Three
Cecelia filled a plate for herself at the sideboard in the big breakfast room and sat down at the big empty table. She lifted a fork full of boiled eggs to her mouth and had just taken a bite when Allen breezed into the room. “Good morning, Miss Hewitt,” he said with a quick nod of his head.
His hair was damp and he smelled like the soap his valet had used to shave him. “Good morning,” she chirped after she forced herself to swallow.
“I trust you slept well?” he asked as he began to fill a plate for himself.
She hadn’t slept well. Not at all. But she smiled and said, “Quite well, thank you.”
“It must be a bit off-putting to be so far from home,” he said.
She shrugged. “It’s nothing I’m not used to.” She looked around the room. “Although my normal lodgings in this world don’t typically involve breakfast with the family. I’m usually with the children. Or the servants.”
As a faerie, she was often installed with the servants to give herself the most access possible to the children or the others she was there to help. Her accommodations were adequate, but nothing nearly as nice as Ramsdale House. “Do you live here as well?” she asked.
His brow furrowed. Had she just made a mistake? “I do not live here, actually. I share bachelor’s lodgings with Marcus in town.” He leaned close as though he wanted to impart a secret. “There’s only so long one can stand living with one’s parents and younger siblings.”
“Marcus doesn’t live here, either?” she asked. She wanted to smack herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand when she realized what she’d just revealed. “Not that it matters,” she went on to ramble.
He chuckled and covered her hand with his. He opened his mouth to speak, his eyes dancing with playfulness. But just as he did, Marcus walked into the room. Cecelia jerked her hand from beneath Allen’s, and her face became hotter than the fire in the grate. Marcus stopped and arched a brow at them. He tugged his jacket closer to his body and said flippantly, “Don’t let me interrupt. I merely wanted to break my fast.”
“Interrupt what?” Cecelia asked.
He motioned toward them. “That,” he stopped to grit his teeth, “hand-holding thing you were doing.”
“We weren’t holding hands,” Cecelia corrected.
Allen covered his mouth with his hand and pretended to cough. He murmured, “Pardon me,” when she shot him a look. He looked over his shoulder at Marcus finally. “Yes, brother dear, there was no hand holding.” He chuckled out loud. “It was simply a hand cover. Entirely my fault. She looked as though she needed covering.”
Marcus’s gaze rose quickly to meet his brother’s. His brow furrowed. “Beg your pardon?” Marcus growled.
“Her hand, that is,” Allen stumbled on. He was enjoying this. She was sure of it. “Her hand needed covering. Not her, per se. Just her hand.” He looked down at her hand, which was now clutched into a tight fist in her lap. “Such lovely hands they are,” he said absently. He looked back at Marcus again. “But I’m sure you’re already aware of how lovely Cecelia is.”
“Lovely,” Marcus grunted, as he came to the table and sat down across from them. He took a bite of toast. “So, just what was it about her that made you think her hands needed covering, Allen? You were overcome by the sheer beauty of them?” He took another bite. “Because I could see it if her hands were cold. Or if she was injured and you needed to squeeze her hand to stop the flow of blood.” He leaned over and looked at Cecelia’s hands. “But they don’t appear to be injured.”
“Stop it, Marcus,” Cecelia warned as she tossed her napkin into her plate. “You’re being ridiculous.”
His brows rose so far she feared they would blend with his hairline. “Me? Ridiculous? Because I want to understand why he was holding your hand?”
“Marcus,” she warned.
Allen got to his feet. “Oh, I can clear this up for you, Marcus,” Allen said. He crossed to stand behind Marcus and put his hands on his shoulders. “I was holding her hand because she’s bloody beautiful.” He shook Marcus roughly in his grip.
“Bloody beautiful,” he breathed. He stopped shaking Marcus, who appeared stiff as a board, and winked at Cecelia, grinned broadly so only she could see it, and then stole a piece of bacon off Marcus’s plate and shoved it in his mouth. Then he quit the room.
***
It took all of Marcus’s self-control not to jump from his chair and throttle his younger brother. How dare he? When Marcus walked into the room, he felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule. The sight of her hand beneath Allen’s as she looked up into his brother’s eyes was like a kick to the gut. And to his lungs, because he suddenly found it hard to take a deep breath.
