“There is no doubt Emmeline is berating herself as we speak for being with me. You need to reveal that you are alive. It has been three months, Max, and I cannot bear her grief anymore.” Marcellus cleared the hoarseness from his voice.
“You know I do not deliberately stay from her or Mother and Father. Even now you risk your life to visit me.”
He sighed. “The fever has been broken for more than a week and has not returned.”
“The doctors cannot assure me the damned virus won’t return,” Maxwell snarled, surging to his feet unsteadily.
Marcellus could feel his brother’s impatience, and Max was a man that rarely displayed such a disposition. Max wobbled, and Marcellus forced himself to remain seated and watch as his brother reached for the cane, then leaned heavily on it.
Marcellus pushed his fingers through his hair, restraining the need to aid Max. Marcellus had used every resource available to him as the marquess and as a former spy in His Majesty’s Service to locate his brother. He’d found Maxwell in an infirmary with several fractured ribs, left thigh scarred from a bomb, and a collapsed lung, dying. He had moved Max to their estate in York with the best of doctors seeing to him. Marcellus had impressed upon the doctors and staff of Rosemead Park that Maxwell’s battle for life had to be kept secret. Marcellus had not wanted to give his family false hope.
In that first week, he had begun to understand the depth of the horror his brother had endured serving on the front line when Max ranted with fever. It had not been enough that Max lay broken from the war; the flu had swept in, devastating thousands, and his brother had not been spared. He had nursed Max tirelessly, listening to his brother’s deliriums, Max’s cries for Emmeline, knowing he could not endure telling her that Max needed her and then watch her lose him again if Max did not make it.
It had been a brutal three months as they fought with the aid of doctors. Marcellus knew Emmeline would have wanted to be there, nursing Max. But Marcellus couldn’t have risked her so. And even if he’d tried, Max would have found a way in his ill, ravaged body to gut him for placing her in harm’s way. No, Marcellus had borne it and watched daily as his brother grew in strength.
Marcellus had felt the ghosts of war and suffering reach their tentacles to Max last night. The horror and pain had been too real without the delirium of fever hiding the full effect. Marcellus had known the pleasure he felt from being in Emmeline would soothe Max unlike anything else. But his brother was right: Marcellus had wanted to be in her just as much for himself.
“I still need more time, Marcellus. I cannot return to her broken, ill,” Max said.
Marcellus tensed, rousing from the bleakness of his thoughts. “Dr. Hasting reports that you have conquered influenza. It is time to let her know you are alive. Her sobs and pleas as she cries for you are devastating.”
Her anger and her pain humbled him, even as it broke his heart. He ignored the fear that tightened his gut, but he could not disguise it from Max.
“She is ours, Marcellus,” he growled. “She will accept us.”
Marcellus stared at his brother. “I do not believe Emmeline has the capacity to accept both of us as her lovers. She will turn from me the minute you make an appearance. She will make a choice, and I do not delude myself into thinking she will choose me.”
Maxwell limped over to him, and Marcellus observed the strong, determined lines of his brother’s expression. “Yet you are encouraging me to come back now? Why not give it more time for her to fall for you?”
Marcellus closed his eyes, thinking of her warmth, her passion, how she had responded to him. He shook his head. “It is tempting to have you wait until we marry to come home. With enough encouragement, she would marry me without waiting for the mourning period to end. But Mother is devastated. Emmeline is shattered. They need you, Brother. Mother will understand why we did not reveal the truth, but I know Emmeline will despise me. She will hate me for making love to her with the knowledge that you are alive. It was different when I doubted you would survive. I would not destroy her twice. I doubt she will ever be able to forgive me for knowing that you lived and hiding it from her.”
“She will understand her presence at my side could have been a death sentence for her.”
Maxwell leaned on the cane, walking with determined strides to the mantel to pour two glasses of whiskey. His hand shook, and liquid sloshed on the carpet. “Emily desires you. I saw the covert glances she threw your way when I courted her. And I know she saw you the night we were intimate. She is receptive. She is simply unaware of what she is open to.” There was a trace of satisfaction in Max’s voice.
Marcellus knew they both burned for her with the same intensity. The bond they had as twins somehow made them desire this one female. It had confounded them the first time it happened, when they saw her for the first time at the Prescotts’ ball over two years ago. They had always been able to feel when the other was intimate with someone else, when the other hurt or was angry. They’d always known each other’s hungers, fears, dreams, and desires, but it was a mere phantom caress of emotions. But their desire for Emmeline had been instant, and it had slammed into them both with vicious intensity. Even now, he could feel Max’s hunger, his need to touch and be with her himself after so long.
Marcellus’s forceful personality had frightened her when he’d approached her, but she had bloomed for Max. After courting for six weeks, they became engaged. It had been agonizing for Marcellus. Each time he tried to grow close, she scampered away as if frightened. He’d tried to tone down his intensity, but she had been wary. They had despaired of how to reveal to her that they both loved her, and both needed her. Then war had come.
Max enlisted despite her pleadings. Marcellus, in turn, used his affinity for languages to become a war correspondent, really a spy for His Majesty. He and Emmeline had grown somewhat closer for the months Max had been away, but she’d always treated Marcellus to a cool reserve that had been hard to crack. It had been upon receiving the news of Max’s death that Marcellus had unleashed his full personality. If he had handled her with soft gloves, she would have faded away. He’d not cajoled her back into life. He’d ordered her, firmly directed her will, ensuring her needs at every turn.
“Give me a month.”
He drew himself from his thoughts at Max’s comment. Marcellus met his brother’s intense gaze steadily.
“I am still weak, and I am unkempt, Marcellus. Give me a month to restore myself somewhat.”
“No.” Marcellus made his voice flat and firm. Another month was too much for Emmeline to suffer.
Max sighed. “Marcellus, take the damn month. I am sure guilt is consuming her now that she gave in to her desires for you. If I were to appear tomorrow, she would be shattered. My appearance the day after her supposed betrayal. Give her a month. Give me a month. I can barely walk, and I have never felt so weak and unsure. I need this.”
He knew how hard it was for his brother to even admit that he felt weak. Marcellus surged to his feet and clasped Max’s shoulders. Marcellus squeezed him, not voicing any words of affirmation or comfort. He almost hated himself for agreeing. But he would use his time wisely. He wanted her to love him, for he knew he could never let her go.
And he would do his damnedest in the month they had to make her crave him as how he did her.
Chapter 3
March 7, 1917