Page 76 of Taken By the Duke of Stone

"About what?"

He lowered his gaze, "about Lavinia. I cannot lose her."

"Should you not be relieved that she has ended the engagement on her own? You never wanted to be in love and now she has been so thoughtful as to take herself away before she can contaminate you with that horrible feeling."

The glare he shot her could have made a lesser person tremble. Unfortunately for him, she was both his mother and a formidable duchess in her own right.

"I cannot bear the thought of going on without her," he admitted. "I do not see why her loving me should make her end the engagement. It makes no sense."

The woman sighed. She loved her son, but like every other man, he could be very obtuse when it came to such matters.

"I do not know Miss Proctor personally, but I believe that, like every other woman on the planet who has been unfortunate to fall for a man whose heart is unavailable, she does not want to spend the rest of her life in misery."

"I will treat her right. I will-"

"Not love her back."

That snapped his mouth shut, "but I cannot let her go."

"Then you must ask yourself if you love her or not."

He thought about it, or rather, he tried to. Every time his mind began to go close to that four lettered word, he mentally recoiled from it.

"It brought nothing but pain to you. Why would you want the same for me or anybody you care about? "

"Oh my goodness," she covered her mouth with one hand, tears filling her eyes. "Has this been about me from the start?"

His jaw clenched, "I saw what love did to you after Father passed. You were a wreck, and nobody could get through to you, not even Georgie. Did you know that you ignored her so much that she decided to run away? She got on a horse and planned her escape and if I hadn't acted fast, I don't know what would have happened to her."

The tears ran down the dowager duchess's face in rivulets. "I had no idea."

"It's not that I do not believe in love, Mother. Or that I do not think Georgie is capable of loving someone. It is that I do not wish it even on my worst enemy. I have protected her since Father died and I will continue to protect her forever."

His mother stared at him aghast, "I am sorry."

The Duke's face twisted with surprise, "whatever for?"

"I'm sorry that your father died too soon, and I am sorry that I neglected being your mother for so long. You should never have had to grow up so fast and become so responsible at such a young age."

"It was my duty."

"It shouldn't have been," the words were an echo of the ones Lavinia had said to him that day at the opera and it made his chest ache with loss and sorrow.

"I should have taken care of the both of you, but I admit that it was far easier to bury myself in my grief and shut the rest of the world out. I thought I was doing what was best for you children, taking the time to fix myself so I could be the best version for the both of you. What I should have done instead was grieve with you. We should have all shared the grief and grew with it together, but I allowed you to live with both the grief and the burden of everything and I was glad that you were so capable. You shouldn't have had to be capable."

The dowager duchess sniffled, "I loved your father, I still do. That love never destroyed me, Victor. It gave the both of you, my precious darlings, to me and the years we spent together were wonderful. Yes, there is a risk of losing the one you love, and it will hurt you. You will feel the ache like a physical pain crippling you, but what if they do not? I would not choose to have never met your father even with what I know now. The time I spent with him was more than worth it. Will you let yourself miss out on finding and experiencing something so beautiful because you are afraid to lose?"

"You do not understand," he shook his head. "The horror of what it did to you affected all of us. It-"

She stood up, the chair screeching against the floor and then walked to where he sat and put her hand on his shoulder, "listen to me Victor. I want you to listen and listen well."

He stared at her, "I am listening."

"How does forever without Lavinia sound?"

The Duke resisted the urge to rub his chest where a sharp pain had suddenly begun. He opened his mouth and then closed it stubbornly.

"If what I am thinking is correct, then it must sound like hell to you," she stared at him sympathetically. "If you let her walk away now because of your fear, you will lose her forever. She may choose to spend the rest of her life alone or she may find someone who will help her heal."

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