Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

The air in Marjorie's lungs left in a soft whoosh . To his credit, Alfie stood still, close enough to touch, but allowed her space as surprise washed over her.

"Do you remember when you first asked me to marry you?" Her voice wobbled as heat rushed to her cheeks. "We were swimming after a long summer walk, and you pulled yourself out of the water while I dried myself off in the sun. You stood before me with your hands on your hips and told me?—"

"You were the most beautiful girl I ever met, and I needed you to marry me immediately."

She swallowed the soft sigh in her throat at the memory of that day. For years, she thought she missed summers here with him. Now she realized it was likely she missed him .

"Yes." She smiled softly. "And I told you?"

"First, you laughed. Then you told me you wrote fiction, but you couldn't live it. That no one would approve of a duke marrying a Merryweather." He sighed. "My heart broke because I was willing to risk everything, but I understood I couldn't ask the same of you. Not when you were at the start of publishing your novels. You'd found a small comfort in your life, and I was there asking you to give it all up for a lot of unknowns."

"I would have been with you."

He shook his head. "I knew what I wanted, but that was not true for you."

Alfie approached, slowly holding his hand out. Marjorie nestled her cheek against his palm, shutting her eyes for a moment. "And now?"

She opened her eyes. Now, it was her turn for the shattered heart. Though, she was sure she hadn't been in love with Percy for some time now.

"I need more time, Alfie. I've only ever known us as friends."

He dropped his hand but remained close. "I should apologize. I don't?—"

"I've missed you, and even if you never replied, I thought of you often. I'm afraid of… deepening our friendship."

For a moment, she thought he would yell or toss his arms in the air or make a snide comment like Percy had. Instead, with a small nod, Alfie turned and walked away.

She didn't want to hurt him. She didn't mean…

"I'm sorry," she said.

But instead of answering, he rang for dinner and turned, collapsing back against the wall. "We have lived our lives with many secrets, Jo. I can wait until you are ready. If you are ever ready. In the meantime, will you have dinner with a good friend?"

"Dinner?"

She was struck at the sight of him leaning against the brocade wallcovering, his head tipped up enough that his dark-green eyes narrowed in on her.

She wasn't focused on dinner. Suddenly, her thoughts flew to kissing. And that might have been odd to consider yesterday, but today? Marjorie and Alfie were no longer friends.

They were… a scandal waiting to happen.

"Dinner," he confirmed. But his voice was low and husky, and she thought maybe he also was thinking of kissing her.

She nodded, suddenly lifting her hand and laying it at the bottom of her throat, pinning her there under the heat of his stare. Her sister had teased her about being ruined, not knowing the truth. She already was. If she confessed that to him…

"Very well." She finally dropped her hand and gathered her things. "I will stay for dinner, then accept your offer of a carriage. It wouldn't do to have gossip spread. Or worse, staff telling your mother."

"My mother is the last person I wish to think of now."

She smiled at his strained voice. It was a small flirtation and a wicked promise.

Good, at least they could find humor in the situation. However surprising it was for her to discover. She always was a quick learner, and if he continued looking at her the way he was now, she was certain she would leave this evening having kissed him.

She chuckled, walking to the window. Hollyvale was beautiful at sunset. In the distance, a few stags grazed in the field. The past few years, she was used to confining herself to her rooms to write, but she couldn't shake off the feeling of being stuck in his suite.

"You've filled this space with some lovely things." She turned, clasping her hands behind her back and slowly strolling over to the statue in the corner of the room. "And I see you have plenty of books. You've stayed here for nearly a year now, so I'm curious. When you don't have women climbing in through your window, what do you do?"

That look, the one which made her grow warm and achy, dropped suddenly. Marjorie could have sworn his warm, green eyes turned icy black.

"Every day, more or less, feels the same, and after a while, I've grown accustomed to making this my home."

She tilted her head, studying him. "Hollyvale is your home. There are over one hundred seven rooms, I believe."

"One hundred twelve."

"Yes, well you are living in one at the moment."

"It's a large estate, and it is only myself at present."

"Your mother does not need the other one hundred and eleven rooms to herself."

He crossed the room, raking his hand through his hair. "I can't leave, Jo."

"Can't or won't?" she challenged.

She was sorry the moment the accusation left her lips. His face drained of color.

