Chapter 17 #3
“That makes no sense,” Alice said, shaking her head as tears leaked down her cheeks.
“It does not make sense! Why would you feel possessive of me after just one dance? Why would you care what happened to me? Why would you even approach me? No one bothered to approach me anymore. I made sure they stayed away. What made you do it?”
“Alice, please, you must believe me...” Marco pleaded quietly.
“No!” Alice shouted, her cheeks blushing bright red with anger and disappointment. “Why did you approach me? Had you heard of The Ice Queen and wanted to try your hand at thawing me?"
“No, Alice,” Marco said quietly, staring at her steadily. “Just listen.”
Alice stared at him. She made no promise to listen.
She made no promise that it would change anything because she wasn't sure that anything he said or did could.
She had been foolish to trust him but needed to know that truth if she could ever believe anything he said. She needed to know his reasons.
“I was not concerned with having children because I do not want the Fitzroy line to continue any more than you do,” he said simply. Alice gaped at him.
“That doesn't make sense either. Why would you want that?” she asked.
“Because I despised your father,” he said with sudden vehemence.
“You told me you never met him. How could you have hated him?” she asked all of the anger knocked out of her by her curiosity.
“Your father… was responsible for burning down my factory,” Marco explained with a weary pain in his voice.
“He had holdings in one of my competitor's factories, and I was out earning him.
He sent me threatening notes for months to try to get me to close.
I ignored his demands. The last one came just before an explosion rocked the building.
I was running late that day and was still outside when the blast occurred.
I was able to get my people out before the flames caused the building to collapse, but my foreman, my friend, died. His name was Thomas Cromer."
“William’s father?” Alice whispered more to herself than as a question.
Marco nodded curtly. “Yes,” he said.
“He…“ Alice struggled to form the words. “Thomas was dear to you?”
Alice felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Her head was screaming at her not to trust him. Yet her heart knew that he must be speaking the truth. His eyes were full of grief and sadness, as well as a deep well of rage. She could not help but believe him.
“Yes. Thomas was a good man. The best of men,” Marco went on; his words were hoarse. “He died in my arms, but not before he showed me the final letter. It had the seal of the Fitzroy coat of arms. Until that day, we had no proof that the Duke was the author of the notes.”
Marco pulled something out of his pocket and handed it to Alice.
She looked down at the paper. It was burned at the edges and had dark stains that Alice could only assume were blood.
The blood of Marco's friend. The ink was a bit smudged, but she could read the horrible words.
She turned the paper over with shaking hands and saw the coat of arms in red wax.
Her coat of arms. The symbol of her father's dukedom. She stared up at him. She couldn’t deny the truth of this, but she still needed to know why.
“If you hated him, then why approach me at all?” she whispered.
“The truth is, I approached you with less than honorable intentions,” Marco said heavily, rubbing a hand over his face. “I concocted a ridiculous plan to obtain my vengeance by harming your reputation. It was not well thought out and dissolved almost as soon as we began to speak.”
“You mean when I called you a flatterer and openly mocked you?” Alice asked, rejecting the uncertain wobble in her voice.
“Yes,” Marco said softly, a slight smile forming on his lips when he remembered her caustic greeting of him that night.
Alice felt like she was rattling with shock, yet she couldn’t deny the truth as it was unfurling in front of her.
Marco hated her father; that much was undeniably true.
Her father had hurt him, and she could only imagine the kind of revenge he had wished to enact.
The only thing she struggled to believe was that he had changed his mind about her.
She didn't understand how he could have feelings for the daughter of the man who had wronged him.
“How can I trust this is true?” she asked in a broken voice, shaking her head. “How can I trust that this is not all still part of your revenge?”
Marco got onto his knees beside her and held her hands in his.
“I will sign a contract renouncing your dowry. I will not touch a farthing of it. All I want is to marry you. All I want is for you to be mine. I no longer care about destroying the Fitzroy name. I will happily give you a son to carry on the title if that is what you want. But if you never desire children, if you cannot bear the idea of the line continuing, that is fine. All I want is a future with you by my side,” he said as he kissed her fingertips slowly.
Alice could not stop the tears coursing down her cheeks as she held her breath.
“All I want is for you to be my wife, Alice. Nothing else matters.”