feet. “Will you stop it? Envy is not a pretty color on you.”
“Get used to it. Because I’ll wear it as long as you’re promised to someone else.” He stood up and got close to her, so close that she had to take a step back. But he just followed. “I will never stop. I will chase you until I can’t chase you anymore.”
“I don’t want to be chased,” she whispered.
“You want to be married. And to have children. And to have a home of your own.” He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “You want me.”
She shook her head. This was going nowhere. “I’m going to bed.” She pushed past him toward the garden gate.
Marcus spun to chase her. “Tell me who he is.” He tugged gently on her elbow.
“Who?”
“The man who will keep you from me.”
He was never going to let this rest, was he? Ever. Cecelia squeezed her eyes closed. “There is no one, all right?” she cried. Her voice broke, and she hated herself for it. But the subterfuge wasn’t fair to either of them.
“What?” He smiled slowly, his eyes lighting up there in the darkness of the night. “There is no one else?”
Cecelia steeled herself with a fortifying breath. “No. I just told you that to make you leave me alone.”
Talking about her father hurt too much. She didn’t have to tell him about that yet, did she?
***
He would never, ever, ever leave her alone. Not now. Not a chance. “I’ll never leave you again,” he promised. Hope bloomed within him.
“I haven’t said I’ll accept you back in my life,” she warned, holding up a finger to stay him.
He smiled. He couldn’t help it. “You lied to me about your availability.” The joviality in his voice made his comments sound like a song.
She blew a lock of hair from her forehead with an upturned breath. “And I’m pretty sure you lied too,” she said. She looked away, suddenly appearing uneasy. “How many women have there been since you’ve been here, Marcus?” she finally asked. “I have a right to know.”
A laugh bubbled up within him, but he tamped it down. “There’s only you, you ninny,” he said, flicking his finger against the tip of her nose. “How could I possibly be with another when you’re all I can think about?”
Marcus drew her into his arms, with her protesting all the while. He laughed at her reticence, but he needed to hold her. “You had better not be lying,” she murmured against his chest. “I will find out if you are.”
“Cece,” he said. He didn’t know how to tell her everything that was in his heart. But he felt it was imperative that he try.
“Let me show you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of faerie dust. He tilted it back and forth in his hand, and Cecelia watched the glow of the flakes. He dumped a lump of it into his palm and blew it into the air. He said the words, “Show my love my heart.”
The dust began to swirl and formed a picture of Marcus with his ring on the day his father gave it to him. The words “faith,” “trust,” and “honor” appeared in the apparition. But then they were replaced by sorrow. Sorrow, despair, and dissatisfaction trumped happiness, and the second words gobbled up the first in their greedy jaws. Marcus wiped a tear from the corner of Cecelia’s eye. He swiped a hand through the dust and it dissipated, falling to the floor of the garden like sparks from the grate. Dust didn’t lie. He’d been as torn in two as she had over their separation.
“I had a lot to think about when I first came here.”
“Your sisters?” she asked.
Yes, he’d had to get his sisters out of one scrape or another. But then he’d gone home and his grandfather had died. And he’d taken some part of Marcus with him. “My sisters, and then my parents.” He’d wanted so badly to have parents. “I felt like I needed to make them love me, since they hadn’t done so my whole life. And I worried that the only way to do that was to dedicate myself to their way of
Alexandra Ivy, Laura Wright