Seven
Ainsley grumbled from the park bench where she waited. “It’s dusk. Where are Claire and Lord Phineas? We’ve been waiting for hours.” She flopped back against the bench and laid the back of her hand against her forehead.
Allen pulled a watch fob from his pocket and glanced down at it. “We’ve been waiting for five minutes,” he corrected.
“Well, it feels like hours,” Ainsley grumbled. “My feet hurt.”
“Mine do, too,” Cecelia admitted, settling down beside Ainsley.
Marcus leaned close to Cecelia’s ear so that only she could hear. “If we were married, I’d feel led to rub your aching feet for you,” he murmured. His eyes looked down the bodice of her dress. “Among other places.”
Cecelia was certain she’d flushed scarlet, if the look on Ainsley’s face was any indication. Ainsley picked up a hand and started to fan Cecelia’s face. “Goodness.” Ainsley laughed. “What did he say to you?” she asked.
“Nothing that bears repeating,” Cecelia replied. He’d been doing this all afternoon as they scoured the streets of Paris for the elusive Earl of Mayden, who was nowhere to be found. Not a single person had recognized the miniature.
Marcus had started out by brushing her elbow, and then he’d drawn her to his side and told everyone they met who spoke English that he and his wife were searching for her long-lost cousin. He’d slung his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, and had kissed her soundly on the cheek. And all it had served to do was make Cecelia angry. How dare he? She picked up a rock from the ground beside her foot and threw it at him. He deflected it with a laugh.
“Perhaps another time,” he suggested with a cheeky grin. Cecelia almost smiled along with him, but then she remembered that she wasn’t supposed to find him charming. But he was charming. No matter how much she dearly didn’t want him to be.
They’d met up at the bench across from Sainte-Chappelle at dusk, just as Claire had instructed, but Claire and Finn were nowhere to be found. “Do you think they’re all right?” Ainsley asked.
“As long as she has Finn with her, you needn’t worry,” Marcus said. Finn had laid down his life for Claire’s the year before and would do so again. And again. And again. “Maybe they stumbled upon some important information about Mayden?”
Ainsley’s brows drew together as she asked, “What if this isn’t the place where Claire sent him? He could be anywhere by now.”
“He could,” Marcus admitted. “But I’ve seen with my own eyes the damage Mayden could do. He’s hurt enough people, countless people. We’ll have to keep searching if he’s not here.”
The sun was setting, and Cecelia was hungry. Her stomach protested loudly, and she laid a land over her belly to stifle the noise.
Marcus chuckled. “It’s getting late. We need to get you fed.”
“I’ll survive,” Cecelia replied. It was too late for him to try to take care of her now.
“I won’t,” Ainsley complained, which made Allen smile. “I’m going to swoon and fall into the dirt due to excessive hunger.” She blinked her dark lashes at Allen. “Will you catch me if I do, Allen?” she asked.
“As a gentleman, I would be obligated to catch you, Ainsley,” he said with a wink.
“Obligated?” Ainsley complained. “That’s the only reason you’d do it?”
Allen’s cheeks colored. The man had blushed more today than he probably ever had in his life. “That’s not the only reason,” he admitted quietly. And Ainsley suddenly grew as somber and quiet as he was. What was that all about? Ainsley and Allen? Already?
Marcus grunted. “I’m a little hungry myself.”
Allen said blandly, “I doubt there’s a soul here who would try to catch you if you swooned, Marcus. So buck up.”
“I would let him fall,” Ainsley said with a grin.
“So would I,” Allen admitted.
Cecelia raised a hand slowly, as though being called on by a tutor. “I would feel inclined to do the same.” She shouldn’t have said that, but she couldn’t help it.
Marcus feigned pulling a knife from his chest. “Remind me not to call on any of you if I’m ever in trouble.”
Allen grumbled. “I suppose I’m honor bound to catch you if you swoon.” He looked put out by the thought. “Mother would be cross with me if I didn’t.”
“Father might take away your allowance.”
“I daresay he would applaud me if I told him the circumstances.” Allen laughed.
Marcus shrugged. “That may be true.”
“Do you two always bicker like this?” Ainsley asked. “With such good natures?” She looked from one to the other. Cecelia had wondered the same.
“Things were tense when we first met,” Allen admitted. “But our circumstances can’t be changed. So, I’ve learned to tolerate him.” He waited a moment and grinned.
Marcus scoffed. “He barely tolerated me in the beginning.” He twisted the signet ring that he wore on his finger. The ring was a symbol of him becoming a viscount, if Cecelia was correct. “Father gave this ring to me as a gesture of goodwill when I agreed to succeed him,” he said quietly. “But I’d rather have had a puppy.” He grinned. Goodness he was handsome when he smiled.
“Oh, a puppy,” Ainsley crooned. “I wanted a puppy once.”
Marcus’s brows drew together. “What on earth would you do with a dog?”
Ainsley heaved a sigh and then went on to explain to Allen. “We travel too often to keep pets. They become a burden.”
“You don’t have staff to care for them when you’re gone?” Allen asked.
