Chapter Thirty-Two
Hours after Rebecca left, still unable to do much of anything, despite the fact it was nearing dinnertime, Roger found himself standing in the guest chamber.
Her room, as he’d now always think of it.
He stared at the bed for a long moment, the memories of curling up beside her when she’d let him hold her—one of the greatest honors of his life—flooded back so sharply and painfully that he needed to catch his breath.
“You’re truly not going to go after her?” a small voice inquired.
“Beg pardon?” Roger asked, whirling around to find his children standing in the doorway, hand in hand, a volume of juvenile fairy stories tucked beneath his daughter’s arm.
“Miss Adler,” Michael said, staring up at him.
“Why aren’t you at her home fighting for her hand?” Fannie asked.
Roger lifted his son into his arms, setting him on his lap as he sat on the bed, his daughter joining at his side.
“Because this is not a storybook. And I’m certainly not a prince.
” He stroked his daughter’s hair. “Besides, the one I’d be fighting is her.
One doesn’t usually fight the princess. At least if you aren’t a villain,” he explained, only feeling slightly silly.
After all, his children should understand metaphors.
“Besides, I don’t want to fight her.” No. Not in the slightest.
“You’re a prince to me,” Fannie said, planting a kiss on his cheek.
Roger closed his eyes for a moment, Michael burrowing into him, his tiny heart beating against his own chest. His daughter tucked herself back under his arm.
“Papa?” Fannie whispered after a moment.
“Yes, darling?” he returned, his voice a little choked.
“What if the princess doesn’t know she’s a princess?” she asked, studying his face with her rather serious light brown eyes.
Frowning, Roger turned the question over in his head, unable to make heads or tails of it.
“Beg pardon?” he asked.
“Perhaps she’s been told too many times by too many witches that she’s not a princess, and now she can’t see what’s real,” Fannie suggested, narrowing her eyes at him, her expression especially shrewd for a mere nine-year-old.
“And maybe the prince doesn’t need to fight but to break a spell of sorts.
Like in the story Miss Teres mentioned about the woman and the beast.”
Roger stared at her for a moment.
Because she was… right. Well, except for the beast part. Rebecca wasn’t a beast. No matter how much she tried to convince herself and others that she—
He’d been corrected. Fannie was more than right. She was brilliant.
Far more than he could ever be.
A very good thing.
“Perhaps,” he returned. “But what if he doesn’t know how?” he asked.
“Experimentation?” his daughter offered after a beat, her voice a touch stronger.
Roger smiled at the word. At the memory of the person who’d last used it in this house. The person who should be here with them. As none of their lives, but especially not his, were complete without her.
Yes, he’d failed once, but if the past taught him anything, life wasn’t finished until it ended. And he was alive, damn it.
“Perhaps.” He paused. “No.” Shaking his head, he set Michael down beside him. “Not perhaps,” he told his children, who followed him off the bed. “You’re indeed correct. And very advanced.”
More than any governess could ever properly ascertain.
“You’re going?” Michael asked. Fannie clapped her hands together, a bright smile on her face.
“Most certainly,” he affirmed, bending down to give them each another kiss on the head. “Mind your brother while I’m gone,” he told his daughter as he raced into the hall, calling for Lopez to ready the carriage, snow be damned.
However, it turned out that a carriage was not needed, as when he opened the door, he was greeted by a figure nearly covered in snow, her bonnet and cloak almost completely white from the stuff, the only sign of her identity, several stray waves peeking out from beneath it.
“Rebecca?” He gasped as he pulled the shivering woman over the threshold. “Is that you?”
“I think, perhaps, I should’ve called a hack,” she said through chattering teeth, bracing herself with a gloved hand. “I was afraid the horses might have trouble,” she continued as Roger reached around her waist to steady her now swaying form. “It’s windy out here. And quite cold.”
“You don’t say,” Roger murmured, scooping her up in his arms. “Come on, darling, let’s get you inside,” he said, somehow managing not to slip as he carried her into the house. “Lopez, Marguarite, I need help,” he shouted.
Footfalls rang through the house as what had to be his entire staff raced toward them.
“I’m really quiet fine,” Rebecca protested, though she lay her head against his shoulder, yawning a touch.
“Humor me,” he whispered in her ear as he moved toward the staircase.
