If they’d been moving, she surely would have tripped. Was he complimenting her in particular or were they still discussing flowers? Did he know of her nickname? “Marigolds?” she softly whispered.
And then something else caught her gaze. Or rather, someone.
Behind the large potted fern, she caught the dark charcoal of a man’s coat peeking between the branches.
Her breath hitched. Max.
He was hiding behind the fern and listening to every word.
She was glad she’d made her escape outside earlier when Abigail had been in the room, otherwise she would have been caught. He was rather obvious to see and the very idea that he was hiding behind a plant like a wallflower almost made her burst out with a laugh.
“Yes. Marigolds. I personally love that particular flower. So bright and unique. They are warm and full of vibrant life. Wouldn’t you say?” He gave her another smile and then...a wink.
What was happening?
The fern shook again and all she could do was stare at the plant as she numbly nodded her head. “Unique.”
“Let’s go have a look, shall we?” he answered as he started them forward again. “There are lots of quiet little nooks in this garden for two people to find a bit of privacy and really...talk.”
Her mother still hadn’t appeared as they stepped outside but she didn’t dare look back again. Had Max followed?
What if he had? What would it mean? He’d been hiding. Why?
The major was his friend. She was his...friend. Why duck behind a fern? Why not just say hello? Then she realized that Major Mayfield had hinted at secret nooks in the garden as she’d been daydreaming about Max. She faltered, this time nearly falling, but Major Mayfield held her up.
He bent close to her ear. “If you’d like, you may call me Alex.”
She stopped thinking of Max and turned to the man whose arm she currently held. That’s when she realized how close their faces were. She pulled away just a bit. “How kind.”
Then he moved closer still. For a second, panic took over. She didn’t want to kiss another man. Only Max.
“He followed,” Alex whispered so low she almost didn’t hear him. “Pretend I am saying the most interesting thing in the world.”
She blinked twice, attempting to process those words. “What?”
He gave another wink. “Really?” he said louder. “They call you Marigold. Fascinating. I had no idea when I said we should tour them.” Then lower again. “Use my given name.”
It wasn't possible. Was another man helping her to make another man jealous? The original man...? She shook her head. Even she was confused and she was in the middle of this plot. “Oh, Alex, the flowers here are just wonderful.”
He gave her a wide smile. “Good girl,” he whispered again.
And then she heard it, a rustling behind them. Her pulse jumped in her throat. “Why are we doing this?” she whispered back, their heads bent low together.
“Because,” he said, leaning very close to her ear. “I watched Max watch you all evening. The man is as stubborn as they come but I know for an absolute fact that he is mad for you.”
Those words sent tingles racing down her spine. “Oh no. That’s not it at all. He was trying to help me in the exact same way you are currently trying to help me.”
Alex let out a small chuckle. “Soldiers. Always attempting subterfuge.” He gave a quick glance back and pulled them between two bushes, hiding them from view. “But I know when a man is interested in a woman and he is most definitely interested in you.”
Her fingers clutched at Alex’s sleeve. He was wrong, wasn’t he? “But he said that we were just friends. He told me he’d help me and...”
She stopped talking when Max appeared on the path. His head swiveled this way and that as though he were looking for someone. Then he started forward again, his limp more pronounced as he picked up speed on the path.
Alex cocked a brow. “He’s practically chasing us. Does that seem like a man searching for a woman who is just his friend?”
Marigold watched Max’s retreating back. Tension filled every line of his body. “But...”
Alex chuckled. “Come on, let’s go be found again. He’ll think we’ve snuck off to kiss and I don’t want to make him too anxious. I could end up at the wrong end of a pistol.”
Her eyes widened as they stepped back out onto the path.
Though the idea of a pistol fight was frightening, here was also something terribly exciting about two men having a duel over...well, her. “Surely it wouldn’t come to that.”
But she had to confess, some of the confidence she’d held earlier, before her conversation with her mother and Abigail, was returning.
Alex gave her a grin. Not the kind smile, which was lovely. This rakish lopsided grin lit his entire face. She hadn’t realized how handsome he really was. She’d been too distracted.
“It might,” he answered. “But what a fun way to go.”
A laugh bubbled from her chest. “This is all quite exciting, isn’t it. And most unexpected.”
He winked again. “Max has been my friend for a long time. And I am certain you are an excellent match for him. He needs a quiet kind heart that will see him through the dark times.” Then he grinned again. “And you deserve to be fussed over, Marigold.”
A blush stained her cheeks as she gave him a shy smile of her own. “Thank you for your help. If there is anything I can ever do for you...”
He stopped again. “I’ve every intention of settling into a nice life now that my tour is done. A lovely wife, a few children. When you are marchioness, you might be able to return the favor.”
Marchioness? “Well I don’t know about a match with Max. He seems rather adamant that...”
Alex waved his hand. “If you’re calling him Max, I am certain you are his future bride.”