"I apologize. I—" She reached for his hands, clasping them tight in hers. "Can you tell me what happens? How may I help?"

He shook off her touch and scoffed. It was an ugly sound that wedged itself into her chest.

"I try." He lifted his hand and pointed to the door, even as it shook. "I try every damn day to leave. I recognize it is foolish. My brother was the one who died in Waterloo. But I had to identify his body. What was left of it. And then, I found myself half numb in a carriage on the journey home, and there was an accident. I survived. I'm alive, yet I can't force myself out of this room. I didn't even attend my own father's funeral.

"I lost my brother and my father, and my mother is so frustrated she left me to visit her sister in Bath. She told me if I am not out of this room when she returns, she will have no choice but to have a doctor visit. I might have hit my head, but I'm not daft enough to realize she means keep me here at Hollyvale, hidden away. She thinks me otherworldly now."

Oh, how foolish she was.

"Contrary to appearances, I don't want to stay in this room. I miss living. Miss swimming and riding. Never thought I'd admit it, but London as well and going to my club."

Marjorie raced to erase the distance between them and cupped his face in her hands. She pulled until his attention was drawn on her. His pulse raced at his jaw beneath her fingers. For two days, she had carried on about her manuscript and Percy, and Alfie had been hurting.

"What if we try to leave together?"

He shook his head, his breath coming quicker. "Christ, you'll never marry me now."

She shook her head, forcing out a heartless laugh even when tears brimmed in her eyes. "Nonsense."

"I will fail everyone if I step outside this room. It should never have been my brother going to France. I am the eldest, and he's dead because I couldn't protect him."

"You were heir. You had a duty to remain here, and he was eager to enlist."

"I couldn't stand the sight of my parents while he was away fighting. When we received word he was missing, my mother sobbed for three days, and my father barely left his favorite chair in the library."

"The green one with the stitched cushion?"

"Yes."

The chair cushion they had stolen away one day as children to picnic, only to have Alfie's dog take to it instead. Marjorie cut a piece from her gown and patched it herself, too afraid her friend would land in trouble.

"My father refused to part with it, even after what happened."

Her chest ached. She still remembered returning to Hollyvale that evening with Alfie with a hole in her dress and a badly patched cushion to make her apologies. His father had met them in the front hall, furious they had stayed out all day without taking lunch or dinner. He had bent down and embraced them both, tutting over their concern about what had happened. Until his mother swept in, sending her home in the carriage, demanding for the chair to be replaced.

Unbothered, Marjorie's mother had later sent two new chairs over to Hollyvale to prove a point.

How guilty she had felt, how ashamed. Alfie had remained close, stepping in front of her as his mother lectured her over her lack of decorum.

She might have fallen a little in love with him that day.

As for today? She feared being honest with herself meant admitting she had been in love with him for longer than she even knew.

"You are only failing yourself by remaining in this room."

He pulled away and tossed his head up at the ceiling. "And I'll fail you too. If I stay, or if by some miracle I can leave this room, you know I can't go up against Percy. And that's why you came, isn't it? You want me to rescue you?"

She ignored the stinging comment, recognizing his frustration. On any other day, she would have pushed back. Instead, she kept her voice calm. "You are no longer boys at Eton. You are capable?—"

Alfie quirked his eyebrow at her, annoyance heavy on his face. "I've lost out to him when it counts the most. I don't ever want to give him such power again."

Power? She scoffed. "You only fail if you never try."

"Is that what your mother told you when you stood against the wall of every ball in Town?"

She threw her hands to her hips, her patience slipping. "Well, that was uncalled for. I am only trying to help."

"And I am making a damn mess of everything!"

"Only because you are choosing to."

"I was born an heir to a dukedom, Jo. I haven't chosen a damn thing in my life."

But you .

She swore she heard the words tumble out of his mouth, but she couldn't tell for sure because she strode up to him, cupped her hands over his cheeks, and kissed him.

* * *

Could a kiss hold one's salvation?

Alfie would consider the merits of that argument later.

Right now? He was certain he had died in that carriage accident because Marjorie had just pressed her lips against his, soft and searching. A kiss full of questions.

He felt the air squeeze from his lungs as the panic melted away within him, and suddenly the world switched into focus.

