Page 11 of The Wallflower and the Duke
“He wasn’t accepting visitors. When his father passed, I tried to call and pay my respects, but his mother sent me away. I haven’t tried since. I know when I’m not wanted.”
Funny that anger and sadness could be but a threadbare difference. Alfie needed a friend in this world, even if he believed he wasn’t fit for one at the moment. But his mother…
“Yes, well, I saw him.”
“Is he still in love with you?”
She didn’t care for her sister’s nonchalance at such a claim. As if it were common knowledge.
“I don’t wish to speak of it.”
“I take that as a yes.”
“You must be exhausted,” Marjorie said, attempting to change the course of the conversation. “Would you like me to help you to your room and ring for something to eat or some tea?”
“I don’t need your help,” Emily snapped. She stood, then adjusted her gold-rimmed glasses up her round button nose. “I only mean I have been by myself for some time. You have been in London, and I have been here in the country. If you would like my advice, I suggest you attempt to see the duke again today. Be there for him. He is grieving, true. But loneliness is altogether consuming and a different kind of sadness.”
“You could come to London,” Marjorie said. “I wouldn’t allow Mother and Father to overshadow you.”
“I don’t wish to go to Town. I am happy here. I can study medicine and attend my plants and keep to myself. It’s a quiet life, but it’s comfortable, and I can do as I wish. I don’t have to worry about gowns or balls or marriage.”
“You used to want to be married. You used to make me pretend to be the groom and walk me down the hallway outside the nursery to your doll overseeing the ceremony. Do you remember? Why, that one time you wore one of Mother’s gowns, and I thought she would?—”
“I grew up, and things changed. I changed.” Her sister gestured at her body. “I’ve been left here in the country like a shameful secret, but I refuse to allow their embarrassment to dictate my life. I’m content here. No need for love to muck it up.”
Marjorie leaned forward in her chair, her eyes wide with a teasing smile. “Don’t you wish to be mucked up? Just once even?”
Her sister playfully gasped before standing up and winking. “La, Sister, ladies don’t speak of such things!”
She giggled to herself as she turned toward Benny. “Well?” she called out after her.
“I love you, but you are trouble. Stop being a coward and go see your duke. Maybe he can stop your moping.”
“I was not moping!”
“Stay late and make terrible decisions. I won’t tell. Cross my heart.”
Marjorie pulled her legs up and hugged her knees, gazing out the window across the park toward her neighbor’s estate. She couldn’t see the house from here, but it was much like the moon—always guiding her even when she couldn’t see it. He was a constant.
And it wasn’t as though she didn’t consider herself a friend. He was her best friend in the world. But maybe it was the time away from one another or the kindness lingering in his green eyes, but she wasn’t sure that was all that was between them now.
Some cosmic pull. Or fate. A force much bigger than themselves, surely, because if not, then she was to believe what? She missed years of being loved by a man?
That same echoing tug pulled at her chest at the very thought.
Marjorie had turned down Alfie when he proposed. She was set on his charming friend from school. The very friend who shattered her heart and stole her book now. But she hadn’t been ready to be Alfie’s wife, never mind a duchess. She had been seventeen, and he had been…
Well, yes… she could admit she had been surprised by the way she felt around Alfie sometimes. Even then. Even before.
And now?
She tossed her head back and groaned. It didn’t matter whether her heart was confused. All she knew was his heart was broken, and she could help. She could be a coward later. Now, she had a duke to visit.
Marjorie had climbed into his window yesterday as if she hadn’t walked out of his life three years prior. As if time hadn’t lapsed between them, when in truth, it hadn’t been years but lifetimes.
And now, he sat in his chair, reading the newsprint as the morning sun dappled across the rug, and he pretended he hadn’t positioned it to watch the window for her return today. Because that was ridiculous. Alfie wasn’t waiting for her.
He never had been.
