Marianne and Lord Fuller parted ways in the garden. He kissed her cheek before he left.
When she returned to the house, Alexander was gone.
Chapter 37
Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale
As Alexander rode back to Mayfair, he was soaked through with the rain that pelted down on him. He rode faster than he ever had before.
When Alexander reached home, he stormed inside and his mother gasped upon seeing him.
“My darling! You’ll catch your death!” She cried.
He was dripping wet, with a grim and dark look on his face. His mother rose to approach him, but his father remained seated in the drawing room.
“I won’t do it,” he blurted, as his mother came towards him and tried to pull off his jacket. He put his hand out to stop her and she just blinked up at him with parted lips.
“Won’t do what, my darling?”
“I won’t marry her.”
Very slowly, his father put down what he was reading and regarded his son with a weighted stare.
“That’s very disappointing,” he said, after several moments.
“It may disappoint you, but the fact remains that I will not marry her.”
“You misunderstand,” his father said. “It is you who disappoints me. But that has no bearing on the marriage. You will still be married, Alexander.”
Disappointment.
It was strange to think that he’d been more frightened of his father being disappointed in him than anything else. But that had changed now. Suddenly the true terror was letting Marianne go.
He wasn’t going to fall victim to his father’s manipulation, or his authority. Not again. So he did not waver. He strode across the room, past his mother, until he stood in front of his father.
“I am not asking permission,” Alexander said, in a steady voice. “I am doing you the courtesy of informing you. But what you think on the matter does not concern me.”
His father’s countenance slackened, for just an instant. It was an expression he’d never seen on his father’s face before. It was shock, followed quickly by speechlessness.
When his father opened his mouth, Alexander put his hand up to indicate that he did not want to hear anything more from him.
“I have said all I need to say. I will leave now.”
“Leave? Leave for where?” His mother asked, in a frantic voice. She followed Alexander towards the door.
“Alexander,” his father called.
Alexander stopped and looked back at his father. He was standing now and staring at him. “You will not do this.”
“You’d have to drag me down that aisle, father,” Alexander said, with surprising steadiness.
“If you call off the marriage, I’ll disown you. Do you understand that? I won’t have a son who breaks his word.”
Alexander’s hand was on the door handle. It took a moment for this to sink in. But as it did, his expression didn’t change.
Without taking his hand off the door, Alexander nodded. “As you wish, father.”
With that, he opened the door. But again his father stopped him.
“Alexander!” He shouted. This time, Alexander didn’t stop. He went outside, back into the rain, but he felt his father following him.
His father continued to shout his name as he rode away.
Alexander went to Julius’, though his friend was still staying at the inn near Lady Lilia’s. His servants let him in, having been told by Julius on numerous occasions that Alexander was to be treated like family.
It was only for the night, because he couldn’t do another long ride safely. But it was also exactly where his father knew to find him.
It was dawn when his father called at the house. He was led to the stables, where Alexander was brushing his horse before another long ride back to Lady Lilia’s. He liked to brush the steed himself, though the stable boy had repeatedly offered to do it.
“I won’t change my mind,” he said, when he saw his father out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t stop brushing.
“I have not come to persuade you,” his father said. “I can see that you are stubborn and a fool will be a fool whether or not his father advises him against it.”
Alexander didn’t look at him.
“You will do us all a dishonor,” he said, slowly, which made Alexander feel a plummeting sensation in his stomach. They were the words he’d always been so frightened of hearing. “But if you are determined to do so, your mother and I have one request.”
Alexander looked up at him at last, and stopped brushing. “Let me deal with the Purcells. As I was the man to make the arrangement, I will be the man to call it off.”
“But father-” Alexander began, with a furrowed brow.
“This is my only request,” his father interjected. His face was like iron. Emotionless and resolute.
Alexander hesitated, then nodded. “Very well,” he said. “When will you do it?”
“Today.”
It was the last thing his father said. He didn’t bid his son farewell. He didn’t ask where he was going. He just turned around and walked away.
***
Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake
“I’m a free man,” came a voice from behind her.
Marianne was picking apples from one of the trees in the grove. She wanted to try her hand at baking a pie for Lady Lilia, to thank her in some small way for having them stay with her.
And to distract herself from thoughts of Alexander. She turned when she heard his voice.
