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“It’s about the fae,” Allen said hesitantly.
“What about them?” Marcus asked as he tied a knot in his cravat. He shrugged into his coat and sat down opposite Allen. Apparently, something weighed heavily on Allen’s mind.
“Do you think they could ever accept me? I mean, truly?”
Marcus didn’t understand. “Accept you as what?”
Allen jumped up to pace. “As one of them, you dolt. As one of the fae. As one of you.” He let his hand sweep up and down through the air toward Marcus’s body.
Marcus laid a hand on his chest. “But I am fae.”
“And I’m not,” Allen bit out.
“You’re half fae. Just as I am.”
He showed Marcus the tip of his human ear. “But I don’t have any of the traits. I don’t have an ounce of magic within me. How could the world be so cruel?” His brother collapsed into the chair again, the side of his head falling to rest on his balled-up fist.
“Your mother is fae. Your father is not. So, it’s not like you’re not of the fae. So, what’s your concern?”
“It’s Ainsley,” he murmured.
Marcus heard him, but he didn’t want to let him get away with murmuring about it. He cupped a hand around his ear and said, “I’m sorry. I missed that.”
“It’s Ainsley, damn it all. I want to ask her to marry me.”
“Well, I certainly hope you do, because the two of you have grown rather close.”
His brother’s brows shot together and he said, “Not as close as you and Cecelia.”
“Don’t speak of that,” Marcus warned. He would hate to punch his brother in the face, but if he said the wrong thing, he wouldn’t have a choice. He wouldn’t let anyone speak poorly of Cecelia. “What do you know of it, anyway?” Marcus said.
“She talks to Ainsley,” Allen admitted.
She did? About that? “What does she say?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Bloody hell, Allen, of course it matters,” he growled.
“Ainsley is jealous,” Allen said quietly.
“Jealous of what?” What on earth did Ainsley have to be jealous of?
“Of the intimacy between you two.”
Oh, dear God, what had Cecelia said? “Be more specific.”
“If I get more specific, you’ll try to punch me in the face.”
That much was true. Marcus shrugged. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“I want to go home with Ainsley. Well, I want to ask her to marry me and then go home with her. To live there. But I’m not like you.”
“I don’t have wings, either, Allen,” Marcus reminded him. “Only the ladies have them.”
“But you have magic.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter what magic you have for yourself. It’s what kind of magic you have with the person you love that will matter.” He looked hard at Allen. “Do you and Ainsley have that kind of magic? The kind where you think about her even when you’re not together. The kind where you want to do things and say things just to make her smile. The kind where you imagine her head on your pillow every day for the rest of your life.
