Page 59 of Manufacturing a Duchess

“Aurora—” He could not help himself. Was ever a man so confounded as he was? She was everything. She was also wrong, all wrong. He did not know what he wanted to say. Yet he did not understand why, even now, his feet would not take him out of this room.

But she interrupted him. “Oh, what do you want, Alec? What do you really want? Be honest. I know what I want. I finally know what I want. But what do you want?”

He found he had no words left to say. It was his chance to speak, and his mind went blank. Had she heard nothing that he had said? When he didn’t reply, she turned away from him and faced the papers sitting on the desk. “I have work to do, sir. Please give my love to Marjorie. Our acquaintance is happily at an end.”

This final dismissal was what freed his feet from where they had planted themselves. With a growl, Alec pivoted and yanked open the door, slamming it behind him. He heard an answering growl from Aurora and the sound of what he surmised was the glass inkpot smashing against the door. “Dreadful man! Dreadful, dreadful man!” carried distinctly out into the hallway.

Setting his mouth as firmly as he could, something which he appeared to be doing frequently as of late, he wrenched his thoughts away from the woman he had just left and forced them to his impending departure.

I must leave, and I must leave now, was all he could focus on. And then, You are running away, Alec. You know you are running away.

I know, he answered. But I do not know what else to do. There is no solution. This campaign is at an end. And I have failed.

Forty-Eight

A slight click indicated the opening of a door a little way further down the hall from Mr. Hardcastle’s office. A small figure peered through the opening and stepped out. She held her shoes in one hand, ascertained the coast was clear, and then tread as softly as she could down the hall in the direction her father had gone. She occasionally started at any sounds she heard and darted for cover. But she made it back to her room without discovery, slipping on her shoes again before entering.

“There you are, Lady Marjorie. Did you find that handkerchief you lost?”

Marjorie set her face in the most innocent expression she could muster and hoped Peg was distracted enough not to ask too many questions. “Alack no, Peg. But it was my least favorite one. Do you wish me to sit on my trunk to help close it?”

As she helped Peg with their final arrangements for departure, Marjorie looked at the closed door to her room, waiting for her father to come. Her eyes narrowed. I am a good scout, Papa. And we have not left yet.

* * *

Alec briefly put his head inside the door of the room assigned to him and saw Archibald had already neatly packed his clothing back into his trunk and valise. Both of these objects were now sitting, waiting to be taken down to the carriage. He shut the door and headed to Marjorie’s room, where he found his daughter and Peg packing away Marjorie’s final items of clothing. Her room was silent, save for the soft susurration of cloth being folded and then the click of the trunk.

His daughter studiously ignored him until the task was completed. Only then did she turn around and announce, “All done, Papa.”

Alec set his mouth in a thin line. He knew he was in the right. He had stretched and accommodated past any point a reasonable man in his position could accept. So why did he feel this was all a terrible mistake? Well, even if it was, it was still the right thing to do. He looked down at his daughter. She was standing there, at attention, her commanded task done, awaiting further instructions. The look she bestowed upon him was uncowed. This was not going to be over easily, was it, he realized.

Alec reached out his hand. “Then, come, Marjorie. It is time to depart. Peg, you can let the footmen know we are ready to have everything loaded into the carriage.”

Peg curtsied, and Marjorie obediently took his hand. Together, the two of them silently walked down the broad staircase to the main entrance, where the butler was waiting to open the door. “Good-bye, Your Grace,” was all the man said.

Damnation. I am not the one in the wrong here. “Moore, is it? I am greatly obliged to you and your staff for your care during our visit,” was all Alec said in reply. And then he and his daughter were outside, walking down the outer sweep of steps to the waiting carriage. Footmen soon followed, carrying the luggage, which was swiftly secured to the vehicle’s roof. Alec’s horse had been brought round as well and was being held, waiting for him to mount. He helped Marjorie into the carriage and then Peg.

“I will ride with the coachman, Your Grace,” indicated Archibald, and Alec nodded.

He peered into the carriage’s interior where Peg was settling her skirts, and Marjorie was looking out the opposite window. As he moved to shut the carriage door, however, his daughter rose, crossed to him, and reached her hands out to stop him from closing it.

“You must parley, Papa,” she said, firmly.

“What?”

“You must parley with Miss Aurora, Papa,” she repeated. “You must. And then request terms. We cannot go to Scotland, we cannot go to London, we cannot go anywhere, Papa, unless you parley.”

“The time for parley is past, Marjorie. I have parleyed. I have discussed terms.”

“No, Papa, you did not discuss them. You rejected them. You shouted no to them. I heard you. I was there in the woods, by the stream. And then, after—” She gulped, her eyes searching his face guiltily as her own declared she had given away the fact she had been eavesdropping when he had gone to Mr. Hardcastle’s office. When her father did not speak, she raised her chin. “That is not a proper parley.” The child she still was became very present in her pleading eyes and voice. “Please, Papa, for me.”

“Damnation, Marjorie!”

“Please, Papa.”

He did not know that his heart was capable of breaking any further, but it shattered into so many pieces, he wondered if they could ever be retrieved. “No, Marjorie. We are going home.”

He mounted his horse and nodded to the coachman. “We are leaving.”