Adoration

‘Morgan.’ Alicia looked pained.

‘I have given her enough chances. She has been afforded all of the opportunities and given everything she has asked for. She is spoilt, bad mannered, ill-bred, and a stain on the family name. I will not have her cast aspersions on any guest in my house no matter what that guest is caught doing, especially when Mariette is doing something she has been expressly told not to do. This house is not an open house for any waif and stray to venture into. I don’t care who her friends are, I am not going to pay for them, or accommodate them when they are here to keep company with someone so petulant and spiteful. Mariette’s behaviour is uncouth and no longer going to be accepted or excused. Seeing as she sees anybody without wealth as beneath her, she has to have a better appreciation of other people’s circumstances. She won’t get that here, with my purse likely to be plundered whenever she wants something new. She can live the life Sissy lives. There is a rental house on the outskirts of town, Farmer Martin’s property. Mariette can live there if none of her friends are prepared to accommodate her.’ Morgan lifted his brows and looked at each of Mariette’s friends.

Mariette looked desperately at each one, her eyes silently pleading with them to agree to allow her to stay with them just to spite Morgan. But they all avoided her gaze and awkwardly remained silent.

‘Maybe you should be a little more careful about who you call friends, Mariette. It seems that they are more than willing to accept my benevolence but aren’t prepared to return the favour.’ Morgan turned a cold gaze on each of the guests. ‘Now get out, all of you.’

He turned and left before Mariette could argue. He heard a chorus of discontented murmurs behind him but didn’t

bother to wait around to hear what they were all saying. Instead, Morgan lengthened his stride and went in search of Sissy. He now wished that he hadn’t chosen the maze to try to future his cause with her.

‘Now even I cannot damned well find you,’ he grumbled.

Ten minutes later, he did. In the centre of the maze, on a small bench put there specifically to give anybody who managed to reach the centre the chance to rest before they tried to escape. He didn’t need to look at her face to know that she had been crying. It was there in the droop of her shoulders; the soft sniffle she did her best to hide.

‘I am sorry to have embarrassed you,’ she murmured when she felt him sit beside her.

‘It is me who should apologise. Mariette should never behave like that toward any of my guests. If I was embarrassed by your presence in my home, my life even, I would never have invited you to dine tonight. I wanted to surprise you about the house purchase, to tell your aunt that you didn’t need to move,’ he said.

‘You could have just told us when you paid a visit, or you mother could have told us the next time she called by to take tea,’ Sissy whispered.

‘But that would have defeated my purpose,’ Morgan argued. ‘I wanted to see you. I wanted to spend some time with you.’

‘But why?’ Sissy cried.

‘Do you not feel it? This emotion between us?’

‘It is foolish,’ Sissy replied.

‘How? How can it be foolish? It is about the one decent, honest emotion I have ever felt. It doesn’t lie to me. It doesn’t make me doubt myself. It is solid. As solid as you and I. Do you deny it exists?’

‘Of course not.’ But saying that made Sissy cry.

When Morgan tried to touch her, she jumped up as if struck, and darted away from his touch. He cursed and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He knew then that tonight had done more damage than it had fixed things.

‘I apologise for Mariette’s behaviour. I am afraid that at her age one can no longer use youth as an excuse for her bad behaviour. It is rude and churlish, and far beneath her,’ Morgan hissed.

‘She is young, and consequently is a little more forthright with her opinions. At least she tells people what she thinks, Morgan. Most people tend to gossip behind people’s backs, but are just as spiteful with what they say, even more so when they think that their victim cannot hear them.’

‘I don’t indulge gossips,’ Morgan snapped. ‘I am not going to have anybody scorn either of us.’

‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’

‘Don’t regret it,’ Morgan pleaded.

‘But this is foolish, isn’t it? They were right, weren’t they? They aren’t the only people who will take that kind of attitude when they hear about us. Others, people you know, your friends, will scorn us. I am beneath you in status and wealth. Everyone knows it. There is no point trying to deny it.’

‘I am not trying to deny it,’ Morgan argued. ‘However, I don’t agree to having anybody insulted in my home, especially in my presence. I invited you here as my guest this evening and I damned well expect you to be treated with the same deference as everyone else who comes to visit me. It isn’t for anybody to insult you. Why, look at that lot. Look at how rude and ungracious they are. They are embarrassing. You have never behaved that way toward anybody while in my presence. I doubt you have that kind of behaviour in you.’

Sissy had to concede that he had a point. She wouldn’t dream of talking about somebody so cruelly or take so much enjoyment out of ridiculing someone as spitefully as they had.

Morgan cursed when she looked sadly at him. ‘Don’t.’

‘What?’