She thought for a moment as she chewed. But then she spoke. Her voice was clear. “I was broken. And you put me back together.” She touched her fingertips to his bent knee. “Thank you,” she said softly, but her voice was clear. It was so clear that it reached into his soul and squeezed his heart.
“You’re welcome,” he said. And then he proceeded to paint her with clotted cream and lick it off. And she didn’t protest even the slightest bit.
Fifteen
Cecelia let Marcus help her back into her clothing, with plenty of pauses for kisses, nips, and licks of appropriate body parts. Then he pulled her between his thighs and brushed her hair until it was silky soft and didn’t look like he’d tumbled her. Several times. She looked much more at ease than she had when they’d arrived at the cabin, and that said a lot to him.
She could be happy with him. He could marry her and life could be perfect.
“Where will you tell your father you’ve been all day?” he asked gently as he turned her to face him and laid his forehead against her stomach, so tightly that his nose was pressed into the soft flesh of her belly. His hands held tightly to her hips. Fear gnawed at his own belly, and he really didn’t want to take her home. He wanted to hide out there with her forever. He wanted to live in that tiny cabin and never leave it again, with Ronald bringing them necessary food and supplies. But such was not to be his lot in life.
She shrugged. “I hadn’t planned to tell him anything. His opinion no longer matters to me.” Her voice was suddenly dull and lifeless, and he wished he had never brought it up.
“What does that mean? How could that be?” he murmured, looking up into her face, his hands still resting on her hips, still holding her close to him.
“My day isn’t over yet. If you try to ruin what’s left of it, I won’t forgive you,” she warned.
He nodded at her. He would get to the bottom of this. If it was the last thing that he ever did, he would figure out what the rift was between her and her father.
“Do you know the time?” she asked.
He pulled his watch fob from his pocket and looked down. “Well past the dinner hour. Your father is probably worried sick.” He stood up and pulled her toward the door. “Come along. I’d better deliver you home.”
She nodded as she looked longingly around the room. “It’s time to go home,” she said quietly.
But she wasn’t broken. Not the way she’d been when he’d brought her there. She had seemed like a kite caught in a summer storm when they’d arrived. And now she was the gentle sun he’d always known, shining directly into his life.
They walked back to her house hand in hand. No one was on the roads between the cabin and town, and even if someone had been, they could have said they’d taken a walk. Rules were a little more lax in the land of the fae. They weren’t lax enough to allow for what they’d done that day, but they could take a walk without a maid. After all, they were trusted to go on missions together.
Responsibility was earned in the land of the fae, as was trust. And if one proved oneself, one gained more and more freedom as the years passed. Not so in the other world, where status was all that mattered.
They walked slowly up the stairs at the front of her house and stopped at the threshold. Cecelia reached up and cupped his face in her palm, looking deeply into his eyes, hers as dark as night in the quiet of the evening. “Thank you for today,” she said softly, and she leaned forward and kissed him. No, this wasn’t a lusty mesh of teeth and tongue. This kiss was affectionate and comfortable.
“You’re welcome,” he said softly.
Mr. Pritchens should have come to open the door for her by now. Where was the man?
A thud sounded from the other side of the door.
“What was that?” Marcus asked.
“One of the maids moving furniture to clean behind it, I’m sure,” Cecelia said with a breezy wave of her hand.
“At this time of the night?” He reached for the door handle, but she covered his hand with hers.
Her eyes looked everywhere but at him as she rushed to say, “You know, I forgot that I’m supposed to be staying the night at Ainsley’s house.”
He pulled back a little to look down at her face. “Why are you staying there?”
“We wanted a little time to catch up. And she wants to talk to me about your brother. I’m pretty sure there’s a courtship going on there that no one knows about.”
“Allen and Ainsley,” Marcus said with a snort. “There’s a match for you.” He shuddered to think of how arguments in their household might be won, with two such strong-minded individuals in residence. Ainsley had a tongue sharp enough to cut glass, and Allen was no slouch when it came to quips. “They’ll kill each other within a year,” he said with a laugh.
She started down the steps. “Ainsley will be waiting for me,” she said.
“Are you certain you want to go there at this time of the night?” It was well past dinnertime.
***