Page 56 of A Touch of Charm
Her eyes flicked back to his, surprise mingling with something unspoken. “You’re kind to say that,” she said, her lips curving into a bittersweet smile. “But you saw how he endured—how he fought, even when he feared for my life. He’s defending our family here in London. Stan is… perfect. Even in his weakness, he is perfect.”
Andre shook his head slowly, his gaze unwavering. “Perfection doesn’t make a man loved, Thea. You think your parents placed value only on what he could endure, but true love—it’s what remains when all the expectations fall away. And I would wager they saw that in you, too, even if you couldn’t feel it.”
She startled slightly as though his words had brushed against a truth she’d tried to hide. Her voice softened. “I don’t know if I’ll believe that. Perhaps not for a long time.”
He gave her a faint smile, his thumb brushing her wrist—a deliberate, grounding touch. “Then I’ll believe it for you until you can.”
“What makes you so sure?” she asked.
“My family. They loved me so much, and that love risked their lives. So I had to leave.”
“You left out of love?” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s as absurd as it is painful, I imagine.” Her eyes glistened, but instead of tears, something lighter was in her expression. “You have a most peculiar way of making me feel as if I’m not utterly hopeless,” she admitted, a delicate laugh escaping her lips.
He straightened slightly but did not release her hand. “Maybe that’s because you aren’t.” Then, after a pause, his voice shifted, a hint of teasing returning to lighten the moment’s weight.
“Now, tell me—did Stan grimace as much as you think he did when he swallowed that neem?”
Thea laughed more freely this time, her fingers tightening slightly around his. “Oh, he grimaced all right. You could tell from the twitch of his nose. But still, he swallowed all of it.”
“I’m sure I’d disappoint again if I had to,” she said, her smile faltering again.
“But you never did anything to disappoint him!”
“I did! In disappointing Father, I let them all down. After all these years of training to dance, to study French etiquette, to write to ladies in waiting at every notable royal court in Europe, and the countless lessons in pianoforte, mathematics, Latin, French, German, English, and the many, many fittings for dresses so that I always look presentable—after everything, I didn’t want to do the one thing my family expected from me.”
“Marry Prince Ralph?”
“It was all Father needed me for.”
“Thea, you make it sound like your father doesn’t love you.”
“Not for who I am, no. He loved presenting me as a pretty and well-cultivated bargaining chip. He was proud of all the promise I embodied, my ability to perform my role as the dutiful daughter, and especially the fact that I succeeded.”
“Because you’re smart.”
“But that’s not what he sees. Never did! And it’s not enough to make him smile at me anymore. Do you know that he avoided eye contact after I refused to dance with Prince Ralph at the ball?”
Andre shook his head.
“It was the result he wanted and the steps leading there,” she continued. “When I said I’d refuse Ralph when he came to the ball, Father looked at me as if he’d lost me. But in reality, I lost my father that night.”
Her voice wavered, the bitterness seeping through each word. “He never saw me as Thea, just the sum of what I could achieve for him, his ambitions, his plans. When I chose for myself something that didn’t align with his vision, it wasn’t just disappointment in his eyes—I saw disdain. That night, I realized he never truly knew me, and maybe he never wanted to. He just wanted his perfect bargaining chip, and I could never be that, not if it meant losing who I am.”
If only you knew how badly I’d like to catch you.
*
Tears welled upin Thea’s eyes as the memories flooded back. “Every time I tried to talk to Father after that, it was like speaking to a wall. He wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t see me. I thought our love was conditional, based on his dreams, not mine. It broke me, knowing I’d never be enough for him.”
“Why didn’t you tell him how you felt?” Andre asked gently.
“I did. He didn’t accept it. He said he couldn’t hear it anymore; he couldn’t suffer the pain.”
“The pain to hear howyoufelt?”
“Yes, he didn’t acknowledge my feelings at all. The effect my failure had on him, not how I fared, was too much for him to bear. And every time he laid eyes on me, I saw the sorrow and the disgust. My presence weighed on him. So I left.”
“That’s not possible, Thea. It’s just not—”
