She turned her gaze back to him. “Now I need more. That’s it. I need my life tomeansomething. I can’t spend the rest of my years honoring a dead man, no matter how much I loved him. I have...wants,” she said, her cheeks flushing. “I want to live. I don’t want to live to mourn.”
Those words struck a chord in Marek. He didn’t want to live to mourn, either, and maybe that’s what he’d been doing all this time. He sat up, leaned across the table, and took her hand in his. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Better than I can convey. I have wants and desires, too. I think I can’t live my life without being discovered, and yet, I want meaning, just like you. I don’t want to live to mourn—I want to live to live.”
Her eyes turned luminous. She turned her hand beneath his, palm to palm, and wrapped her fingers around his. “Would you ever want to be king?”
“No,” he said instantly. “I am not prepared for that sort of life and have no wish to be. I have two half sisters who are prepared for it and I have no wish to take that from them. No,” he said again, as if she’d challenged him. “That has never been my intent. The only wish I’ve had at all was toseemy father. But if he were to see me for who I really am? I think it would do more harm than good.”
“You can’t be certain of that.”
“But think of it, Hollis. Even if he were to believe me, he would naturally face the dilemma of what todoabout me. What the discovery of me would mean to everything that had gone before and to every decision he’d made and would make. I couldn’t do that to him.”
Hollis slowly nodded. “I see your point.” She pressed his hand between both of hers. “You’re a good man, Marek. I would think that most people in your situation would want whatever their true birth could give them. Riches, titles, power.”
He smiled. “I suppose I’d rather be a good son than a king.” The words sounded sad to him. A man resigned to his circumstances. Of course, there was part of him that imagined the riches, the titles, the power. But it was all too fraught. He liked his little patch of this world and he was not in danger of losing it. His father was in danger of losing something every day of his life. “How is it possible I found you in this storm, Hollis?”
“I found you, remember?”
Something seemed to shift in the air around them. He could feel a charge, a change in temperature, a glow. And as he sat there, his gaze locked on hers, she lifted his hand and tenderly kissed his knuckles. “I’m so happy you are here.”
She said it every time she saw him, and Marek believed it was true. He was happy he was here, too. He pushed away from the table, took a few steps to her seat, and pulled her up and into his arms. He roughly smoothed her hair, still damp from the rain. He ran his thumb across her bottom lip. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Come upstairs,” she said.
He wanted more than anything to go upstairs, but that wasn’t what he meant. He didn’t know what to do with his esteem for her. He didn’t know how to fit it into his life, but he was desperate to find a way.“Hollis.”He pressed his forehead to hers.
“We both want to—I’m not blind, Marek, and neither are you.”
“Don’t say another word or I will lose my mind,” he said, and took her head in his hands and kissed her. He kissed her with all the desire that he’d bottled away for years, desire for things he could never have, for things he’d missed. He kissed her and could feel himself sliding into oblivion. All the locks in him were opening and the heat was flooding into him, filling him up. There were so many moments he’d longed for and had not allowed himself to have, and this beautiful woman was offering.
She leaned back, then grabbed his hand and pulled him toward the door. She glanced back only once before darting into the hall. He followed like a puppy. Up the stairs, down a darkened hall, and into a room.
“What of your staff?”
“Donovan won’t be home. Ruth won’t come unless I call for her, and Mr. Brimble sleeps like the dead.”
Still, Marek looked over his shoulder at the open door.
She let go his hand, shut the door, and turned the lock. She leaned against it, her smile sultry now.
They were in the master suite, he thought. There were things around them that he normally would have taken in, assessed, and committed to memory. But at the moment, the only thing that mattered was the need in that room. Raw, monstrous need.
And it was coming from them both.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The oldest among us will recall a winter when the rain never ceased falling and the Thames froze over. The river has not yet frozen, but scholars predict it will have by the end of January. Mind that you stock coal and peat for the worst months.
In spite of the gloom that has settled on London, the Alucian and Weslorian peace accord is expected to be signed this week and the delegations are likewise expected to depart for home before the New Year.
Ladies, in this season of many Yuletide candles,The Workwoman’s Guideadvises that if you find yourself with scorched linens, and the threads are not damaged, you may restore the fabric when boiled in two parts Fuller’s earth, one half cake of soap, the juice of two lemons, and a cup of vinegar to restore the fabric.
—Honeycutt’s Gazette of Fashion and Domesticity for Ladies
THELIGHTINher room was so low that Marek almost looked like a shadow, but even in that dimness, she could still see the gleam in his eye. “Are you certain this is what you want?” he asked.
