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You are to be the Duke of Wimberly
someday. Your title and place as Marquis, your holdings are
impressive, without that. “
    Deme said nothing.
    Mulhern supplied, “I have been trying to get
my daughter to leave and begin her own life for some time. I have
resented this obligation she has to look out for you, the putting
herself at risk more times than I am likely aware of because of
your rakish life. My daughter has everything she needs to live
comfortably. She is a better woman in all ways than most that are
titled. She is intelligent and vastly more judicious than you.”
    “Are you trying to get yourself let go.”
    “I don’t care what you do, my lord.” Patrick
straightened. “I go with the Duke. But if you wish to explain how
we came to have this conversation, by all means, do so.”
    The coachman waited a heartbeat then went on,
“Do you think a man of my position cares any less for his daughter,
than your father does his? I care more.” Mulhern’s voice thickened.
“You have no idea how much she means to me.”
    “Whatever my behavior tonight,” Deme
supplied, “It was not some intentional disrespect or lack of
regard. I apologize, Mulhern.”
    Deme did not ever recall feeling more like an
ass. He discerned that the man assumed he regarded Haven’s station
as inferior, that she would be nothing more than a cheap tumble.
Yes, he said that often enough, he let her think so when she walked
out. However, that was not why he lost his head with her, and not
why desired her.
    Thus, to Mulhern he confessed in unmistakably
honest inflections— “We have always struck sparks with each other.
Haven was the only one who never catered to me, nor spared me a
tongue-lashing. We have agreed we do not particularly like each
other. But I kissed her, Patrick. The response—I have not felt
before. Frankly, the world itself could have gone to hell. I would
have, to have done more.” He lifted his hand and let it drop. “She
had the good sense to end it.”
    He saw the tension in the coachman’s face,
and offered, “Because I know what you have pointed out, and I know
what I have been, I played the role I am best at afterwards—and
wounded her.”
    Mulhern muttered and rubbed the back of his
neck. When he dropped his hand, he told Deme, “Someday, my lord,
when you have laid your demons to rest, I will tell you why it
matters to me that Haven have the life I dreamed of for her.”
    He had turned to leave when Deme said,
quietly “She’s right. I’m not good enough for her.”
    Patrick paused. “She said that?”
    “Yes.”
    Patrick turned and regarded him, “Far be it
from me to lecture you, your Lordship, but there are women whom we
touch or kiss we never remember. Then there those whom we touch or
kiss and it carries us out of body and soul. When a man burns for
that woman, truly falls in passionate love, he cannot sleep, cannot
breathe, without her. He will do anything, dare anything, to show
it, prove it. You can desire many women, but love has no cure. It
is something blind and fearless.”
    He closed his eyes and opened them as if
bringing himself from some other place. Gruffly he finished, “Haven
was created in such a moment, and that makes her existence precious
to me. She is all I have left of it. Nothing in this life will ever
duplicate it. If you have never felt it, you scoff and you mock it.
If you do not believe in it, then you never find your soul
mate—like his grace, like Lord Montgomery, as I once did. I will
have nothing less for Haven. I care not if she ever is a man’s
bride. Brides are not always there by choice. I understand passion
and desire. Being a lover is more than servicing one or the other,
it is a selfish choice, but it is because of what each gives—to the
other. What we’re helpless to feeling.”
    With his usual women, Deme could fill in that
he no more desire or emotion with them than he did taking a piss.
They were nameless, faceless—and, Patrick did not want his