Four
Cecelia stormed down the corridor toward the stairwell, intent upon flinging herself down on her bed and having a full-out temper fit, provided that she could ever find her blasted room. Ramsdale House was a maze of corridors, and Cecelia quickly found herself lost. She turned corner after corner and went down corridor after corridor, until she finally heard voices from a nearby chamber. With a house this big, there had to be some servants about, didn’t there? It was only logical.
She walked toward the voices and stopped when she got to the sunny morning room and stood in the doorway. She cleared her throat gently to get their attention. Lady Ramsdale looked up. “Cecelia,” she said as she got to her feet. “I thought you were in your chambers.”
“I would be if I could find them, I assure you,” Cecelia said, fluttering her hand nervously in front of her.
“But you stormed out of the breakfast room a little more than an hour ago.” Lady Ramsdale’s brow arched delicately. “Have you been lost for that long?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Cecelia admitted. “And I’m very sorry that you saw me storming about at all. It wasn’t my intention to upheave your household.”
Lady Ramsdale bustled her two younger daughters quickly from the room. Then she motioned for Cecelia to have a seat. “Life’s not worth living without a little upheaval, dear,” she said. She regarded Cecelia with warm eyes. “Do you want to talk about what’s bothering you?”
Not at all. She couldn’t possibly discuss the fact that the lady’s own son had taken her heart and squashed it like a bug under his shoe. “Nothing is bothering me,” she said, forcing herself to smile. “Thank you for letting me stay until the moonful,” she added.
“Thank you for lending us some of your magic. I know it’s not easy for you being here.”
“Life does go on, doesn’t it?” Cecelia said with a heavy sigh.
“Does it?” Lady Ramsdale asked. “Does it go on? Really?”
Cecelia stuttered. “I’m certain I don’t know what you mean, Lady Ramsdale.”
Marcus’s mother waved a breezy hand in the air. “Oh, posh. You’re in love with one of my sons, and the other is using you shamelessly to needle him.” She took a sip of her tea and offered Cecelia a cup. She waved it away. “Not very sporting of Allen to pick you as a way to get back at his brother. But it might be what Marcus needs to do the right thing.”
“The right thing?” Cecelia reached for a cup of tea after all, because she suddenly couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat.
“My son is an idiot if he thinks he can follow society rather than his heart. I think he’s regretting his decision. And he regrets it even more every time you step away from him.”
“Marcus has no regrets. Sometimes I think he wishes he’d been born human rather than half fae.” She murmured the last.
“Marcus is chasing a dream he’s had since he was a small lad. Since he was taken from us, he never knew what it was like to have parents, and he’s dead set on pleasing his human father.” She set her teacup down. “What he doesn’t realize is that his father doesn’t care if he takes over his title. He just wants him to be happy.”
“He’s happy now, from what I understand,” Cecelia said quietly.
Lady Ramsdale laughed loudly. “Happy? That young man is miserable without you.”
Cecelia set her own cup down. “Did you call me here because you needed my magic? Or so that you could toss the two of us back together?”
Lady Ramsdale tilted her head from side to side as though weighing the value of her response. “A little of both, perhaps.”
“I wish you hadn’t,” Cecelia said clearly. “I wish you’d just left me be. It was just starting to get easier without him.” Things weren’t getting any easier with her father. But that was neither here nor there.
“Oh, you poor darling,” Lady Ramsdale cooed. “I would never have sent for you with the intention of making you miserable.”
“Yet, you have,” Cecelia said as she got to her feet.
Lady Ramsdale stood up just as quickly. “What can I do to make it better?”
“I don’t think you understand, Lady Ramsdale.” She heaved a sigh and pinched her eyes closed tightly.
“Help me understand,” Lady Ramsdale pleaded.
“All I’ve ever wanted to be was Marcus’s wife. That was our plan. We’ve talked about it since we were young. We would go hunting for frogs when we were young, and we talked about how we would teach our children to do the same. And when we got a little older, we talked about how we would go on missions together, even into our old age. And we planned our future. We used to sit out under the stars and talk about it all. He’d put his head in my lap and everything felt right. Until he decided that he didn’t want the life we’d planned.”
“I had no idea Marcus had made such a muddle of things,” Lady Ramsdale said, scratching her head.
“Our dreams were gone. And he had new ones. But I didn’t. I had nothing. So forgive me if I’m a little bitter about the whole situation.”
“No need to forgive you, dear,” she said quietly.
