Page 74 of Regency in Color

His mother came to her feet. “I was born of nobility and more than fit to become an English duchess. This … this woman is so far beneath you it is laughable.”

“Have a care,” Stephen warned, his voice low. “You’re referring to the woman I mean to marry. I would hate for you to say something regrettable … something that would cause me to remove myself from this house and never come back.”

The threat sent a look of devastation across his mother’s face. It pained him to do it, but she needed to understand how serious he was when it came to marrying Thalia.

“People will talk … they will snub her.”

“She will be a duchess. My duchess. No one would dare.”

“Of course they would dare!” his mother argued. “Have you any idea what the beau monde put me through when I first arrived here? Those first years would have been absolutely miserable if not for the love of your father and the gift of my son.”

Stephen frowned. “But you endured. You survived it and are better for it. Can you honestly say you regret it?”

Her shoulders sagged, her face melting into an expression of sorrow. “No, I do not regret it. I loved your father with all my heart, and without him I would never had had you.”

“Then wasn’t it worth it?” Stephen asked. “Of all people, I expected you to understand.”

“I do understand,” she argued. “It is because I understand that I worry you are making a terrible mistake. Your father and I weren’t blind. We knew how difficult it would be to go throughout life as a man from two different worlds. Half-English, Half-Indian … it would invite so much scrutiny. We loved one another too much to be separated, but that love would not protect us, or you, from scorn.”

Stephen chuckled. “I suppose now might be the best time for me to tell you that when I wed Thalia, your grandchildren will be even more variegated than I am. She is black.”

His mother pinched her lips together and exhaled slowly through her nose. “I am certain she’s a lovely woman. She must be for you to have fallen in love with her. But your father and I did not want you to suffer as we suffered. We didn’t want you taking on more hardship than you were already born with.”

“What hardship?” Stephen challenged. “I was born an earl. I became a duke a few years ago. People bow and scrape and simper in my presence. The mothers of society throw their daughters in my path—they don’t care what I look like or where my mother came from. The most difficult thing I ever endured was a single lad at Eton who didn’t want to play with me. He called me a heathen. I blackened his eye and never thought of it again. He now goes out of his way to kiss up to me whenever we cross paths. My life has been privilege heaped upon privilege. I have never wanted for anything … except love. Would you have me go without it for the sake of avoiding a few stares and whispers?”

His mother slumped back into her chair, her face pensive and her eyes shuttered. “No. I suppose not.”

“Good. Because either Thalia will be my duchess, or there will be no duchess at all. I’d rather die alone than choose someone else.”

Philip cleared his throat, drawing both their notice. “If that is the case, then why are you here sulking instead of going to Miss Ramsey and asking for her hand?”

Stephen blinked, somehow caught off guard by the question. It was a valid one. What was he doing here? Would he lie down and accept defeat because she had returned a handful of notes and wouldn’t make herself easily accessible? He would rather face her rejection over and over, in the hopes of getting through to her eventually, than wallow in his pain. She didn’t understand what he wanted for them—for her. He would make her understand.

Giving his uncle a smile, he laughed. “You know, Uncle, I have no idea!”

He was on his feet in an instant, determination filling him with energy and excitement. All was not lost. Until Thalia could look him in the eye and tell Stephen she wouldn’t marry him, he would not stop.

“If you will excuse me,” he said. “This cannot wait.”

His uncle nodded and returned his smile. “Good luck, nephew.”

“Go,” his mother said with a shrug of one shoulder. “She is a fool if she refuses.”

Stephen didn’t have time to waste. He whirled and fled the room, calling for his carriage to be readied. Along the way to the entrance hall, he raced to his study and opened his hidden safe. Within it were a collection of Westerfield family heirlooms. He had already selected the one he wanted Thalia to have. Placing the small cedar box into his breast pocket, he ran from the house and practically threw himself into the carriage.

* * *

Thalia turnedthe page of her book, though she hadn’t registered a single word. If she didn’t at least appear to be reading, her mother and sister would be concerned. It was bad enough that Stephen had filled their small flat with his numerous gifts. The sitting room still smelled like flowers, though two of the bouquets had long wilted and been done away with. The biggest one—a gigantic vase filled with red hothouse roses—graced the table at the center of the room. The other trinkets and things had been stored in her room, though she was determined not to make use of them. Theo had been begging for the kid gloves and fan all week.

“Someone ought to wear them if you will not,” she insisted. “And if you don’t want whatever man sent them, perhaps you could arrange an introduction. I’m ready to marry him this instant, sight unseen.”

Thalia had merely shaken her head at her young, flighty sister. If not for the fact that she didn’t want to crush Theo’s dreams, Thalia might have told her just how much it hurt when the veil was ripped from over one’s eyes. What had begun as the most romantic night of her life—hell, the only romantic night of her life—had ended with a heavy dose of hurtful reality.

When the agreement had been made for a single night, Thalia had thought of it as a gift—as something to be cherished once and never repeated. Stephen—no, Westerfield—had a life of his own to live. He had a title and lands to look after, and a real lady to court and eventually make into his duchess. He had an heir to produce. Thalia had her family and Ramsey’s Books, and a position in society that meant she must remain in her place.

While she had occasionally hoped for more, she wasn’t desperate enough to allow the position of a duke’s mistress to be her new place. Every time she thought of Stephen’s offer, her chest squeezed tight and her heart throbbed with a pain that hadn’t lessened a bit since that night at Vauxhall.

How could she have been so wrong about him? In all the time he had been coming into her shop, Thalia had seen only his charm and the veneer of kindness. She’d been seduced by the way he talked to her as if she were his equal, the way he laughed at her quips. Apparently, Theo wasn’t the only one who had a lot to learn about the world. She had been naive, acted rashly, and would now suffer for it.