“Yes, but then I’d miss the dog.” Ainsley rolled her eyes. “I don’t believe leaving things you love behind to go from world to world is good for anyone,” she said quietly. She looked at Marcus and then down at the ground where the toe of her slipper drew a circle in the dirt.
Silence fell on the foursome like a heavy cloak. Allen cleared his throat to throw it off. “It’s well past dusk,” he informed them. “I hope Claire and Lord Phineas are well.”
Just then, Claire and his lordship walked toward them down the lane.
“Where have you been?” Marcus barked. His mood was sufficiently sour after Ainsley’s comment. Ainsley was right, but she didn’t have to say it the way she did.
“We’ve been hunting for Mayden. We found a woman who thought she recognized the miniature, but nothing came of it.” Claire shrugged. “We should get back. I’m hungry. And I want to see my children.”
Finn retrieved the painting from the bushes, hung it on the wall, motioned toward the painting, and scooped her up in his arms to put her through. She reached back to pull him in. Ainsley followed, assisted by Allen. And when Cecelia would have climbed over the edge of the painting, Marcus scooped her up and jostled her in his arms until she looked up at him.
“Stop working so hard to hate me,” he said quietly. Then he stuffed her into the painting and followed her into his mother’s parlor.
***
Cecelia was driving him mad. He’d been with her the whole day. He’d pretended to be her husband, and she’d still treated him like an interloper. Perhaps that was because she loved another. Perhaps it was because she was still sore at him because he’d left her. But he wouldn’t leave her again. Not for anything. She might as well get used to having him in her life, because she was stuck with him.
But there was still the question of the man back home. He had to find out who it was so he could take measures. He also needed to approach her father so he could ask for her hand. The man would probably say no, after the way Marcus had broken her heart. And he would have every right to. But she belonged with him, and Marcus wouldn’t take no for an answer. He could have her. He could have the title. He could have the land of the fae. He could have his family and his missions. He could. If she’d just accept him and what he had to offer her.
What did he have to offer her?
His father broke into his reverie. “Woolgathering?” Lord Ramsdale asked quietly, as he sat beside his son at dinner. Dinner had been waiting when the six of them returned.
“I suppose,” Marcus admitted.
“Want to talk about it?” his father asked.
“Perhaps another time.” He stabbed his fish with his fork and took a bite of his potatoes.
“I’m here to talk anytime you need me,” his father offered.
Marcus knew that. He did. But what Marcus wished for more than anything was to have his grandfather to talk to. His grandfather had taught him everything he’d known, and Marcus had been destined to follow in his footsteps, all the way to his place with the Trusted Few.
“I miss Grandfather,” Marcus admitted.
He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. He didn’t intend to make his father feel inadequate. “I’m sorry,” he rushed to say. But his father held up a hand.
“It’s all right,” he soothed. “He raised you. He helped to form you into the man you are now. Things didn’t get fouled up for you until I came along.”
“Fouled up.” Marcus snorted. “That’s a good way to describe it.” He inhaled deeply. “She says she’s obligated to another,” he told his father quietly, glancing at Cecelia where she was seated at the other end of the table. She looked up at him from beneath her lashes and then looked away quickly when he saw her watching him.
His father’s brows drew together. “Do you know this person?”
“She hasn’t said who he is. But she’s promised to stay in the land of the fae for him.” He took a sip of his wine.
“Hmm,” his father said quietly. “Do you think she loves another?”
Marcus shook his head. He couldn’t be certain. When he’d kissed her, she didn’t act as though she loved another. But then again, she’d always been the one for him. The only one. So, he had no comparison to make. “I think she loves me. But she’s angry.”
“At least you’re aware of it.” His father chuckled. “Most men are without a clue. We walk around as if we’re on top of the world, while the ladies want to remove our stones with a dull knife.”
Marcus choked on a piece of bread. “Beg your pardon?” he gasped out.
“Don’t ever assume your stones are safe, son,” his father said as he clapped Marcus on the shoulder. “Not when a woman has been scorned.”
***
Ainsley leaned toward Cecelia and whispered, “What happened between the two of you today? I’ve been dying to ask you.”
“Nothing,” Cecelia lied. It may as well have been nothing. Because nothing was what could come of it. But heat crept up her cheeks as she remembered that kiss.
“You don’t flush when ‘nothing’ has happened, Cece,” Ainsley scolded. “Tell me. You know you want to.”
“I told him,” Cecelia muttered.
“Told him what?” Ainsley’s brow puckered.
“Told him that I can’t accept him. Because I’m not free to do so.”
“Since when?” Ainsley’s silverware clattered to the tabletop.
“Since my mother died and my father fell apart,” Cecelia hissed back.
“So you lied.”
“I didn’t lie. Not really. I told him I’m not free.”
“But you are.”
“My father needs me right now.”
“You can’t give up your life for your father,” Ainsley groaned. “I can’t believe you let Marcus think that.” She stabbed at the air with the tines of her fork, punctuating what she would say next. “You”—stab—“shouldn’t”—stab—“have”—stab—“lied.”
Cecelia heaved a sigh. “It’s the only way.”
“Sometimes the truth is the only way, Cece,” Ainsley said quietly.