Her chin ducked down, but this time it was to hide the blush of pleasure that surely stained her cheeks. She looked to the ground to collect her thoughts for a moment before looking back up at the major. “I will most certainly help you in any way that I can. Thank you, Alex.”
“You’re most welcome.” He started moving them forward again.
A plan was forming in her head. One where she allowed the new, confident Marigold to take the lead rather than the shy, scared girl who had just told Max she only wished to be friends.
Whatever happened next, she’d not regret being her stronger self.
It was time for this Marigold to bloom.
Chapter Fifteen
This would not do.
Nearly an hour had passed since he’d lost all pride and trailed his friend and the woman he cared for on their romantic stroll through the gardens.
Humiliating. The whole scene had been thoroughly embarrassing. But he found he couldn’t much care because humiliation took a very distant second place to anger.
No. Best to call this ugly emotion what it was.
Envy.
He should have been the man taking her to the garden for a romantic stroll. It ought to have been him who was trying to steal a kiss when they reached a private stretch.
Instead, he’d hidden behind a blasted fern and trailed them like some sort of pathetic, lovesick spy.
He’d left them after they’d rejoined her mother and her mother’s friends and had come back here to his study for a moment alone to think. So far the only coherent thought he could come up with through his haze of jealous rage was that one inarguable fact.
This. Would. Not. Do.
There was no way he would allow it. Alex was a good man, no doubt, but he would never understand Marigold the way Max did. Alex would never treasure her the way she ought to be treasured.
Whether the timing was perfect or not, the truth of the matter could not be denied. From the moment he’d fallen over her in that old rickety shed, his fate had been determined.
He hadn’t just fallen over her...he’d fallen for her.
Trying to deny it, to
push it aside, to argue the fact...it was pointless. He might as well fight against gravity or argue with the sun that it ought not shine.
His head fell back against the back of his chair with a thud.
He might have been back at his desk, but this time he did not even notice the stacks of papers that awaited him, and he could not remember a single word that Marigold’s friend had said, or her mother, or his, for that matter.
For the first time since he’d arrived home, he was well able to focus, and there was only one topic on his mind.
Marigold.
His relationship with Marigold was the only thing that mattered right now.
All the rest of it? That could wait.
There would be time enough to sort through his duties, to adapt to following in his father’s impressive footsteps, to learn how to be the sort of son and brother his family needed him to be.
But...Marigold.
There was no time to dally.
So what was he doing here in this study when he ought to be throwing himself at her feet and begging her for a chance to win her hand?
Simple. He was thinking.
Stewing, really.
Trying to sort out how he could make this right after he’d botched it all so badly earlier today.
I do not wish to be friends.
That was what he ought to have said.
But he hadn’t.
And now he was here, and Alex was there, and Marigold was...
Well, he was not quite certain where she was. Somewhere that was not with him, and that was unacceptable.
He had to tell her everything that he should have said when he’d had the chance, and he had to do it soon.
Preferably today.
Possibly within the hour.
He shot up out of his seat as impatience made him pace the small confines of the room.
“Ah, Max, I was hoping I would find you here.” His mother’s voice announced her presence before he spun around to face her.
Sarah followed slowly in her wake, a small smile of commiseration on her face the only warning he needed for what was to come.
“Dear, I must insist that this evening you focus your attention on the ladies I mentioned to you. Whether you wish to marry them or not, there are rumors spreading about your intentions toward Miss Clearwater.” She barely paid attention to him as Sarah sank onto a settee by the fireplace and he moved to the other side of the desk. “I put a stop to those rumors, obviously—”
“Obviously,” he said.
His tone had her turning to face him. Her lips pinched, ready for an argument but for the first time since he’d returned home, he remembered himself.
Or rather, he remembered who he’d become these past few years.
He was no longer the child who needed to rebel. He wasn’t a stubborn youth who needed to forge his own path.
He’d already done all that.
He was a man. A marquess. A former military leader and currently a powerful gentleman of the peerage.
More than all of that, he was the man for Marigold. He knew it. A connection like that did not occur often and he’d be the biggest fool on God’s green earth if he let it slip out of his grasp.
“Mother, I love you—”
“Why, I love you too, dear—”
“And I respect you,” he continued. “I wish to make you proud and see you happy, but I am not the young boy who left this house with some mistaken notions about the glory of war. I am not the young man who came back to visit and fell back into his old ways of rebellion and spite—”
“I know that, dear,” his mother said quietly. Her eyes were soft with understanding.
Perhaps she did not. Maybe he was the one who’d forgotten.
Coming home had done something to him, it had blended the past with his present, muddled his sense of self with his youthful angst.
He let out a low rueful laugh as he shook his head. “I’ve been acting like a fool.”
His mother sighed and his sister gave him a small smile from her seat behind her. “Not a fool, dear. You’ve just had a lot to adapt to.”
“Perhaps,” he said with a shrug. “But I am done with running from responsibility, and when it comes to shaping my future...” He met his mother’s gaze meaningfully. “I am prepared to do that, on my own or with your input on my future bride—”
“But Max—”
“My bride will be my choice, Mother.”
