Page 8 of The Wallflower and the Duke
He straightened, turning for his tea and strolling to the window.
In the time since she’d shared her secret with Alfie, they’d written one another, conveniently using her pseudonym, so even if she was away in London or he was away at school, they were in communication. And his parents wouldn’t know.
She didn’t take his parents’ dislike toward her personally. She understood being a part of the Merryweather family came with certain… limitations. Yes, she enjoyed a comfortable life because of her parents’ acting careers, but she was never accepted by the ton. Her father had purchased the estate next to Alfie’s ancestral seat, but it by no means made him a member of the peerage. He was the son of an Irish traveler who spent his childhood performing for others. It wasn’t until her father met her mother in a West End production that he first caught the discerning eyes of the London critics.
“We didn’t part on the best of terms, did we?”
She glanced around his room, at the careful stacks of books, the way his favorite armchair was beginning to show wear on the arms, and the potted plants dotted along the way. Then there were the statues and the paintings and the tall ceilings stretching up to her favorite part of all—a beautiful fresco of a summer sunset over the large park of Hollyvale.
All of it familiar and all of it a memory. Crawling into his window was like falling into a dream. And still, that did not explain the way her heart seemed to crack gazing upon him.
“No, but it doesn’t explain why you…” She stopped.
He had left for France.
“You came here for a reason.”
She sighed, feeling them push closer to the precipice. Closer to why they had ended their friendship. The truth always weighed more than the lies, and it pressed heavy against her chest now.
“I will not let him succeed because of my hard work.” She draped herself across the chaise and stared up at the ceiling, losing herself to another possibility. Another summer, long gone now.
“And you shouldn’t. So, what have you decided? Death by a thousand paper cuts?”
“Not an efficient use of my time when I have another manuscript due soon.”
She groaned, slamming her eyes shut and allowing the blood to flow to her head as she shifted, hanging upside down.
A manuscript she was already behind on before her discovery. Now? She felt like a fraud.
“Why don’t you write to him and tell him you know the truth?”
She lifted herself back to sitting upright as the room spun around her.
“You know the viscount well enough to recognize he will deny it.”
A bitter grin pulled at his mouth. The very sight of it turned her stomach sour. And just as quickly, it disappeared. “Yes, I know the viscount. But he wasn’t the one who asked you to be his wife. I did.”
He shouldn’t have said it, but the words poured out of him after being trapped inside for years. And maybe it was because he was stuck in this damn room and was an arse, but his usually fine manners lapsed for a moment.
She had been in love with one of his best mates from Eton, and Alfie had been in love with her since he saw her reading a book in the large oak by the river one summer day when she was ten and he was twelve. Her long brown hair had cascaded down her waist, and she’d been eating a peach.
He had made an upsetting discovery that day—he could be jealous of a piece of fruit.
She had grinned down at him, happy to discuss the merits of Aristotle, and they had spent the afternoon together walking along the wall dividing their respective estates.
“You are in love with him,” he corrected himself as her shock registered.
“Well, not now.” She threw her arms up into the air frustrated. “And certainly not when he left me the way he did.”
Marjorie Merryweather should come with a warning. Or maybe he was just in need of a reminder that no beautiful woman would climb into one’s bedchamber window without a catch.
“The two of you are excellent at many things. One is ignoring my letters and pretending I do not exist. Easy, I know. I’m a wallflower with perpetually ink-stained hands who writes what the voices in her head tell her to.”
He placed his teacup down, careful not to toss it to the floor, then strode over to his dearest friend in the world. The very woman he had thought of night and day since leaving her, even after she broke his heart. Alfie sat beside her, fighting the urge to scoop her up in his arms.
He was still mad at her, wasn’t he?
“Let me be clear. Percy loves no one but himself. His actions are no reflection of you and your worth. You are…”
