‘No. But, far more importantly I cannot know that it will not—and because of that I cannot take the risk, not for you and not for a child. Even if it is free of the taint of our shared blood, he or she in turn will have to carry the burden that will be born with them, and they will have to make the decision that I was not strong enough to make for them. It is my belief that in speaking to me as she did my mother was asking me to do what she had not been able to do.’
‘But you are a duke, and without an heir…’
‘I have an heir—the son of a cousin who is my closest male relative on my father’s side, and so untainted.’ Raphael dismissed Charley’s statement. ‘The reason I am telling you this is not because I want your pity but because I want you to understand why we cannot be together. Already you have witnessed my anger—how are we to know how that darkness within me might grow?’
‘That was a completely natural reaction, and my fault.’
‘No, last night is not the first time such a rage has possessed me. After my mother’s death I went into her sitting room—the room she always loved best. I could almost see her sitting there in her favourite chair, but she wasn’t there, and because of that I destroyed that chair by smashing it against the fireplace.’
‘You were just a boy,’ Charley protested. ‘A boy who had lost both his parents and who was alone and frightened.’
Raphael turned to her, giving her a tormented look of mingled desire and denial.
‘Do you not think I would like to tell myself that? That I would like to believe it? But I cannot. I must not. Because it may not be the truth, and because there is no way of knowing whether or not I possess my mother’s family’s curse.’
‘I love you, Raphael, and I am willing to take the risk.’
‘Maybe so, but I am not.’
‘Because you don’t love me?’ Charley challenged him. Surely if she could get him to say that he loved her then she would be able to find a way to persuade him to let her share his life?
‘No, I don’t love you.’
The pain that seized her was crucifying, unbearable. Without knowing it she made a small sound, agonised and heartrending. Raphael closed his eyes. He must not weaken. It was for her sake that he was denying her—for her future.
‘Don’t you think if I did love you that I would still say there could be nothing between us? Don’t you think that if I loved you my concern would be for you, for your ultimate happiness, your right to love a man you will never need to fear—a man who can give you the child or children that you will also love.’ His voice became harsher as he told her, ‘I cannot and will not imprison you in a relationship which ultimately you will come to resent. I can’t. I have told you that, and if there were by some mischance to be a child…’ He paused and then told her heavily, ‘It is my belief that my mother took her own life after my father’s death, because she was afraid of being alone with the responsibility of what she might have passed on to me and through me to generations as yet unborn.’
Charley’s heart ached with compassion and love.
‘I refuse to believe that you are affected by your family’s affliction, Raphael, and as for children—for a woman who loves you, who truly loves you as I do, you yourself would be enough,’ she told him fiercely, unable to keep her emotions out of her voice.
Now, at last, he turned fully to look at her. The morning sunlight was cruel, revealing the toll his openness with her had taken on his haunted features.
‘You cannot know that I will not be affected. Neither of us can. Do you think I want to see you recoil from me in horror and fear? To see the love shining in your eyes now turn to horror?’
Charley desperately wanted to go to him and hold him, almost as a mother might hold her child. He was the man she loved and he always would be. What he had revealed to her had only made her love him more, not less, just as it had made her want to share with him his exile from what other people took for granted.
‘Raphael, please let me share this with you,’ she begged him.
‘No,’ Raphael answered. ‘To love someone and not yearn to create with them the miracle of a new life from that love is an act of denial beyond the limits of my own control. I may not have known that before, but I know it now. I learned that when I held you in my arms. I will not allow what I feel for you to chain you to me. Love—true, real love—has to be stronger than that. It must put what is right for the person loved above its own needs and desires.’
Raphael was saying that he loved her?
Joy lifted her heart—only for it to crash down again as she took in the full meaning of what Raphael had said.
‘You cannot make that decision for me,’ she told him. ‘If you love me then—’
‘Then nothing.’ Raphael stopped her, his voice harsh. ‘I cannot offer you my love and still think of myself as a man of honour. You must see that?’
‘What I see,’ Charley told him spiritedly, ‘is that you are making us both suffer when we don’t have to over an issue that may not even exist. I love you, Raphael. Of course I would love to have your child—but I will gladly and willingly sacrifice doing so to be with you and share your life.’
‘I cannot allow you to do that.’ His mouth twisted—the mouth she had kissed so passionately last night—and the lips that had touched her body so intimately, bringing her such pleasure, now held a cynical twist, causing her intense pain.
‘Your own choice of words reveals the truth—you describe not having a child as a sacrifice,’ Raphael told her. ‘You cannot deny it. You used that description of your own volition.’
Charley could see that it was pointless for her to wish the word unsaid. She raged inwardly, blaming herself for her thoughtlessness, thinking how bitterly unfair it was that the whole of her future happiness should hang on one simple word.
‘You may love me now, Charlotte,’ Raphael told her, ‘but there will come a time when the ache inside you for a child will be stronger than the ache inside you for me. I cannot let that happen. Not for my sake, but for yours. I am already guilty of allowing my own selfish need to overcome my principles, and in doing so I am hurting you. I shall not do so any more. When I return to Rome I will speak to my lawyer and to your employer, to arrange for someone else to take your place here, working on the project.’