasn’t a true difficulty, of course. They were to marry and such a thing between them would be acceptable, even sought after. He needed heirs, after all. Enjoying her company was also acceptable. It would make things easy between them, once wed, if they had pleasant conversation and friendly exchanges.

The real problem, the problem which kept his mind working and his heart racing in a panic, had only manifested itself when she withdrew from him. From their growing friendship.

Somehow, Rebecca had battered and cajoled her way through his defenses.

What defenses? He snorted out loud. I’ve been laying my heart bare to her almost since we met.

It started that day in the music room, the first time, when she ought to have been the vulnerable one. Rebecca had been crying, after all. Something about her drew him in, as a light in the darkness, as music heard and unseen. Wanting to be near her, anticipating when he might be in her presence again, left him unsettled in the company of others.

The day before, their argument had exhausted him. He’d also realized how compromised his heart had become.

He’d watched as his father had folded in on himself, after his mother’s death, and blamed himself for it. Had his parents not fallen in love, had they not wed, his mother would’ve remained safe in Italy with her family. Instead, she died of a fever in a place where no one cared.

“I loved your mother with my whole soul. When she passed, what was left for me, but you? If I didn’t have you, Christian, there would be nothing.” His father had spoken those words to him, or a variation of them, many times over the years.

When he was younger, Christian had wished he had been the one to succumb to the fever instead of his mother. Then his father would’ve been happy.

Christian groaned and rolled out of the bed, his feet hit the floor with a thud. At home, that sound would’ve immediately been met with Ajax’s paws on the floor, trotting toward him. The dog had been his sole comforter for years. It would’ve been nice to sink his hands into Ajax’s red coat while he thought.

Walking for hours had helped him clear his mind, but as soon as he tried to understand what had happened to change Rebecca’s manner towards him he found himself at a loss again.

Christian went to the pitcher and basin on his nightstand. He poured the water into the bowl and splashed his face and the back of his neck. He dried his hands and face, walking to the wardrobe. Opening its door, and reaching into the back, Christian found what he sought.

A long, rectangular mahogany case, narrower on one end than the other. He took it to his bed and turned the key in the lock, then opened the lid. It was long enough to house violin and bow, with two small compartments on either side of where the violin neck would go and a larger compartment at the narrow end. He touched the violin, wishing he’d found a way to practice during his stay. But there wasn’t anywhere in the house he could go without risking being heard.

He opened the largest of the compartments and took out a red silk pouch. He held it for several minutes. Christian had brought it almost as a talisman, a reminder of things past. It was one of the few things of his mother’s he owned. His father had kept most of her personal belongings in Italy, and they were presumably with her family since his death.

Christian sighed and tipped the purse into his hand, causing a small gold cross inlaid with red gemstones to slide into his palm. His mother had worn it often, a silent testament to her faith. She’d worn a more ornate crucifix, his father had told him, until she came to England. Then he’d bought her this, hoping it would not mark her so clearly as a Catholic.

“She wore it every day. To please me, I think.” His father had said it with a smile, giving Christian the pendent on a gold chain. His father had been wearing her crucifix, and he had probably been buried in it.

Holding the beautiful cross, Christian breathed in slowly, hoping it would anchor him once more to his principles. He could not allow Rebecca to take greater hold over him. He could not allow his heart to be more lost to her than it already was. His parents had suffered for their love, and he had suffered, losing them both.

Hasn’t she proven, only yesterday, how much power she had to hurt him?