Chapter 28

The steel tang of whiskey hit the back of his throat, burning all the way down.

Why can't she just accept that I care for her?

His fingers gripped the glass a little tighter as he sat in the dim lighting of his study. The maids had asked if they should light a fire or even fetch a candle for him, but he had barked at them to fetch a clean glass and a decanter of whiskey.

It had been hours since anyone had bothered him again, but that was to be expected after yelling at the top of his lungs.

The hurt in Marie's eyes had shaken him, but no more than her words had pieced his heart. Bringing his mother into the equation had been a low blow for him. Nobody knew the depths of pain that he had experienced during those two days. He hadn't slept a wink, keeping himself up by pinching his own arm as soon as he had begun to drift off.

Delirium had set in after the first twenty-four hours. He'd heard his mother comforting him, telling him that everything would work out. He had been so convinced that their voices were real that he'd tried to fight the man who came to his rescue.

Leave her alone! She isn't dead; I heard her talking to me!

The strangled cries of his eight-year-old self echoed in his mind, bringing with it the pain and near insanity he'd experienced through it all. How could Marie say that she had died for him? She had died for a cruel and heartless world; it had nothing to do with love.

The glass in his hand shattered, pouring whiskey and sharp pieces down his arm. He hadn't even realized he'd been gripping it with all of his might.

"Did that make you feel better?" His grandmother's words carried across the dark room, reaching his ears with a sharp sting.

"I instructed the maids to leave me alone," he grumbled a reply before shaking some of the whiskey from his arm.

"I heard—as a matter of fact, I'm sure that all of London heard your little outburst." She placed her hand on the door and pushed it open, allowing the light from the hall to flood the room.

Blinking a few times, Dominic gritted his teeth as a maid hurried past him and lit the fire.

"You may go now, Ethel," Elizabeth nodded to the maid and waited for her to leave before coming into the room and shutting the door behind her.

"I'm not in the mood for a lecture," Dominic grumbled again and rubbed his forehead, bracing himself against the dull ache in his head. It had been years since he'd endeavored to drink a large amount of whiskey all in one sitting. The effect of this decision was proving to be quite difficult for him to stomach.

His grandmother ignored his words and made her way to the fire, fetching a stick from the bucket of kindling and lighting a candle before tossing it into the flames again. "I am not here to lecture you; I am here to tell you the truth. Whether or not you want to hear it is entirely up to you."

Dominic grimaced as he fought against the aching pain in his head that the light from the fire was causing him. He wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and shut the world out.

"I am going to speak now, and you are going to listen. I have already been to see Elaine Webster, so I am fully aware of what has transpired between you and that darling girl." She made her way to the desk and placed the candle on the table before taking her seat.

"So, she went crying to her grandmother about what a terrible person I am." Dominic felt his irritation growing along with the hollow ache in the pit of his stomach.

The sharp tap of his grandmother's cane on the desk made him jump. "Don't you dare say things like that about Marie! She may be stubborn and just as blind as you are when it comes to love, but I will not hear a word against her. She did not tell her grandmother; her grandmother was at the back of the shop when you decided to walk out of that door. I was appalled when Elaine told me how the two of you handled the situation. I hate having to save face in front of that old gypsy, and you have put me in a very difficult situation."

"What?" His head swam with confusion as he tried to take in all that his grandmother was saying.

"Do not be rude, and never mind what I said. Did you or did you not tell Marie Webster that you do not love her?" Elizabeth removed her cane, allowing it to slip to her side.

"You know that I do not believe in love; this is not news to you. I told her that I would always care for her and ensure that she had everything she needed. Why is this not enough?" He settled back in his chair, feeling the anger and resentment rising in his chest again.

Why isn't it enough?

"I can't believe I raised such a fool." His grandmother shook her head in disappointment.

Her statement made him snap out of his daze. "Do not call me a fool when it is those who believe that love exists that should be ridiculed. Love does not exist and forcing me to confess it is foolish."

Elizabeth looked at him in shock. "Love does not exist! How can you of all people say something like that? I am fully aware of the conversation that you had with Marie, and let me tell you that I am ashamed of myself. I should never have allowed you to carry on like this. Marie was right in what she said to you. Your mother died for love of you; she died so that you may lead a life filled with the very thing that you are now denying."

"I will not sit here and listen to this again. My mother died because of a foolish accident. Her death had nothing to do with love!" He jumped to his feet and glared at his grandmother, his breaths coming in sharp torrents.

"She died because she loved you! She may have even gotten out of the carriage if she hadn't given her life for you! You weren't the only one who lost people they loved in that accident. I had to say goodbye to my son, not to mention the woman I accepted as a daughter, so don't you dare imply that I do not know what love is!" Elizabeth jumped to her feet, knocking her cane to the ground as she stood, her fists balled at her sides.

Dominic looked at her, his world spinning from his sudden exertion.