“I just wanted you to know. He threw me away. And it has taken me over six months to pull myself back up to stand on my feet. And just when I thought I could, you summoned me here. So, I came. But don’t expect me to act as though things are all fine and good between us, because they’re not. He doesn’t love me anymore. And I am too angry to love him.”
Lady Ramsdale wrung her hands.
“And if you’ll point me toward my chambers, I’ll go and have a good cry, and then I’ll be ready to go for a ride in the park with your other son.” She turned toward the door and waited, blinking back tears. She refused to look at Lady Ramsdale. If she did, she might break. And she just didn’t want to do that. Not now.
“To the right, up the stairs, and then take a left,” Lady Ramsdale said quietly.
“Thank you,” Cecelia said.
***
Cecelia rushed past Marcus in the corridor. He reached out a hand to stop her, but she pushed her shoulder closer to the wall and stepped around him. “Not now, Marcus,” she spat at him. “Mind your own matters,” she snapped, and she continued on past him. Marcus stood in the corridor and watched the sway of her hips as she stormed away from him.
He was minding his own matters. She was his matter, for God’s sake.
“Marcus,” a voice called from the morning room. His mother stuck her auburn head out the doorway and pointed a finger at him. “I’ll see you for a moment.”
He didn’t really have a moment. He had to see why Cecelia was in such a temper. Usually when they fought, she would throw things at him and then she would get over it. Since she’d thrown food, they should have been over it. But she obviously wasn’t.
“She’s still angry at me,” he said as he sat down across from his mother.
“And she has every right to be.”
He heaved a sigh. “I know.”
“What are your intentions toward her, Marcus?” she asked.
“I don’t have any intentions toward her. Aside from keeping her from falling in love with Allen.” He murmured the last, and his mother’s brow shot northward.
“And what if she did fall in love with Allen?”
“I would be crushed. Absolutely crushed.” He couldn’t think of a better way to describe it. “I made a mistake when I left her. It was a quick decision, and I was blinded by the warmth of my family.” He sat up straighter and picked at an errant string on his trousers.
“Your family will still be here,” she said, laying her fingertips upon his knee.
“I know that now. But I didn’t know it then.” He got to his feet and began to pace. He stopped to look at his mother. “My task now is to undo all the harm that I caused before some other man realizes how amazing she is and snatches her away from me.” He pointed a finger at his mother. “And if Allen lays a hand on her one more time, I’m going to chop it off with a dull pair of scissors.”
“Allen laid a hand upon Cecelia?” His mother looked briefly worried. But it passed.
“They were holding hands when I walked into the breakfast room.”
Recognition dawned in her eyes. “And that’s why she was throwing food at you this morning. Because you made an arse of yourself when you thought they were holding hands.” A grin tugged at the corners of her lips. This wasn’t funny.
“I don’t know what you think is so amusing.”
“Made you see red, did it?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.
“Red, yes. And I was about to see purple and black, because I was this close,” he held his thumb and forefinger a small space apart, “to knocking the grin right off his face.”
“Your brother means you no harm,” she chided. “If anything, he’s simply trying to help you realize what you’re missing.”
“He means me no harm?” Marcus pressed a hand to his chest. “I stole his title and his birthright. And I do not deserve it. I didn’t sit at father’s knee for twenty-odd years and learn everything that Allen did. Yet I’m the oldest, so I have to step into his future.”
“And give up your own,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry this has been so difficult for you.”
“Difficult doesn’t begin to describe it,” he growled.
“It’s our fault. We put you in this predicament.” Her shoulders slumped. He didn’t want to console her right now.
“Do you want to help me?”
She looked up quickly. “Help you with what?”
“Winning Cecelia back.” He hadn’t planned to do it. But then he hadn’t planned to shove her away, either. “I need her more than I need a title. Or money. Or land. Or air.”
His mother laid a hand upon her chest. “Marcus, that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said.”
“If she heard me, she’d gladly volunteer to deprive me of air and smother me with a pillow. I believe she hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” his mother corrected. “But she is rather angry.”
“Do you think I can’t tell that?” he barked. At her shocked expression, he worked to soften his tone. “I’m sorry, but I only have a few weeks before she will go back home.”
His mother’s brows drew together. “Marcus, are you under the impression that you can’t go back to the land of the fae?”
“It’s not worth going back there if she won’t accept me in her life.” He flopped in a chair rather ungracefully, suddenly feeling like the air had been let out of him.
“We have a lot of work to do,” his mother said. And she pulled a writing desk into her lap. “Let’s make a list, shall we?”
She smiled. And hope bloomed within Marcus for the first time in months.