Allen crossed one ankle over his knee and looked at him. “Can I talk to you about something?”
He smiled. “That depends. What’s it about?”
He and Allen had never been close, and he’d met his brother just before he usurped his position in life, taking his potential title from him. Allen had been discomfited by him, but he’d taken it with grace. And he’d even been friendly from the start. He hadn’t held a grudge, and he had done all he could to help Marcus settle into the life of a darling of the ton.
“It’s about the fae,” Allen said hesitantly.
“What about them?” Marcus asked as he tied a knot in his cravat. He shrugged into his coat and sat down opposite Allen. Apparently, something weighed heavily on Allen’s mind.
“Do you think they could ever accept me? I mean, truly?”
Marcus didn’t understand. “Accept you as what?”
Allen jumped up to pace. “As one of them, you dolt. As one of the fae. As one of you.” He let his hand sweep up and down through the air toward Marcus’s body.
Marcus laid a hand on his chest. “But I am fae.”
“And I’m not,” Allen bit out.
“You’re half fae. Just as I am.”
He showed Marcus the tip of his human ear. “But I don’t have any of the traits. I don’t have an ounce of magic within me. How could the world be so cruel?” His brother collapsed into the chair again, the side of his head falling to rest on his balled-up fist.
“Your mother is fae. Your father is not. So, it’s not like you’re not of the fae. So, what’s your concern?”
“It’s Ainsley,” he murmured.
Marcus heard him, but he didn’t want to let him get away with murmuring about it. He cupped a hand around his ear and said, “I’m sorry. I missed that.”
“It’s Ainsley, damn it all. I want to ask her to marry me.”
“Well, I certainly hope you do, because the two of you have grown rather close.”
His brother’s brows shot together and he said, “Not as close as you and Cecelia.”
“Don’t speak of that,” Marcus warned. He would hate to punch his brother in the face, but if he said the wrong thing, he wouldn’t have a choice. He wouldn’t let anyone speak poorly of Cecelia. “What do you know of it, anyway?” Marcus said.
“She talks to Ainsley,” Allen admitted.
She did? About that? “What does she say?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Bloody hell, Allen, of course it matters,” he growled.
“Ainsley is jealous,” Allen said quietly.
“Jealous of what?” What on earth did Ainsley have to be jealous of?
“Of the intimacy between you two.”
Oh, dear God, what had Cecelia said? “Be more specific.”
“If I get more specific, you’ll try to punch me in the face.”
That much was true. Marcus shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“I want to go home with Ainsley. Well, I want to ask her to marry me and then go home with her. To live there. But I’m not like you.”
“I don’t have wings, either, Allen,” Marcus reminded him. “Only the ladies have them.”
“But you have magic.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what magic you have for yourself. It’s what kind of magic you have with the person you love that will matter.” He looked hard at Allen. “Do you and Ainsley have that kind of magic? The kind where you think about her even when you’re not together. The kind where you want to do things and say things just to make her smile. The kind where you imagine her head on your pillow every day for the rest of your life.
“The kind where everything that hurts her makes you bleed. The kind where your breath mingles with hers and you realize you couldn’t take another one unless she was guaranteed her next breath, too. Otherwise, you’d give yours to her. That’s the kind of magic you need, you dolt. Not the faerie-dust and pointy-ear kind.”
“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” Allen said, smiling at him.
“Magic isn’t what you think it is.”
“I know she’ll have to go home soon, and I want her to take me with her.” He leaned forward. “I don’t want her to leave me.”
Marcus laughed. “You do have it bad, don’t you?”
“Am I doing the wrong thing?” Allen asked.
“Why are you questioning this so much?” Marcus chided. “If you love the chit, marry her.”
“You think she’ll have me?” He actually looked worried.
“Knowing Ainsley, she’ll make you miserable for the rest of your life if you don’t marry her. You’re in trouble no matter how you look at it.”
“When I’m with her…” He stopped talking and shook his head. “When I’m with her, nothing else matters.”
“I always thought her tongue was a little too sharp,” Marcus complained.
“Her tongue is just fine,” Allen said. Then he blushed profusely when he realized what he’d said. “I mean as far as what she says to me. I wasn’t referring to anything else. I wouldn’t know about anything else. Not with her.”
His brother wasn’t an innocent. He’d brought women home in the night before. Marcus could hear them in his chambers at the house they shared in Town. Allen wasn’t like Marcus. Marcus had been in love with Cecelia since before he could walk. There had never been another woman for him. And there never would be.
“Have you talked to her father?” Marcus asked.
“Not yet. I plan to. I’d like to ask his permission to call on her.”
“They’re not going to let you into the land of the fae unless you marry her. And they’re strict about human visitors even then. Things are changing in the land of the fae, but it’ll take time.” Marcus didn’t want Allen to get his hopes up too much.
“There’s no chance the fae would take our children from us, just because I’m human, is there? They wouldn’t take them at birth, like they did you and Claire and Sophia?” Allen looked worried.
“I think the danger of that happening is past. Both of Claire’s children are fae, and they haven’t come to claim them.” Though why anyone would want either of those children, he had no idea. “So stop worrying.”