“You came back,” she said, with a dazed look on her face.
He crossed the space between them and heard her take a shaky breath. “Did you hear what I said?”
She nodded. She had, but she was too afraid to be happy. If he was saying what she thought he was, he needed to speak it clearly. “No riddles, Alexander. What have you come to say to me?”
Alexander stood in front of her and took the apples from her arms, one by one. He put them on the ground beside her and took her free hands in his. “I called it off,” he said, as he looked down at their joined hands.
Marianne closed her eyes.
“Marianne?” He murmured, and touched her cheek. “Did you hear me?”
She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t shatter this dream.
She felt him squeeze her hands. “Please do not tell me it’s too late…” he whispered, in a voice that was getting faster. “Is it Lord Fuller? Have you accepted his proposal? Please say something. Say something before I drive myself mad.”
“Say it again,” she whispered, as she opened her eyes.
His brow furrowed.
“Please,” she said. “I need to hear it again.”
His brow softened out as he realized what she was asking. “I called off the marriage, Marianne.”
Marianne did not know what she meant to do until she was in his arms, with her arms bound tight around his waist. She pressed her face into his chest and breathed him in with a single, soft sob.
Alexander cradled her head and kissed the nest of her hair while she cried.
It was a long time until she fell into blushing silence. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, as she wiped at her cheeks and drew away from him.
“Don’t be,” he said. “I should have done this months ago, when first we met without our masks.”
She smiled at him, shakily. “Then what now, my Lord?”
He started to smile. “Now, we get to know each other. The right way.”
Chapter 38
Lady Marianne Purcell, Daughter of the Baron of Westlake
Alexander came almost every day from then on. He would spend the day with her and take the letters she gave him. Then he would deliver them to her father when he went back to Mayfair every few days.
She wondered if he ever saw Eliza when he went back to Mayfair, but was too afraid and too ashamed to ask. She hadn’t heard word from her sister. Not one word.
It seemed as if neither Alexander nor Marianne wanted to talk about the marriage being called off. They didn’t want to shatter the beauty of their time together by bringing Eliza or his family’s judgement into it.
As the days passed, Alexander came earlier and earlier. Within a week, he was coming just an hour after dawn. And he wouldn’t leave until sunset. It was the most time they’d ever spent together.
They talked constantly. About the tiny details of their lives that they’d overlooked in the past. Their favorite memories and places. The people they loved most and the things that haunted them when they slept.
They would finish the day in the same way, every time he visited. By reading together. Sometimes she read to him. Other times, he read to her.
She’d always loved Celtic folklore, but she loved it more when he read it. Sometimes he’d stop reading and just look up at her. “I’ve never read anything like this,” he admitted, one day.
He’d laid back perpendicularly to where she sat against a tree, and put his head in her lap as he read. He’d lowered the book and was looking up at her.
“What do you usually read?” She wondered.
“The writing of scholars.”
She smiled. “Because you like it?”
He thought for a moment, then said, “I like some of it. The philosophies. Some of their ideas are quite spectacular.”
“And the rest?”
“I’ll admit that there is much that I don’t like.” He smiled. Such a handsome smile. A little shy. “Sometimes it helps me sleep, though.” The admission made her smile.
Without thinking about it, she started playing with a curl of his hair. She wrapped it around her finger. It was so soft. Like a child’s lock of hair.
He continued reading.
The days that Alexander didn’t visit, she did feel rather alone. Lady Lilia wasn’t often in the house and Julius continued to come even when Alexander didn’t, so she rarely saw Becky.
“You could come walk with us, if it pleases you?” Becky had suggested one morning, when Alexander was delivering one of her letters to her father. Marianne had thanked her but politely declined. She wouldn’t dare impose on their walks.
So, in Alexander’s rare absences she spent most of her time in the library. She started looking for some of the books he liked. When she found a title he’d mentioned, she would sit and read.
Marianne had just wanted to understand what fed his mind. But the more she read, the more she liked them.
“Marianne?”
It was fascinating. She followed a line about the concept of goodness with her fingertip.
“Lady Marianne?”
Such remarkable ideas. Things she never would have thought of herself.
She felt a hand on her shoulder and at last she looked up. Becky was standing over her, frowning. “Are you well?”
“Quite well,” Marianne answered. “Why?”
“I have said your name twice and you did not hear.”
