“Yes. That’s the problem. But I’m torn in half, Jax. I’m torn between duty and desire.”

“Do you love her?”

“I don’t know how to love. I turned my back on love years ago.”

“Nobody ever knows how to love. It just happens, or so I’ve been told. Ash said it was like falling off the edge of a cliff and hanging on to a rock for dear life, knowing that if you let go, if you stop clinging to that rock, you’d be dashed to your death. Perhaps loving Viola is your only chance at life, and not loving her, denying your love for her, would be flinging yourself into a waking death.”

West cocked his head. “I don’t feel like I’m falling. I’d already fallen as low as I could go. I was trapped beneath the ice, watching everyone else live their lives above me. Viola’s up there in the sunshine and there’s a frozen layer of ice between us. I can’t break through it. It’s too thick. I’ve been frozen too long. Not even the blaze of her smile can thaw my heart.”

Jax clapped a large hand onto his shoulder. “That’s a load of asinine nonsense and you know it. Go and talk to her instead of me. Tell her how you feel. See if her kisses might melt that frozen heart of yours.”

“She told me to read the letters my father wrote to me every week for months before his death.”

“You never read them?”

“I read the first few but they were all the same. Praise for my younger brother and disgust for me.”

“Sounds harsh.”

“Viola thinks that if I read the letters, one by one, as a kind of ritual, burning them afterward, it might help me forgive my father and relinquish my hatred for him.”

“Then do it. Read the letters. Life’s too short for regrets.”

“But it’s too late for me to change my wicked ways.”

“It’s never too late, Westbury. Don’t spend your life looking backward. What do you truly want in life?”

“All I want is to make her smile.”

“You might just get your chance sooner, rather than later,” said Jax, chuckling.

“What do you mean?”

“I met her once, you know. She came here with Ash’s wife, Henrietta. Miss Beaton was a shy little thing, glancing around warily. She was very adamant in her disavowal of gambling and all those who practiced the dark art.”

West smiled. “She’s very proper and buttoned-up. Wears these high-necked gray gowns with lace caps over her hair like she’s already a spinster but she’s young and pretty and talented. If you ever have the privilege of hearing her play the pianoforte . . . my God, you’d fall at her feet.”

“She’d never willingly visit here again?”

“Never. She called it a den of iniquity.”