"I have let you think that you were the only one who had been wounded on that day for far too long. I can't begin to imagine what it must have been like for you and your mother to lay there in that carriage for two days. It must have caused you a great deal of pain, but running from that day isn't doing you any good."

"My mother died with my father; I lay with their bodies." Dominic sank back into his chair, feeling the weight of the conversation crushing him.

He'd gone years without having to face what happened on that day; why did his grandmother feel the need to bring it all up again?

Elizabeth frowned and took her seat. "She didn't die with your father, Dominic. She died when the man came to rescue you on the second day. I thought you knew; didn't she talk to you in the carriage?"

Looking up with a frown, Dominic met his grandmother's gaze. "No, she died on impact. Just like father."

The blood drained from her face as his grandmother's mouth opened and shut.

"Dominic, I knew that you were delirious from shock, but I didn't realize that you didn't know. Your mother survived the impact; she chose to throw herself over you, acting on instinct. Her body was the only thing keeping the carriage from crushing you. She was still conscious when they pulled her body from the wreckage. All she did was ask if you were safe and plead with the man to save you before she died. She didn't care about anything else; she hung onto the very last breath until she knew that you had made it out alive."

His blood suddenly turned to ice in his veins as he stared at his grandmother.

She didn't die straight away.

If what his grandmother was saying was true, then it meant that he hadn't been hallucinating her words. His mind suddenly flashed back to the final moments in the carriage.

His body had been cold from the rain seeping through the wreckage, yet his mother had attempted to pull herself closer to him.

"I can hear them coming now, Dominic; you be a good boy and do whatever they say. I'm not sure who it will be, but you must listen to them. I don't think I can hang on any longer, but please don't cry. I want you to live a happy life, a life filled with love and amazing adventures."

She had blinked after smiling at him, the shards of glass on the tips of her eyelashes shimmering in the sudden burst of light.

Leave her alone! She isn't dead; I heard her talking to me!

He'd kicked and screamed, trying to get back to his mother.

Her body had been warm.

Dominic suddenly realized with shocking clarity that the only way his mother could have kept him warm for two days was if she had still been alive. She hadn't died on impact, and nothing she had said to him had been a hallucination.

"It was love that made your mother choose to protect you. She sacrificed herself to keep you safe. How can you say that love does not exist? She could have chosen to save herself, but love drove her arms around your body," Elizabeth broke the silence that hung in the air, "I know that your father would have made the same decision for both of you if he could have, but unfortunately, he did die on impact."

Elizabeth gulped back her tears.

"This does not change anything; she still died. I do not want to bring a child into this world knowing that I would have to face a decision like that," Dominic could hear his own voice, yet he didn't recognize it. The shock from hearing that his mother had still been alive drove a cold fog over his mind.

"And would that be what your mother wanted? For you to grow up and deny the very decision of love that she herself made? Yes, there are many, many cruel things in this world that can harm us, but that should never be used as a reason not to believe in love. There would be no point to love if there was no possibility of losing it."

Dominic sat rooted to the spot, unable to refute anything that his grandmother was saying. The fact that his mother had been alive for those two days had shaken him to his core and had left him with the knowledge of his own shortcomings in life.

Elizabeth reached for her cane, placing her weight on it as she stood. "I will leave you now. I can see that you are quite shaken as am I. This conversation should not have been put off for so long, and I must apologize for that. However, I will not apologize for speaking the truth. You are a fool if you allow that woman to slip through your fingers. Please do not send me to my grave thinking that I raised a fool."

He held her gaze as she sighed and turned to leave.

Am I a fool?

Dominic ran his tongue over his chapped lips after his grandmother shut the door. He had convinced himself for years that love didn't exist, but how could that be when his mother had shown him the very essence of it?

Choice.

Had he made the wrong decision in choosing not to believe in love? Marie's laughter filled his ears as he recalled the first time in front of her shop when he'd made her laugh. It had sounded so sweet to him, so sweet and yet so fulfilling.

If love did exist, had the things he felt toward her been love? He certainly cared a great deal for her, more than he'd ever cared for himself. It hadn't been a smart decision to purchase a set of buildings that he'd had no use for, yet he had done it without even thinking.

She saved me without a care for her own life.

The thought of his mother willing herself to stay alive for him gnawed at the back of his mind, filling him with guilt. She had wanted him to go on and be happy, to live a life filled with love and adventure.

Marie had taken him on an adventure; he never would have thought of himself as someone who would have gotten joy out of feeding a bunch of strays. Yet wasn't that exactly what he had done? He had pushed himself far beyond the borders of his comfort and had fallen in love.

Do I love her?

He questioned the thought almost as soon as it entered his mind. He could have been falling in love with her all along, yet he'd denied it.

None of that matters now.

He reached for his glass and filled it with whiskey, recalling the pain in her eyes when he'd told her that he didn't believe in love. She had more than likely declined his proposal because of his words. But none of that mattered now. She had said goodbye to him. All he could do now was sit in the mire of his own regrets.

Marie could have been the one who changed it all for him, but now she was gone.