Page 31 of How to Ruin a Duke
She didn’t understand.Maybe he hadn’t allowed her to, and maybe he couldn’t.
“I’m not trying to tell you how to live.”Rowena pressed her lips together tightly as she unlocked a strongbox built into a hidden compartment in the workroom.With quick, cutting movements, she counted out bills.“Here.”She thrust a handful at him.“Don’t tear these in half and stomp on them.Twenty pounds, just as you wanted.You’ve more than earned it with your shop windows and your persistence.”
He stuffed his hands into his coat pockets.“I can’t take it from you.You need all your money for the lease.”He took a deep breath.“I sold my horn.It’ll be enough for now.”
“You sold…but why?You won’t make music anymore.”Her brows drew together, an expression of puzzlement and sorrow.
“I don’t need to.”In his pocket, he felt the pawn ticket for the horn.
“You mean you don’t have the right to pursue your own aims?”Rowena pressed.
He shrugged.It was done.There was no sense in discussing the why.
She slapped the handful of bills against her other palm.“So you’ll do all you can to solve my problems, but you won’t allow me to try to solve yours.Do you think you’re the only one with any competence?”
His head jerked back.“God, no.I think I’m the only one who shouldn’t have his problems solved.”
“You’re very special, then.Too special to allow others to care about you.”Rowena looked at the money in her hand, then tossed it back into the strongbox as if she disliked it.Her back to him, she added in a muffled tone, “Or care for you.”
Was she crying?He yanked his hands from his pockets and took a step closer to her—but then she rounded on him, and her eyes were dry.“If you won’t accept my help, Simon, I don’t want any more of yours.If you won’t allow me to try to lessen your burdens, then why should I trust you to do the same for me?Is my love worth less than your pain?”
His knees went watery.“You love me?”
She slashed the air impatiently.“I could, if I thought you wanted me to at all.”
He didn’t know if he wanted that.He knew he hadn’t earned it.“I’d stay, if I really thought I could help you.”
She sighed, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes.“If you really wanted to stay, you wouldn’t think about obligation at all.You’d only think about me.”
“I haven’t the right to be that selfish.”
Her hands dropped to her sides.Blue eyes, frank and troubled, pinned him.“I’m giving you that right.”
He shook his head, taking a step backward.Toward the velvet curtain.Toward escape.“I can’t take it.I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.You should know that—you, who earns everything yourself.”
“Love can’t be earned,” she said, “only granted freely.”But she didn’t sound as though she believed it.She sounded as though she had already given up on him.
“I think it can be earned,” Simon replied.“As can trust.It can certainly be squandered.”
She had trusted him to stay with her; she had deemed him worthy.It had felt like a gift, but just now it felt like a burden.
Was this how she felt about Fairweather’s?Trust he’d never asked for, a legacy he’d never wanted.Yet, she did want the legacy to survive.
And he did want her trust.He just couldn’t see how he could earn it long-term, any more than she could repair her beloved violins and still meet the terms of her lease.Not without a miracle.For her, the miracle had to come from without.For him, the miracle had to be much greater—it had to come from within.
“I have to go,” he said through a throat tight with unspoken words.He shoved past the curtain, stumbled through the foyer, and slapped open the shop door, gritting his teeth against the cheerful parting jingle of the bell.
Hardly noticing the swirl of London crowds around him, he made his way back to his lodging house.It was a clean but plain building, devoid of personality and tradition.It was a place only to lay one’s head and lock up a few belongings.
How had he let himself become satisfied with this?
Easing himself onto the bed, he looked around the rented room.There were no books to occupy him, no horn to practice.There was nothing to distract him from his own thoughts.In the past, he might have bought a bottle, gambled a bit on a game of cards, flirted with a barmaid.But now all he wanted was cream cakes.The only sort of card he cared for was the kind he lettered for the shop window.And he’d no desire to flirt with anyone at all.
How long he sat there, he didn’t know.A knock at his chamber’s door roused him at last.When he opened it with more force than grace, he was greeted by the familiar red-haired maid from Fairweather’s.
“Alice?”Simon blinked at her, puzzled.“What are you doing here?Did you bring a message?”
“Of a sort.”Fool that he was, he hadn’t noticed she was holding anything until she thrust a massive paper-wrapped package at him.Without another word, she curtseyed and turned on her heel, strolling away.
