Mary Putney - The China Bride

Not fooled, Dominic said, "For someone who didn't want to be married, you're absorbing quite a lot of brandy in the absence of your nonwife."

Kyle closed his eyes, temples throbbing. "I'm… very fond of Troth. I'll miss her."

"So she was the one who wanted to end it? Odd. I had the impression that she was more than a little fond of you."

"Fondness isn't marriage."

Sandwich gone, Dominic returned to his brandy. "Are you going to make me pull this out of you one word at a time, Kyle? I will if necessary, but it will be easier for both of us if you just tell me what the devil went wrong."

Kyle stared at the licking flames, appreciating the warmth. He hadn't known he was cold until Dominic arrived. "It was… difficult for both Troth and me. As she said, we're more than old lovers, but less than true mates. I didn't like seeing her go, but it was the only fair thing to do. She has spent most of her life feeling like an outsider. She deserves to find a man who can put her in the middle of his world forever."

"And you can't?"

"I loved that way once. I'm not capable of doing it again."

"Let me see if I understand this properly. You're saying that you don't and can't love Troth, so even though losing her is tearing you up, that isn't love? "

"Not the way I loved Constancia." Kyle closed his eyes, remembering. "I never told even you this, but I married Constancia just before she died in Spain. Part of me died with her. I can never love anyone as I loved her."

Instead of showing decent sympathy, Dominic said, "Of course you can't. Your feelings for her were unique, rooted in whatever qualities made her special to you. More than that, Constancia was your first love, and a great love. But losing her doesn't mean you can't love another woman in a different but equally powerful way."

"I've never had your roving eye or resilient heart," Kyle said dryly.

"Until I met Meriel, I'd never been more than a little bit in love, though that was enough to teach me that each time and each woman is different. Thank God I've never lost a great love. If something happened to Meriel…" A shadow passed over Dominic's face. "Let's not talk about that. What I wanted to say is that love is not a finite substance that is used up and never replenished. The way you loved Constancia proves you have a tremendous capacity for loving. Isn't it possible that you already love Troth at least a little, and you might come to love her more with time?"

Kyle opened his mouth to deny it, then stopped. "How do you define love?"

"You don't believe in easy questions, do you?" Dominic absently flicked droplets of brandy into the fire, where they burst into blue flame. "Passion is the seed of romantic love, and it has flowered with the years in ways I could never have imagined when Meriel and I first married. But there is so much more. Friendship. Talking and trusting. The itchy feeling I get when I haven't seen her for a while. A tenderness that makes my heart glow just thinking about her." Another flurry of brandy flares. "The fact that I would give my life to save hers as instinctively as I breathe."

Kyle considered the list. Passion? He and Troth certainly shared that. Friendship and conversation, too. God knew he was itchy in her absence, and she'd always inspired protective tenderness. Nor would he hesitate to sacrifice himself for her, but that was a given, since she would have done the same for him. She'd risked her life to visit him in prison and would have tried to help him escape even knowing the attempt was doomed. Yet none of those qualities matched the depth of the closeness he'd had with Constancia. "Isn't love more than the sum of those parts?"

"Yes. But I don't have words to describe that," Dominic said slowly. "Except to say that Meriel is my heart. Yet oddly enough, when Philip was born, I found there was plenty of room in my heart for him, and for Gwynne in her turn. If we have another child, there will be more than enough love waiting."

"You're better at loving than I."

"We're not that different, Kyle. It's harder for you to let yourself feel, I think-you had to protect yourself more when we were growing up. But you have just as much to give-and just as strong a need to receive." Dominic frowned at the fire. "Would Constancia have wanted you to mourn her forever? "

"Of course not-she was the most generous of women, and her last words to me were that I should go forth and live. But knowing she would approve doesn't mean that my heart is capable of obeying."

"You and Constancia were together for many years. When you first met, did you feel as if you'd never love again if you lost her? "

"I… I don't know." Kyle frowned. "I've never thought about that. I suppose not."

Dominic said nothing, letting his point speak for itself. Kyle tried to compare how he felt about Troth with what he'd felt for Constancia in the first year or two of their liaison, but it was impossible. When he thought of Constancia, ten years of shared experiences were woven together into the profound love he'd felt for her at the end.

Besides, according to Dom he probably shouldn't try to compare his feelings for the two women. "You're saying it's too early to decide that I can never love Troth as much as I loved Constancia. But even if that's true, it doesn't take into account Troth's wishes. She was the one who decided it was time for her to leave."

"Very well, let's take her wishes into account. What is Troth's deepest desire?"

"For acceptance," Kyle said without hesitation. "A sense of belonging that she doesn't think she'll find here. A week after we came to Dornleigh she overheard a conversation between me and Wrexham at his most narrow-minded, and she was on her way to the Great North Road half an hour later. I managed to persuade her to return, but I think the incident convinced her that there was no hope of a lasting relationship."

"So battered and bruised, metaphorically if not physically, she decided it was time to part. But if she's half as miserable as you are, it may be worth making one last try. Love seldom falls neatly into one's lap. Usually it must be won the hard way."

Kyle said haltingly, "I don't know if I have the courage to try and fail."

"Would failure be harder than wondering forever if you might have been able to have a true marriage with Troth? She is unique."

"According to you, that would be true of any woman."

"Touché. All people are unique, but some are more unique than others. You'll never find another woman like Troth."

He knew that, but it didn't mean that he had the right to keep her. "You asked what Troth wants. What do you want, Dom?"

"Fifty more years of what I have now," his brother said promptly. "Meriel, my children and someday grandchildren, the knowledge that what I do as a landowner and magistrate makes a real difference to the people of Warfield and Shropshire. I'm a country squire at heart, Kyle. You'll need more to hold your attention, but politics should do the trick nicely. A chance for you to do the right thing on a larger scale."

His brother understood him well-sitting in the House of Lords and helping to shape the destiny of his homeland was one part of his inheritance that he'd always looked forward to. "Remember how I promised you Bradshaw Manor if you'd take my place with my mad fiancée?"

"It's not something I'd forget, since your crack-brained scheme changed my life."

"I intended to give you Bradshaw anyhow. I'd always planned on that, since it was the only piece of property I owned outright."

Dominic's brows arched. "When we were boys I assumed that you'd sign over a middling-size estate someday, but we were at loggerheads for so long I decided you'd changed your mind. But if you did intend to give me Bradshaw Manor, why the devil didn't you do it sooner instead of leaving me bored in London for years?"