She moved toward the bookcases near the fire first. While in the library the tomes were more entertaining or educational, the books he had in here were dry. Volumes on farming, the history of the shire he lorded over, thick volumes containing maps and plans for homes and buildings. The most interesting thing about them to her was how worn each book looked, as if they were truly used by the man on a regular basis.
“He takes his work seriously,” she mused as she moved away and stepped to his desk.
The leather chair behind it was well kept, and since she knew he didn’t allow servants into this room, that meant he applied oil to it himself. She shivered as she let her fingertips dance over the smooth, shiny surface and then drew the chair back to sit in it.
He was bigger than she was, and the chair didn’t fit her slender frame, but she scooted it closer to the desk and looked at the surface. It wasn’t tidy, that was certain. Papers and letters were strewn across the top, but all of them seemed to relate to the business of Avondale, which the man lorded over. There was a ledger, open to a line of neatly written numbers and scrawled notes in the margins about debits and credits.
But nothing personal. It was as if the man had shut off all things that related to himself and now they no longer existed. But that couldn’t be true. She’d seen the pain on his face when he spoke of his sister in London. And she’d felt the emotion that pulsed under the surface when they spent time together outside of his bed.
She sighed and was about to stand when she caught the glint of something metal hidden under a pile of papers. She moved them gently and caught her breath. The cameo she had returned to Alexander that had begun their wicked bargain now rested on his desk. He’d had it strung upon a gold necklace and it was now fitted in the pages of a book, almost as a page marker.
But this was no book about farming or the shire. This book looked like a worn journal. She stared at its leather cover, its yellowing pages with the cameo dangling below and her heart began to pound.
Clearly the book on this deskwaspersonal. The glimpse she had wanted to get of the man who had brought her here. But to read his diary…
That was going too far, wasn’t it? To do something like that would violate his privacy and that was wrong, so very wrong. But it was such a temptation, this opportunity to look into his soul and see his life through his own eyes.
Her hands shook as she slid the diary across the desk to rest in front of her. Slowly, she turned the pages open to the place he had marked with his sister’s necklace. What she found was not his handwriting in the pages, but a lady’s. And judging from the context, it was Anne’s. This was his sister’s journal, not his own. The page marked was the last one before the book went blank, signaling an end to her life.
Sudden tears flew to Marianne’s eyes at the last few words written on the page.
I wish Alexander would not be so reckless with his affairs.
I wish he would come home and see me.
The page edge was worn far more than any other in the journal. And judging from its place of prominence on his desk and the marker that held its page, Marianne could only guess that this was something he looked at, read and reread over and over again. A private admonishment from someone he’d loved and lost.
A personal torture for whatever sins he believed he had committed.
Her heart ached for him, and she was about the turn the page back and see what had been written prior when the door to the study slammed. She jerked her face up to find Alexander standing there, his expression twisted with pain and anger and all the other emotions he so rarely revealed. His mouth opened and shut as she slowly stood.
He stared from her to the diary she had been reading before he said, “What are you doing?”
“Alexander—” she began.
“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he repeated, this time more loudly, his hands shaking at his sides and his voice cracking.
She moved out from behind his desk. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
He strode toward her in three long steps and stopped just before her. He made no attempt to touch her, but stared down at her, his eyes wide and wild. “No, you shouldn’t have. I have strict instructions that this room be left alone. No servant is to enter—”
“I’m not a servant, Alexander,” she interrupted, placing a hand on his forearm. He jerked it away, and tears filled her eyes at the expression of pain and betrayal on his face. “I’m…I’m your lover, aren’t I? Bargain or no.”
“I’m paying you for your time, Marianne,” he snapped, pacing away from her toward his desk, resting both hands on the top. “You are a servant.”
She flinched at both his cruel words and the harsh tone with which he said them, but she recognized his reaction for what it was. This was an attempt to push her away, and a great part of her wanted to allow just that. To turn and walk away from his harshness, from his pain, because it was so big and all-encompassing. If she explored it, she knew it would bind them even more than making love to him had.
But a bigger part of her knew shehadto stay. Over the short time they’d known each other, she had begun to…care for this man. His gentleness toward her, his quiet intelligence…they drew her in. They had made her do this foolish thing of intruding upon him.
She wouldn’t walk away now.
“I would have simply asked you about your…your past, your feelings, but I knew you wouldn’t tell me anything, for you never do,” she explained.
He spun toward her, his eyes flashing. “So you invade my privacy and the privacy of my dead sister to get what you want?”
“It was wrong of me to do so, and I apologize. I only want to understand you,” she pleaded softly. “I want to understand what kind of man is so capable of gentleness and passion, of kindness to his servants and of such a broad base of knowledge, but is the same kind who locks himself away in a castle like he is a beast who must be caged.”
He shook his head. “That is the most apt description I have ever heard,” he said. “And if you were wise, you would walk away now before that beast is unleashed.”