Alfie wrapped his arm around her, pressing his fingers into her hips as his lips met hers tentatively.

Years, and this was nothing like he imagined it would be.

Her hands fell from his cheeks, and she pulled away enough to gaze up at him, her big brown eyes asking for an answer he didn't have.

All except one. Alfred Renwick, the Duke of Abinger loved Marjorie Merryweather.

"I don't need your pity." His voice scraped against his throat.

She shook her head, leaning her forehead against his. Her fingertips danced at his temple, and he slammed his eyes shut, afraid if he opened them, this would only be a dream.

"Not pity," she whispered back. "I care…"

He opened his eyes again, hopeful. Then reached down and tipped her chin up.

"Can I kiss you?"

Her eyes fluttered briefly to his mouth, then darted back up to his eyes. He never would understand how such rich brown eyes were threaded with the most beautiful gold and green.

Marjorie held so many secrets, like the soft freckles gracing the tops of her cheeks in the summer, the soft bow of her lips when she was about to laugh, and the way she smelled of spring—a scent that lingered behind her as if Alfie could never quite catch up. And her writing, of course.

Marjorie sighed, the tension in her arms melting as she leaned against him and nodded, her eyes full of an eagerness that tore at his chest. Hope —something much more powerful than love or desire.

He reached up and brushed back some dark brown hair from the sides of her face, his thumbs rubbing against her temples as he carefully studied her features, wishing to catalog every detail in case she left this evening and never returned. He knew that was a possibility, and he could never offer her a happy life as long as he remained in this room where he felt safe.

A growl ripped from his throat, and the delicate thread of his patience snapped. He bent down and pressed his lips against hers, a kiss that was not soft, not searching, but demanding. Alfie needed Marjorie. He needed to taste her, to feel everything she was willing to offer him. He needed something to hold him here when he felt as if he was standing on the precipice, fading away.

She was his hope.

A soft moan escaped her as she leaned against him. He deepened the kiss, sucking on her bottom lip, biting down softly before soothing the pain away with his tongue. She opened to him, allowing him inside as her hands wound around his neck and clung to him.

He could never convince himself that this was not how it always should have been between them—kissing.

"Sweet thing." He pulled away a moment, whispering against her ear, "Jo."

She didn't look up, her lips grazing the corner of his jaw and throat. Her tongue darted against his skin, and he thought perhaps she was going to take him apart right then and there. Whatever control he had left vanished, along with his patience, and he was about to become a greedy man.

His fingers tightened in her hair, tugging against her scalp, bringing her face back to his for another deep kiss, searching. His heart hammered in his chest. For this to feel so wonderful, why did it feel as if his chest was about to break open? He wanted everything, but he knew he couldn't ask her. He knew she already risked so much just by being here, alone.

But a little more, that was all. Temptation coursed through his veins.

Alfie's mouth moved to the base of her throat and nipped at her skin, like an utter cad wishing to mark her as his. She sighed, her hips pushing against his, her middle pressing against his bulging cock in his buckskins, and he feared he would spend right there like a schoolboy at the mere touch of a woman.

Then, a knock on the door.

He didn't break apart. He couldn't. He leaned his hand against the door, caging her in as she collapsed her forehead against his chest, and he rested his head against the top of hers. For a moment, the two of them struggled to catch their breath.

"A moment, please," Alfie finally called out.

Marjorie allowed a soft giggle to escape her, and as her laugh grew louder, she wiped at her eyes.

"Was that funny?" he asked, his voice rough.

She clasped her hands to her cheeks as if trying to wipe away the lingering grin. "No, nothing was funny about our kiss, Alfie. It's only… I've never been kissed like that. Kissed by someone who wanted to kiss me."

Alfie growled and wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her close just as a second knock sounded against the door. "Damn it," he muttered under his breath. "Stay for dinner," he urged.

Her hand crawled up his shirt, slipping beneath the buttons. The pressure of her fingertips against his chest was oddly reassuring.

"Go on," she said.

He couldn't take his eyes off her, afraid that once he turned, it would only be the memory he had to hold of Marjorie for the rest of his life. Kissing her there against his bedroom wall, desperate, heated.

His heart thundered against his chest. The small sliver of possibility that shone back at him in her eyes kept him anchored.