Her gaze met his evenly and it was filled with a mix of exasperation and...pride. Finally she cracked a smile. “Why do I get the feeling you have already made your choice?”
His own lips quirked up at the corners as a rush of happiness swept over him. His entire life might have been flipped upside down, the world might be spinning too quickly, and he might be facing a future that was unknown and hazy.
But he was certain of one thing. He wanted Marigold. To have and to hold.
And nothing had ever felt so sure, so certain...so right.
“I have decided, Mother. I want Miss Clearwater to be my wife.”
His sister made a little squealing noise of excitement before clapping a hand over her mouth when he and their mother turned to face her.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, but there was no hiding her grin.
His mother turned back to him with arched brows. “You believe she will make you happy?”
“I know she will.”
She nodded and her eyes grew soft with sentiment. “That is all I’ve ever wanted for you, dear.”
He pulled her into his arms and she held him tight. “It was all your father wanted, too.”
“I know, Mother,” he said as he let her go. “I’ve always known that.”
“So then...” She clapped her hands together and her smile was bright despite the wetness that made her eyes glint in the candlelight. “Have you approached Mrs. Clearwater for her approval?”
“Not yet,” he said. “First, I need to ascertain that she wishes to marry me.”
Both women were clearly affronted at the mere thought that she might not wish to be a member of their family, but he held his hands up before they could protest. “I need to tell her how I feel first.” He drew in a deep breath at the memory of their last parting. “I am not certain she feels the same for me.”
“Of course she does,” his mother snapped. “What young lady wouldn’t?”
He and his sister exchanged a knowing smile. “Thank you for your confidence, Mother.”
“I will speak to her,” she said quickly. “Better yet, I shall talk to her mother.”
He held up a hand. “That will not be necessary. I will talk to Miss Clearwater...”
As he spoke an idea came to him and he smiled at his mother and sister. “But there is a way that you two can help.”
Chapter Sixteen
Marigold gave what she hoped was her final brittle smile for the afternoon. Tea with Lord Wright had been...painful.
The tea was excellent, of course. The cakes delicious. The room which they sat was stunningly beautiful with soft cream silk curtains and lush damask covered furniture. Sunlight streamed into the full-length windows giving the entire room a light and airy appearance.
In the right company, this room could steal a woman’s breath.
Which, of course, made her think of Max.
A small sigh escaped her lips which she promptly clamped shut. She didn’t want Lord Wright to know she was bored out of her wits.
“Did you know that foxes come in multiple shades of red and orange, and there are even some varieties of silver?” he finished, giving her a hopeful smile.
She tried to return the gesture, but her cheeks felt tight from the effort. “How...interesting.”
He gave an enthusiastic nod as he perched on the edge of his seat. “Hunting is my passion.” He gave her a meaningful stare, leaning even farther out on his chair. The man would fall soon if he wasn’t careful. “One I’d love to share with my wife.”
Marigold
blinked in surprise. “How lovely.” She supposed a man who wished to share his passions and pursuits with his spouse should be commended. But sincerely, she was not the least bit interested in hunting, in general, and foxes, in particular.
“Do you hunt, Miss Clearwater?” His eyes widened in hopeful anticipation.
From the corner, her mother cleared her throat, making the answer she should murmur very clear.
The thing was, Marigold did not like to hunt and she had no interest in Lord Wright’s courtship. “I am afraid not, my lord.”
Her mother gave a little cough of dissent and Lord Wright blinked in surprise. “I see.”
She drew in a deep breath, drawing her shoulders straight. “I have heard that Lady Minerva Wainsworth is an excellent huntress. Have you ever spoken with her?”
Her mother squeaked. But Marigold ignored the sound. This was the first step in her plan and she’d see it through now.
Lord Wright shook his head. “I have not.” His mouth dipped down into a frown. “I suppose it was a great deal to ask.”
“What’s that?” she returned, her brow drawing together.
“That a woman share my interests in addition to being beautiful...” He paused. “Like you.”
A blush warmed her cheeks. “My lord, that is so kind. I—”
He waved a hand as if brushing her words away. “Kind is not the word I was hoping for.”
She winced. She remembered when Max had called her friend. The word had stuck in her mind these past few days. If only she’d said what Lord Wright had managed to effortlessly communicate. I don’t want to be your friend, Max.
But that was step three of her plan. She was jumping ahead.
Instead, she gave the man in front of her a genuinely warm smile. “I understand. But I want to be honest with you. My heart, I am afraid, already belongs to another. It makes me a less than ideal candidate for your hand.”
He nodded, his mouth curving down into a frown.
Her mother huffed a breath, and the rustling of skirts told Marigold that her mother was now on her feet.
Time for step two.
“Thank you for your candor,” Lord Wright said as he also stood. “I have enjoyed meeting you, Miss Clearwater.” He gave a bow. “If your heart’s desire is not met, I would ask that you seek me out. I would fondly receive you.”
A Wallflower's Wish Boxed Set: Three Regency Romances Page 33