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“Marcus,” she warned.
Allen got to his feet. “Oh, I can clear this up for you, Marcus,” Allen said. He crossed to stand behind Marcus and put his hands on his shoulders. “I was holding her hand because she’s bloody beautiful.” He shook Marcus roughly in his grip.
“Bloody beautiful,” he breathed. He stopped shaking Marcus, who appeared stiff as a board, and winked at Cecelia, grinned broadly so only she could see it, and then stole a piece of bacon off Marcus’s plate and shoved it in his mouth. Then he quit the room.
***
It took all of Marcus’s self-control not to jump from his chair and throttle his younger brother. How dare he? When Marcus walked into the room, he felt like he’d been kicked in the stomach by a mule. The sight of her hand beneath Allen’s as she looked up into his brother’s eyes was like a kick to the gut. And to his lungs, because he suddenly found it hard to take a deep breath.
It had taken all of his composure not to toss Allen from the room and kick his arse all the way out the front door. But, if he did that, he’d only have to deal with his father’s, his mother’s, and his four sisters’ wrath.
“You are an idiot, Marcus Thorne,” Cecelia said, jerking him from his misery. Then she shoved her napkin to the side and picked up a half-eaten piece of toast. She threw it at his head. “How dare you do that?” She picked up a berry and threw that at him, too. A handful of them, apparently, because one hit above his eye. And yet more hit his shirt.
“Cece,” he began, covering his head with his hands as he ducked the flying food. “Would you stop it?”
“No, I won’t stop it.” This time, she turned to the sideboard, and a slack-jawed servant made a move to place lids on all the dishes there. She pointed a finger at him and he blanched. The poor man had no idea what he was up against. But he held firm and kept his hands on top of the silver domes.
“Damn it all, Cece,” Marcus said as he jumped from his chair, hoping to save the poor servant from her wrath when she ran out of things to throw. He took her by the shoulders and spun her around. “Stop it,” he warned quietly as he pulled her closer to him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly. If he held her arms, she couldn’t throw more food, could she? Definitely not.
“Don’t ever do that again,” she warned. But she stilled in his arms and her angry little breaths tickled his freshly shaven chi
n. The feel of her in his arms shot straight to his groin, and he turned to the side to keep from showing her how very much he wanted to hold her in his arms forever. Preferably when they were in a bed.
“Don’t do what?” he taunted. He motioned toward the servant, nodding him toward the door. The man quietly left the room and pulled the door shut behind him. “Don’t stop my brother from touching the woman I love?” He set her infinitesimally back from him. “You think I’m going to just sit back and watch my brother try to win your heart?”
“All he did was touch my hand,” she murmured against his shirt. Her eyes were wet when she raised her gaze to meet his, and he felt that punch to his gut again, only this time, his heart clenched as well. “And don’t tell me you love me.”
She shoved his chest until he let her go. She turned to stare out the window. “I find I can’t quite live without telling you, you ninny. So, if you don’t want to hear it, you had better stay far, far away from me.”
“Don’t promise me things I can’t have, Marcus,” she said, her voice heavy, as if she needed to swallow. She didn’t turn back to face him.
“I have given it a lot of thought, Cecelia, ever since that night I left the land of the fae.” He cleared his throat. But there was a lump there that wouldn’t go away. “I shouldn’t have ended things. Because I’m not certain I can live without you, damn it all.”
She spun quickly to face him. Instead of the sincere relief he expected to see, her cheeks were flushed and she was apparently livid, if the crease between her brows was an indication. “You see me with another man and you suddenly can’t live without me? Is that it, Marcus? You’re jealous?”
She stormed past him and walked around the other end of the table where he couldn’t grab her as she walked past. She tilted her nose up in the air and said, “You’re going to have to stay jealous, Marcus. Because I don’t want a man who threw me over to become a viscount. I want one who will choose me over all things. And he very well may be a member of this world.” She stuck a finger out at him, and it was as though she waved a sword at him.
“I, unlike you, would like to have someone who loves me and wants to hold me and have children with me. I want someone who will share a home with me, whether it be here or there, and someone who will cherish me and choose me over all things.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “And that person isn’t you. So, don’t interject yourself into my life, Marcus. You manage yours. And I’ll manage mine. And never the two shall meet.”
With that, she stomped out the door, slamming it loudly behind her.
Marcus flopped into his chair and buried his face in his hands. But then the door opened again. Marcus’s heart leaped at the thought that Cecelia had come back. But his mother stepped into the room instead. “Goodness, you’ve gotten yourself into a bit of trouble, haven’t you?” she asked. She began to whistle a tune beneath her breath.
“Why are you so happy?” Marcus grunted.
She shrugged and smiled even more broadly. “No particular reason.” She retrieved a piece of toast and bit a corner off it. She pointed to the spot above his eye. “You have a bit of blueberry here.” He lifted a napkin to swipe at the area. “Matter of fact, you might want to go and change clothes. You’re a frightful mess.”
“Yes, Mother,” he groused.
“I do like that girl,” she said, her voice chipper.
So did he. That was the problem.
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.”