It had taken all of his composure not to toss Allen from the room and kick his arse all the way out the front door. But, if he did that, he’d only have to deal with his father’s, his mother’s, and his four sisters’ wrath.
“You are an idiot, Marcus Thorne,” Cecelia said, jerking him from his misery. Then she shoved her napkin to the side and picked up a half-eaten piece of toast. She threw it at his head. “How dare you do that?” She picked up a berry and threw that at him, too. A handful of them, apparently, because one hit above his eye. And yet more hit his shirt.
“Cece,” he began, covering his head with his hands as he ducked the flying food. “Would you stop it?”
“No, I won’t stop it.” This time, she turned to the sideboard, and a slack-jawed servant made a move to place lids on all the dishes there. She pointed a finger at him and he blanched. The poor man had no idea what he was up against. But he held firm and kept his hands on top of the silver domes.
“Damn it all, Cece,” Marcus said as he jumped from his chair, hoping to save the poor servant from her wrath when she ran out of things to throw. He took her by the shoulders and spun her around. “Stop it,” he warned quietly as he pulled her closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. If he held her arms, she couldn’t throw more food, could she? Definitely not.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she warned. But she stilled in his arms and her angry little breaths tickled his freshly shaven chin. The feel of her in his arms shot straight to his groin, and he turned to the side to keep from showing her how very much he wanted to hold her in his arms forever. Preferably when they were in a bed.
“Don’t do what?” he taunted. He motioned toward the servant, nodding him toward the door. The man quietly left the room and pulled the door shut behind him. “Don’t stop my brother from touching the woman I love?” He set her infinitesimally back from him. “You think I’m going to just sit back and watch my brother try to win your heart?”
“All he did was touch my hand,” she murmured against his shirt. Her eyes were wet when she raised her gaze to meet his, and he felt that punch to his gut again, only this time, his heart clenched as well. “And don’t tell me you love me.”
She shoved his chest until he let her go. She turned to stare out the window. “I find I can’t quite live without telling you, you ninny. So, if you don’t want to hear it, you had better stay far, far away from me.”
“Don’t promise me things I can’t have, Marcus,” she said, her voice heavy, as if she needed to swallow. She didn’t turn back to face him.
“I have given it a lot of thought, Cecelia, ever since that night I left the land of the fae.” He cleared his throat. But there was a lump there that wouldn’t go away. “I shouldn’t have ended things. Because I’m not certain I can live without you, damn it all.”
She spun quickly to face him. Instead of the sincere relief he expected to see, her cheeks were flushed and she was apparently livid, if the crease between her brows was an indication. “You see me with another man and you suddenly can’t live without me? Is that it, Marcus? You’re jealous?”
She stormed past him and walked around the other end of the table where he couldn’t grab her as she walked past. She tilted her nose up in the air and said, “You’re going to have to stay jealous, Marcus. Because I don’t want a man who threw me over to become a viscount. I want one who will choose me over all things. And he very well may be a member of this world.” She stuck a finger out at him, and it was as though she waved a sword at him.
“I, unlike you, would like to have someone who loves me and wants to hold me and have children with me. I want someone who will share a home with me, whether it be here or there, and someone who will cherish me and choose me over all things.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “And that person isn’t you. So, don’t interject yourself into my life, Marcus. You manage yours. And I’ll manage mine. And never the two shall meet.”
With that, she stomped out the door, slamming it loudly behind her.
Marcus flopped into his chair and buried his face in his hands. But then the door opened again. Marcus’s heart leaped at the thought that Cecelia had come back. But his mother stepped into the room instead. “Goodness, you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble, haven’t you?” she asked. She began to whistle a tune beneath her breath.
“Why are you so happy?” Marcus grunted.
She shrugged and smiled even more broadly. “No particular reason.” She retrieved a piece of toast and bit a corner off it. She pointed to the spot above his eye. “You have a bit of blueberry here.” He lifted a napkin to swipe at the area. “Matter of fact, you might want to go and change clothes. You’re a frightful mess.”
“Yes, Mother,” he groused.
“I do like that girl,” she said, her voice chipper.
So did he. That was the problem.