Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Maggie breathed. In. Out. In. Out. But the discomfort around her chest remained the same. She stared at the ceiling of an elegant but unfamiliar room and listened to Algernon and his valet whispering by the door.
She didn’t know what to do. Her father was dead, and she was all alone.
She ought to cry, but no tears would come. She hadn’t shed a single one since she’d learned the news about her father. It was crushing to discover her suspicions were correct. Inside her was this vast chasm of nothingness now, where thoughts and anger over her father had once churned.
The door closed, and she slowly turned her head. Algernon was there, illuminated by firelight, silently watching her from a distance. They stared at each other across the room for a long time, and then he removed his coat, his boots, and climbed onto the bed beside her.
He lay on his side, not touching her or meeting her gaze, and eventually he reached for her hand to clasp.
She appreciated his silence and presence, because he was all she had for the moment.
He wriggled closer, pressed his head to hers, and kept it there.
Tears pricked the back of her eyes at the contact. Algernon was the best of men. Kind, considerate, and loyal when he had no reason to be bothered. A good friend, but a man she had to say goodbye to in the end.
He was going to marry another woman, no matter that it was wrong.
At last, the tears came. Maggie pressed her hands to her face, her composure undone by the warring forces of grief over her father and devastation over losing Algernon.
Algernon, unaware he was partly to blame for her tears, drew her into his arms and held her close against him, saying nothing as she railed silently about the injustices of her status in society.
She was adrift, penniless and vulnerable.
Her circumstances were unlikely to change for the better anytime soon.
But there was so much anger inside her that she almost couldn’t contain it. She clenched her fists to keep her thoughts to herself, even as Algernon continued to hold her through the worst of the storm, rubbing her back as if she were a child again and lost in another strange, unfamiliar house.
She was lost.
She had no one but Algernon right now, and he was going to marry someone else soon, for the money they would bring him to pay off his debts. He could not help her for long. She had to find her own way in the world.
Eventually, her tears dried up, but she couldn’t move away from Algernon’s familiar presence yet. “Where are we?”
“Home. London. Grosvenor Square. Don’t you remember arriving?”
“Not really.” She felt herself dazed even now. “The last thing I remember clearly was you kneeling by my side at my father’s grave.”
“Understandable. His death was a shock. Before we arrived, though, you had finally succumbed to sleep. I carried you from the carriage and put you here.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, though shocked that hours must have passed since she’d learned the truth.
Eventually, Algernon loosened his grip but remained close. “I’ll have tea sent up for you and then we’ll talk.”
“Yes, thank you,” she whispered again, anticipating a discussion that involved finding her somewhere to live. She was tempting scandal and putting his marriage in jeopardy by even being here. He had come to London for the sole purpose of taking a rich wife.
Yet, she knew nowhere to go.
“I imagine you’re not terribly hungry, but you should try to eat something, too,” Algernon announced, forever bossy.
“Have I eaten today?” she mused out loud, but she hardly cared for the answer her stomach gave.
“I assume not if you cannot remember.” Algernon was suddenly back and raised her face a little to press a kiss to her brow. “I’ll have food sent up soon, too.”
She could not eat. She wasn’t hungry. With Papa gone, what was the point of even getting up again? Of hoping for a better future and regaining his approval. Papa had forgotten her, and Algernon would too, eventually. She had only herself to worry about now, and like Algernon, she needed money.
She was not above working for her supper, yet the skills she had in abundance were usually the province of gentlemen. Mathematics, science, and a fascination with history were not traits wanted by many employers.
Maggie exhaled a shaky breath and moved her fingers slowly over Algernon’s chest. He stilled beneath her touch, and then covered her wandering hand. “You’re spending the rest of the day here in bed. You don’t have to do anything.”
She bit her lip. She could not object when she had no better alternative. “Whatever you think best, Your Grace,” she murmured, deferring to him because it was easier than making any real decisions for herself or her future.
“I trust I will not wake tomorrow morning to find you gone again,” Algernon said.
“Where would I go?”
“You could go home,” he suggested after a long moment.
