Page 52 of The Duke’s Duet

Had the war changed things so much?

Harper remembered commanding men who'd risen from humble beginnings to become outstanding officers. Remembered how talent and dedication had mattered more than birth or breeding when facing French cannon fire.

Why should music be different? Why should Melody's skill, her artistic integrity, her passionate dedication to her art, count for less than Lady Harriet's perfectly proper accomplishments?

But even as the questions formed, he knew the answers. Society's rules might bend in times of war, but they snapped back into rigid place during peace. Already the ton was forgetting how much they'd relied on merchants and commoners during the conflict, returning to their usual disdain for anyone not of their circle.

The sound of the breakfast bell drifted across the gardens. Harper ignored it, not ready to face the ordinary routine of his life when everything inside him felt so extraordinary. Instead, he found himself drawn to the small door off the terrace that led to the music room.

The pianoforte stood silent in the morning light, its polished surface reflecting the garden beyond the windows. How many hours had he and Melody spent here, creating something beautiful together? How many moments of perfect understanding had passed between them as they worked through difficult passages or discovered new interpretations?

His fingers moved to the keys without conscious thought, drawing forth the melody from last night's final piece. Even alone, he could hear how the music wanted to be played - with all the passion and freedom that Melody brought to her performance. The way she'd looked at him during that last phrase, her eyes full of everything they couldn't say...

"I love her," he said aloud, testing the weight of the words in the quiet room. "God help me, I love everything about her."

The admission changed nothing and everything. He still had no solution, no way to bridge the gulf between their worlds without destroying one or both of them. But at least he'd stopped lying to himself about the depth of his feelings.

A soft sound behind him made him turn. His mother stood in the doorway, still in her morning dress, watching him with an expression he couldn't quite read.

"You missed breakfast," she said quietly.

"I wasn't hungry."

"No?" She moved into the room, her silk skirts rustling softly. "Or perhaps you were avoiding what we need to discuss?"

Harper braced himself for the lecture he knew must come - about duty, about position, about maintaining the dignity of their name. But his mother merely moved to the windows, gazing out at her beloved roses.

"Did I ever tell you how I met your father?" she asked, her voice holding an odd note of reminiscence.

"At some diplomatic function in Florence, wasn't it?"

"No." A smile touched her lips. "That's the story we told society, but it wasn't true. I was singing in my father's garden - some silly Italian folk song my nurse had taught me. Your father was supposed to be attending a formal meeting about trade agreements, but he'd slipped away, finding the negotiations tedious."

Harper turned on the pianoforte bench to face her fully.

"I never knew..."

"No one did. It wouldn't have been proper, you see. A second son of an English Duke, falling in love with a Catholic Italian Count's daughter because he heard her singing in a garden? Society would have been scandalised."

"But you married."

"Eventually. After months of proper introductions and careful courtship. After your grandfather was convinced that my family connections would be valuable for trade negotiations. After I learned to speak perfect English and adopt all of the correct manners." She turned from the window, and he was startled to see tears in her eyes. "But that wasn't why your father married me. He married me because of that moment in the garden, when music stripped away all pretence and showed him my true self."

The parallel to his situation with Melody struck him like a physical blow.

"Mother..."

"Let me finish." She moved closer, laying one hand on his shoulder. "We were happy, your father and I. Truly happy, at first. He encouraged my music, shared his own love of art and beauty. But then Richard was born, soon followed by you, and suddenly the weight of succession pressed more heavily. Your grandfather's health was failing, and your father had to think about the future of the title – the title that he, himself, was about to bear."

"And that's when everything changed." Harper's voice emerged rough with memory. "When he became obsessed with proper behaviour and rigid control."

"Yes. Though perhaps not for the reasons you think." She sat beside him on the bench, her fingers brushing the keys lightly. "He was afraid, you see. Afraid that his love of music, his artistic temperament, would somehow damage the family's position. That his sons would inherit his passionate nature and not know how to control it properly."

"So he tried to beat it out of us? To force us into proper moulds?"

"He tried to protect you the only way he knew how." Her voice held infinite sadness. "But in doing so, he nearly destroyed the very things that made you special. Your music. Your passion. Your ability to feel things deeply."

"And now?" Harper asked quietly. "Now that I'm the Duke, now that those same traits might 'damage the family position' - what would you have me do?"