“What if she doesn’t have the same feelings for me? You never had to worry about Cecelia’s feelings for you.”
“I never worried because I knew when she hated me.” He laughed. “I knew when she hated me and I knew when she forgave me and I knew when she loved me again.”
“You were an idiot,” Allen said blandly.
“I know.”
“It’s a miracle she took you back.”
“I know.”
“There’s a benefit to having a lady who has wings,” Allen said shyly.
“What’s that?”
“They can fly out their windows at night to come and see you, with no one the wiser.”
Marcus wanted to hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Don’t steal that girl’s virtue,” he warned. Ainsley might annoy the devil out of him, but he still adored her, and she deserved better than someone who didn’t have true feelings for her.
“You’re one to talk,” Allen said. He looked up at the painting on the wall, and Marcus felt a blush creep up his cheeks. “At least I don’t go sneaking into paintings to get her alone with me. How did you talk Mother into that, by the way?”
“It was her idea,” Marcus said with a laugh.
***
Ainsley looked at Cecelia across the sunny parlor and said, “I think Allen is going to ask me to marry him.”
Cecelia startled. She’d almost forgotten Ainsley was there. She’d sat there stitching blindly, wasting time while she waited for Marcus to come downstairs. “What make
s you think that?” Cecelia asked, setting her sewing to the side.
Ainsley shrugged. “I just have a feeling. I think he’s afraid.”
“Of you?” Cecelia scoffed.
“Not so much of me, because when we’re alone, he doesn’t seem troubled by what or who I am at all. But when we’re with people, he seems a little discomfited. He doesn’t reach for my hand or put his arm around me or any of the things he does when we’re alone.” She looked into Cecelia’s eyes. “What do you think?”
“I think you need not worry about his intentions. And he isn’t affectionate with you in public because they don’t do that in this world. Things are a little more rigid here. He was raised here, after all, so he thinks like them. You’re going to have to get used to it.”
“He’s so proper most of the time. Like when I bump his shoulder, I can tell he likes it. He likes to play around with me. He likes to wrestle, and he tried to tickle me last night in his room.”
Cecelia squealed. “What were you doing in his room?” She got up and moved to sit beside Ainsley. “Tell me. I have to know.”
Ainsley shrugged. “Nothing bad. I just went to see him.” She scrunched up her face in a wince. “I think I startled him when I knocked on his window in faerie form.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did. I wanted to see him. He’d been with his father all day, and then he missed supper. I missed him.”
“Oh dear, you are in love with him, aren’t you?”
Tears filled Ainsley’s eyes. “I suppose I am. That’s terrible, isn’t it?”
“Why is it terrible?” Cecelia asked. “I think it’s wonderful.”
“He’s not fae. I’m not even certain my father will let me have a relationship with him.”
“Your father is no idiot. He’ll be able to see what’s between the two of you when he meets Allen.” It was obvious to anyone who saw them together what their feelings were for one another.
“He’s a good man,” Ainsley said with a heavy sigh.
Cecelia narrowed her gaze at her friend. “But is he a good kisser?”
Ainsley blushed even more. “The best.”
“Is kissing all you’ve done with him?” Cecelia asked.
“You’re awfully curious, aren’t you?” Ainsley chided.
“I told you all about me and Marcus,” Cecelia reminded her.
“Well, we haven’t done that,” Ainsley said. “But we did sleep in the same bed last night. I meant to leave earlier, but we were lying there talking and I fell asleep.”
“Mmm-hmm,” Cecelia hummed.
“He’s so soft and cuddly.” Ainsley’s blush deepened. “And so hard and rough at other times. In the best of ways,” she rushed on to say. “I want to sleep in his arms every night.”
“He’ll ask you,” Cecelia said. “But don’t be surprised if he asks your father first. That’s how they do things here.”
“I’d like to live in the land of the fae,” Ainsley said. “Do you think he’d be happy there?”
“I think he’d be happy wherever you are,” Cecelia admitted. “He has stars in his eyes when he looks at you.”
Ainsley’s eyes filled with tears and she whispered, “I think I love him. I think I love him a lot.”
Cecelia patted her hand. “I know you do.”
***
Marcus entered his father’s study, surprised to see Lord Phineas, the Duke of Robinsworth, and Allen all in the same room. “What did I miss?” Marcus asked as he walked in and sat down.
“We have a bit of a problem,” the duke said.
“It’s not a problem. I’m going to marry her,” Marcus rushed to say. “As soon as her father will let me.”
The duke raised his brow and smirked. “We weren’t referring to your love life, though if you’d like to discuss that, I suppose we could.”
“Oh.” Marcus wanted to bite his tongue. “Then to what are we referring?”
“The Earl of Mayden is back in Town,” the duke said.
Marcus had met the earl the prior year, in a violent altercation with Lord Phineas, and the man was dangerous. And he was determined to hurt someone. He should have been stopped back then, but no one had been able to find him for more than a year.
“He’s in London?” Marcus asked.
“He has been here for more than a month,” Lord Phineas said. “All that time we were in the land of the fae, he was right here.”