She shook her head. “I have no home anymore.”
He rose up onto his elbow, staring down at her with a sharp, indrawn breath. “I don’t understand. You came from somewhere.”
She glanced away, spotting her father’s battered old trunks sitting on the floor by the window, with her solitary one on top.
Embarrassment set in. “My father always settled some funds on me to pay for the little cottage he rented. Lately, he sent them in a letter. That’s how I knew something was wrong.
The money did not come last quarter. When I could not pay, the landlord evicted me.
Everything I value, all I could carry, is in my traveling case,” she whispered, humiliation making her face warm.
“Though now I have my father’s trunks to cart about as well, I suppose. ”
She would have to sort through her father’s things, lighten the load, before she left Algernon, but she did not want to do that alone. Perhaps he could help her sort through Papa’s things when he had time to spare. If he ever did, now he was in London to court his future wife.
“Oh, God, Maggie,” Algernon whispered, pushing her hair back from her face. His fingers were gentle, and he refused to let her look away from him. “You should have told me.”
He settled back beside her and brought her into his arms again, holding her tight against him once more. Maggie nearly cried for the warmth and comfort of his embrace, however temporary it would be. Somehow, Algernon could chase her worries away, at least for a little while.
“The last thing I want from you is pity.”
He kissed her brow. “Good. Because I am not offering any.”
She looked up at him, and then at his lips that had recently kissed her brow. They pursed as she studied them.
Maggie felt something twitch inside her, and she glanced down at his chest rather than examine her reaction or admit her feelings for him. Algernon was handsome and charming. Her only friend in the world, and she, foolish girl that she was, felt drawn to him in hardly proper ways.
Algernon cupped the back of her head, unaware how that action made her pulse race. “You’ll stay with me until we figure something out.”
“I cannot do that. People will talk.”
“You will stay with me, and we will discuss it when you’re able to think more clearly,” he insisted. He dropped another kiss on her brow. “For now, all I want you to do is stay right here in this bed with me.”
She glanced at the trunks, and the thought of their contents caused her to tighten her grip on him.
She did not want to consider what might lie inside her father’s trunks.
She did not want to smell her father’s cologne.
She inhaled Algernon’s scent instead, a cologne that pleased her senses better.
“Why would you want to help someone like me?”
“Because I like you.”
She moved her hand on his chest, toyed with a button of his waistcoat. There was more to it than that. She remembered how he was before he’d learned her identity. He’d flirted and kissed her openly without knowing her name. And after, he still wanted to kiss her. “Do you find me attractive?”
“Without a shadow of a doubt.”
“Would you kiss me again?”
“I would like to, yes,” he said, but it sounded like she was being warned away. “But given the circumstances, I should not.”
“I would like to be kissed,” she whispered, before glancing up at him. “It would take my mind off everything I don’t want to think about.”
“Maggie…”
“Please.”
Algernon sighed and moved toward her until their lips brushed. He drew back, as if a brief kiss was all he could manage.
She dropped her chin, embarrassed. “You did better when you didn’t recognize me.”
A short bark of a laugh left him. “I did not wish to presume too much by your request, not with the upset you’ve suffered today.”
“Forget I asked,” she said, and attempted to draw back from him.
“I can’t let you go now,” he whispered, and kissed her again, but this time with a great deal more enthusiasm than the first fleeting attempt.
She parted her lips and felt the tease of his tongue against hers.
The thrill of it was almost too much. Her worries fled, replaced by the certainty she was where she was meant to be.
In his arms. She had not been kissed often before Algernon came back into her life because, of course, her father had put a stop to any of her romantic adventures with young men and sent her to a place run by even older spinsters.
When she was with Algernon, she felt young again and filled with hope.
Algernon cupped her face, wriggling closer as the kiss continued—deeper and more compelling with each breath. Maggie wrapped an arm about his waist and held on, causing their bodies to align perfectly atop her soft bed.
Algernon groaned, sliding his hand down her back, and he cupped her bottom firmly. He jerked her closer still until they were pressed tightly against each other.