“Oh.” Marianne put the book down. “I’m sorry, my dear. I was engrossed.”
“In…” Becky picked up the book from Marianne’s lap and looked at the cover. “Plato? Since when do you read Plato?”
Her cheeks warmed. “I wanted to read something new.”
Becky looked dubious.
“And Alexander suggested it,” she added, because Becky’s stare made it impossible to keep a secret.
But indeed, there was one secret that she hadn’t yet told Becky. That Alexander had called off his marriage to Eliza. She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t told her friend the truth.
Perhaps because she was afraid Becky would judge her for the part she’d played in sabotaging Eliza’s engagement, whether she’d meant to or not.
Becky returned the book to her. “Is it Alexander now?” She remarked.
It was a slip of the tongue. But she’d become so used to calling him by his forename that she’d forgotten that she wasn’t meant to do so in front of anyone but him.
“Yes… well… we’re friends.”
“You must be very close,” she remarked.
“How was your afternoon with Lord Blackwood?” Marianne replied, in an attempt to deflect.
This did seem to work, at least for a short time. “It was well enough.”
“Well enough? You walk with him every day now.”
She tried to brush this off with a dismissive wave of her hand. “He is nice to speak to,” she said, as if it was just idle chat that they engaged in.
Marianne scrutinized her friend’s countenance as she sat at the mirror and started to unbraid her hair.
“Only nice to speak to?”
Becky’s cheeks darkened, but her expression remained stern. She was a professional at hiding her feelings. “Yes,” she said. “Nice.”
With a small shake of her head, Marianne let the subject drop. She was pleased for her friend and she didn’t want her to feel like she couldn’t talk to her about it. But at the same time, the closer she got to Alexander the more she understood why Becky might not want to talk about Julius.
They were private feelings that were frightening in their intensity. Feelings that felt delicate while they were still being nurtured. That needed to be protected from the public eye for the time being.
So they continued to exist under the terms of their unspoken agreement. They didn’t speak about Alexander and Julius, though they both knew the truth.
That they were both terribly, terribly in love.
Chapter 39
Lord Alexander Anthony Redmond, Marquess of Riversdale
Alexander and Julius spent almost every day with the girls, from morning till dusk, then fell straight into bed at the inn. Every few days, Alexander would do the long ride to and from the Purcell estate in Mayfair.
He delivered letter after letter and did his utmost to avoid Eliza. This was easy enough, because Alexander and Lord Purcell had agreed to meet on the edge of town to exchange letters. To avoid the risk of bumping into Eliza or the Baroness.
As his father had requested, Alexander didn’t meet with Eliza to call off the marriage himself. But his father was a prompt man who did not waste time. And though Alexander was lucky enough not to see Eliza during his time in Mayfair, he expected that the truth had already been revealed to her.
Lord Purcell was kind enough not to raise the subject with him when they met. And Alexander afforded him the same courtesy. They didn’t talk about Eliza. It seemed as if neither of them wanted to.
His time in Mayfair was not what occupied his mind. It was Marianne.
Being with Marianne was like riding a breeze. Like being as light as air and letting the current of the wind carry you. It was effortless and every moment felt like a miracle.
As time passed, they became closer than ever.
They would lie together in the grass. She would touch his hair and he would touch her cheek. They were guilty pleasures, stolen in secret. Tiny echoes of when she’d kissed him and he’d lost his self control.
They decided to keep the breaking of the engagement secret for the time being, to give Eliza time to grieve before it went public.
Keeping it secret also prevented people from speculating that Alexander had moved from Eliza to her sister almost instantaneously. That would not reflect well on any of them and Marianne was adamant that they keep their infatuation private.
Alexander agreed, but resisting her was a constant effort. One that, to his shame, he failed at miserably more often than not. But every day he’d wake up and swear that he’d try. He’d try to treat her with the respect she deserved.
But sometimes she’d look at him with heavy eyes and low lashes, and her stare would cut through him with such force that he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her.
One day, when Alexander and Julius arrived at Lady Lilia’s estate, they decided not to go their separate ways. Inste
ad, they would spend the day together. The four of them.
This came the day after Alexander had found himself on top of Marianne again. They’d been lying in the grass together in a secluded grove of young trees, when she’d pinched his handkerchief from his pocket.
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