“How?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“By listening,” he told her, planting a small kiss on her all-too-cold forehead. “And perhaps a warm bath.”
She should have considered the implications before she agreed to a bath. The logistics one required as well as what would happen if she relinquished her admittedly soaked garments to Marguarite. That was all Rebecca could think as she stared down at the shirt Roger had loaned her to wear.
With nothing else beneath it.
Her cheeks heated at the expression of the man, who was now sitting across the room, fully dressed, his gaze on her legs as she warmed them by the fire.
“I don’t see why I couldn’t wear your trousers,” she told him, rubbing her arms over the large sleeves she needed to fold halfway just to gain use of her hands.
“Because they would drag on the ground and then be ruined?” He raised a brow, the corner of his lip curling upward, and Rebecca had to catch her breath.
Why did he have to be so foolishly handsome? It truly was not fair. Not at all. Especially when one was forced to debate with him. As no matter what happened after they spoke, if he thought she was going to meekly allow him to boss and carry her about, he had another thing coming to him.
“I thought funds were immaterial to you,” she couldn’t help but retort.
“I thought you detested waste,” he countered, rising and sauntering toward her, staring down at her from his indecently impressive height.
“Are we truly going to quarrel?” she asked, placing her hands on her hips.
“Perhaps.” He stared down at her, his arms folded, though his lips tipped into a smile, making her heart skip just a touch.
Truly, it ought to be illegal to look as good as he did in a jacket and cravat. And out of them.
No—no. She shook her head. She would not be distracted by such thoughts. She frowned. What were they speaking of again? Oh right, “quarreling,” as he termed it.
Rebecca wrinkled her nose. “Perhaps?”
“We do it well,” he told her, taking another step toward her. “And it usually ends rather favorably for us.” He reached out, encircling her waist with his arms. “So what did you need so desperately that you raced over here in the snow like that?”
What was she—oh right. What she’d confessed to the women. She needed to tell him. No matter what occurred. Though it would be a great deal easier if her mind ceased working so slowly when he was near.
“I had to see you,” she breathed, resisting the urge to melt into him.
“You might have waited for better weather,” he pointed out.
“I might have,” she admitted, searching her brain to find the right words for once. “But sometimes when you realize something rather important, life-changing—transforming, as you seem to favor that word so much—you can’t wait to share it with…”
“With…” he prompted.
God, she wanted to kiss him. So, so badly.
But she couldn’t. Not until she said her piece.
And he accepted it.
She pressed her lips together. Please let him still want, well, us, she prayed, taking a deep breath. “You were right.”
At that he smiled. “Naturally. I usually am. That’s not news,” he told her. “Now, you admitting it, as well as the fact that you might potentially have been wrong…”
“I was,” she said. Oy, this was more difficult than she’d thought it would be. Everything in her mind seemed, well, inadequate.
“What about, pray tell?” he asked, cocking his head once more, as if he didn’t know.
“You’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?” she asked, pouting a little. Not that such had ever worked for her before. But if there was ever a time to attempt it…
“Not at all,” he said, but he was grinning now. “You left,” he reminded her, and while his tone was light, there was still hurt behind it, which nearly felled her.
“You should’ve seen the state he’s been in since then, pacing around, practically haunting the place like that ghost, in that play, the old one,” another voice said from the foot of the bed.
Rebecca glanced up to find Marguarite fiddling with the towels she’d discarded after the bath, looking between them expectantly.
“Hamlet’s father, you mean?” Roger said, sadly releasing her, as he turned to stare at the housekeeper, folding his arms over his chest. “I shall attempt not to get murdered, but thank you for the commentary and for comparing me to a man likely twice my actual age.” He indicated to the door with his chin. “A touch of privacy, however…”
“Right,” the woman said, moving in that direction. “I’ll just be…” But she didn’t finish and instead scurried from the room.
Rebecca turned back to Roger, studying his face once again.
“You’ve been upset,” she whispered, with both guilt and a touch of awe.
“I’ve been devastated,” he told her. “I’ve never had as much joy in my life, never felt more like my actual self, or like the best version of myself, or able to be the best version of myself than when I was with you. Watching you walk out that door and out of our lives, out of my life…”
Her heart soared. That meant he hadn’t changed his mind, hadn’t thought better, hadn’t believed any of the rather eloquent nonsense she’d spouted.
“Good,” she said out loud, before slapping a hand over her mouth.