A shiver crawled up Marcus’s spine. The earl could have harmed any one of their loved ones. “Why hasn’t he made his presence known? Perhaps he has turned over a new leaf?”
The duke snorted. “He was courting someone and has recently married. She’s a young American chit who just came over from Boston. Her father is incredibly wealthy and wanted her to marry a title. He didn’t particularly care how impoverished it was.”
“Or how corrupt it was?” Lord Phineas asked.
“This American he married, she’s innocent in all of this,” Marcus reminded them.
“Mayden can be charming when he chooses to be,” the duke said. “He’s slippery, too. And now he’s back, has adequate funds, and has been seen at White’s and at the track. He’s spending money hand over fist. And he’s also taken a mistress in Town.”
“And his wife hasn’t killed him yet?”
“They don’t do it that way here, Marcus,” his father reminded him. “It’s not uncommon for a man to take a mistress, even after he’s married.”
Marcus couldn’t imagine ever wanting anyone but Cecelia.
“His wife, and her father, for that matter, were charmed by his title. They don’t know what they’re dealing with. We’re the only ones who know,” his father reminded him.
“So he has restored his place in society now.”
“He’s respectable in every sense of the word,” Allen said.
“So, what do we do?”
“What do you all want to do?” his father asked. “Do we wait for him to strike? Or do we try to force his hand?”
“I vote that we invite him and his new wife to the wedding celebration,” Lord Phineas suggested. “There’s no easier way to tell if he’s turned over a new leaf. He’ll show up and pretend nothing has happened, or he’ll show up with demands about the fae, or he’ll not show up at all.”
“He has something to hold over all our heads.”
“Who would believe him?” the duke scoffed. “The idea that winged people live and work among the ton? It’s ridiculous.”
“He doesn’t know about wings. Or faeries. All he knows is that Claire was somehow able to shove him into a painting. But he was more than a bit mad that day. He may not even remember it.” Lord Phineas shook his head. “You should have seen the look on his face. Before he tried to shoot Claire, his eyes were empty.”
“So, what will we do?” Marcus asked.
“Invite him,” Lord Phineas said with a shrug. “We’ll all be there, and I can have all of my men attend the event.”
“The wedding is at my house,” the duke reminded them.
“Why is it at your house?” Marcus asked.
“Because I’m the bloody Duke of Robinsworth, that’s why,” Robinsworth said, grinning. “I say I want it at my house. And it’s at my house.”
Marcus snorted. “Sophia told you that you were hosting it, didn’t she? And you couldn’t say no.”
“Well,” he muttered, “it might have happened that way. Or it might have happened the way I said it did. You’ll never know.”
“Oh, we know,” all the men muttered at once, and then laughter shook the room.
Twenty-Two
Marcus waited before the fountain in Robinsworth’s serene garden, his family in attendance, along with Cecelia’s father and Ainsley. It was a small gathering, and society wouldn’t join them for the celebrat
ion until later. There would be dinner and dancing and… danger.
“Marcus, could I have a word with you?” Mr. Hewitt asked, taking Marcus’s elbow in his hand.
“I believe my bride is about to come down,” Marcus complained. “Can it wait?”
Marcus looked around. He really didn’t want to go with Mr. Hewitt, but he supposed he had better. As the father of the bride, Mr. Hewitt could withdraw his blessing if he so chose. He could withdraw it despite the marriage settlement they’d agreed upon. Not that it would matter. Marcus would marry Cecelia that day and take her as his own wife even if he had to tie her father up and stuff him in a barrel for safe keeping. Well, he wouldn’t do that, but he would do just about anything to make her his.
She’d been busy all week with dresses and shopping and flowers and preparations. And they hadn’t even spent any time together since their trip into the painting. He supposed it was for the best. Absence made the heart grow fonder and all that. He was feeling damn fond of her right now.
“I suppose we could talk. Can it be done quickly?” Marcus asked. He ushered his soon-to-be father-in-law toward the rear of Robinsworth’s garden. “Is something the matter?” he asked. “It’s not Cecelia, is it?”
Mr. Hewitt shook his head. “I just wanted to tell you thank you,” he said. He looked directly into Marcus’s eyes. His eyes were so much like Cecelia’s. Only there was a shadow of pain in the man’s eyes. Even now, he looked like he was hurting.
Marcus wasn’t at all sure what he was being thanked for.
“Thank you for rescuing Cecelia from me. Thank you for rescuing me from myself.” He stuck out a hand to shake. Marcus took it in his, and the man’s grip was firm and assuring.
“Thank you for letting me have her for a lifetime,” Marcus said. He suddenly had a lump in his throat. “I promise to take care of her.”
“I know you will. You’ll take better care of her than I ever did.”
“That’s not true,” Marcus protested.
But the man held up a hand. “It is true. I just hope she has forgiven me.”
“She has,” said a voice from behind them. Marcus turned to find Cecelia standing in the sunlight. She wore his mother’s wedding dress, or so he’d been told. It shone as if there were prisms of crystal sewn into the material. When she moved, the sun reflected off the gown, spilling rainbows of light all around them.