Jenkins had been there for the aftermath of the sorcerer’s first visit. He’d been there helping to extinguish the fire and had been there when his father and mother succumbed to their wounds.
But he didn’t know everything.
Jenkins hadn’t been there when Alexander’s father had told him, his voice cracking, that the sorcerer had forcibly bound him to a betrothal agreement before disappearing in the flash of fire and smoke that set their rose garden ablaze and mortally wounded his parents. He hadn’t been there to overhear that Alexander and his parents were cursed to silence about the whole matter.
He hadn’t been alone, wrestling with the fact that he was betrothed to a murderer’s daughter, for the past fourteen years.
The investigation into the fire hadn’t turned up any trace of the sorcerer, and if it weren’t for the fact that his voice wouldn’t work any time he tried to discuss it, he could almost pretend he’d imagined the whole thing.
“What will you do if she says no?” Jenkins asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I will do everything in my power to make sure that she doesn’t,” Alexander said.
From the corner, Rose muttered a yowl, and he turned to her and shook his head.
“That’s enough from you,” he said. “He’s already upset with me. I don’t need you being cranky with me, too.”
The orange cat let out another disapproving sound and turned her back to him.
“She’s an odd one,” Jenkins said, frowning at the cat. “It’s almost like she can understand you.”
“Yes, it is,” Alexander said, sighing at Rose’s antics. She could understand him, even if she didn’t like to let it on. But he needed to return to the matter at hand. “Regardless, it was my father’s will that I be married by thirty, and I must fulfill his wishes.”
He’d conveniently left out the fact that it wasn’t legally in his father’s will. His butler didn’t know better, and his lawyer had gone back to Riyel, so there was no one to contest his statement.
Jenkins frowned, but didn’t say anything else.
“I know it’s sudden, but I’m hopeful that we will have a good marriage,” Alexander said.
Hopefully it would be both good and long. He didn’t want to think of the alternative.
There was a rap at the door, and Jenkins took a deep breath. “She’s here,” the butler said, turning on his heel. “I’ll bring her in. Good luck to you.”
Jenkins disappeared and Alexander stood behind his desk, planting his hands into the firm wooden surface that had survived so many Lord Dunhams before him and would hopefully survive many more. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the conversation ahead.
He could only hope that Beatrice would say yes, and once she had, that she would understand the importance of protecting his family's estate and the people who relied on him.
Barely a moment later, there was a rap at the door, and Jenkins opened it and announced Miss Beatrice Montgomery.
And there she was.
The librarian’s reddish-brown hair had escaped from its usual braid, and her cheeks and nose were a bright shade of red as she walked stiffly toward him, her arms tucked in the folds of her cloak. The cloak looked damp, and not the kind of damp that would appear in the space between a carriage and the front door.
Had she walked through the snow?
“Did I not send a carriage?” he asked, hurrying toward her and guiding her toward the blazing fireplace. “I’m so sorry, Miss Beatrice. I don’t know what I was thinking—or not thinking.”
“All is well,” Beatrice said, but her teeth chattered as she spoke, and she willingly went with him to the fireplace. “I enjoyed the walk. It was only the last few minutes where the cold got to me. You know I enjoy the exercise.”
“That doesn’t mean you should walk when there are six inches of snow on the ground,” he said, ushering her into his favorite chair. Shame filled him as he looked down at her shoes, which were soaked through. “May I take your wet shoes off?” he asked.
“I can do it,” Beatrice said, as Jenkins appeared with hot tea and a blanket.
“No, you hold the tea,” Alexander said firmly, looking at her red hands. “Would you rather have me send for a maid?”
“You needn’t trouble yourself,” Beatrice said as she began shivering.
Alexander nodded to Jenkins as he handed her the mug of hot tea, her fingers having difficulty curling around it, and laid the blanket over her lap. The butler understood his gesture and hurried out of the room to fetch a maid.
