Page 16 of The Wallflower and the Duke
“It’s a large estate, and it is only myself at present.”
“Your mother does not need the other one hundred and eleven rooms to herself.”
He crossed the room, raking his hand through his hair. “I can’t leave, Jo.”
“Can’t or won’t?” she challenged.
She was sorry the moment the accusation left her lips. His face drained of color.
“I apologize. I—” She reached for his hands, clasping them tight in hers. “Can you tell me what happens? How may I help?”
He shook off her touch and scoffed. It was an ugly sound that wedged itself into her chest.
“I try.” He lifted his hand and pointed to the door, even as it shook. “I try every damn day to leave. I recognize it is foolish. My brother was the one who died in Waterloo. But I had to identify his body. What was left of it. And then, I found myself half numb in a carriage on the journey home, and there was an accident. I survived. I’m alive, yet I can’t force myself out of this room. I didn’t even attend my own father’s funeral.
“I lost my brother and my father, and my mother is so frustrated she left me to visit her sister in Bath. She told me if I am not out of this room when she returns, she will have no choice but to have a doctor visit. I might have hit my head, but I’m not daft enough to realize she means keep me here at Hollyvale, hidden away. She thinks me otherworldly now.”
Oh, how foolish she was.
“Contrary to appearances, I don’t want to stay in this room. I miss living. Miss swimming and riding. Never thought I’d admit it, but London as well and going to my club.”
Marjorie raced to erase the distance between them and cupped his face in her hands. She pulled until his attention was drawn on her. His pulse raced at his jaw beneath her fingers. For two days, she had carried on about her manuscript and Percy, and Alfie had been hurting.
“What if we try to leave together?”
He shook his head, his breath coming quicker. “Christ, you’ll never marry me now.”
She shook her head, forcing out a heartless laugh even when tears brimmed in her eyes. “Nonsense.”
“I will fail everyone if I step outside this room. It should never have been my brother going to France. I am the eldest, and he’s dead because I couldn’t protect him.”
“You were heir. You had a duty to remain here, and he was eager to enlist.”
“I couldn’t stand the sight of my parents while he was away fighting. When we received word he was missing, my mother sobbed for three days, and my father barely left his favorite chair in the library.”
“The green one with the stitched cushion?”
“Yes.”
The chair cushion they had stolen away one day as children to picnic, only to have Alfie’s dog take to it instead. Marjorie cut a piece from her gown and patched it herself, too afraid her friend would land in trouble.
“My father refused to part with it, even after what happened.”
Her chest ached. She still remembered returning to Hollyvale that evening with Alfie with a hole in her dress and a badly patched cushion to make her apologies. His father had met them in the front hall, furious they had stayed out all day without taking lunch or dinner. He had bent down and embraced them both, tutting over their concern about what had happened. Until his mother swept in, sending her home in the carriage, demanding for the chair to be replaced.
Unbothered, Marjorie’s mother had later sent two new chairs over to Hollyvale to prove a point.
How guilty she had felt, how ashamed. Alfie had remained close, stepping in front of her as his mother lectured her over her lack of decorum.
She might have fallen a little in love with him that day.
As for today? She feared being honest with herself meant admitting she had been in love with him for longer than she even knew.
“You are only failing yourself by remaining in this room.”
He pulled away and tossed his head up at the ceiling. “And I’ll fail you too. If I stay, or if by some miracle I can leave this room, you know I can’t go up against Percy. And that’s why you came, isn’t it? You want me to rescue you?”
She ignored the stinging comment, recognizing his frustration. On any other day, she would have pushed back. Instead, she kept her voice calm. “You are no longer boys at Eton. You are capable?—”
