Copyright © 2014 by Tammy Falkner
Cover and internal design © 2014 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Aleta Rafton
Photography by Jon Zychowski
Models: Cassie Keller and Austin Zenere/Agency Galatea
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Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Epilogue
An excerpt from A Lady and Her Magic
An excerpt from The Magic of “I Do”
About the Author
Back Cover
Prologue
Cecelia leaned back against a tree and waited. He would arrive soon. He’d grown later and later each night for the past sennight, but he would come to meet her. She was certain of it.
His bulk settled beside her and the heat of his body chased away the chill of the cold, dark evening. “You came,” she said. She wrapped her arm through his and leaned into his shoulder.
“Yes,” he replied, but he didn’t look her in the eye. “I’m here.”
“Is something wrong?” Cecelia unwound her arm from inside his. He didn’t stop her.
He ran a frustrated hand through his unbound hair. He never wore a queue when he was in the land of the fae. Instead, he let his hair fall softly around his face and often tucked it behind his ears. “No. Nothing’s wrong.”
Cecelia stretched her legs out in front of her and waited for him to do what he normally did. She waited for him to lie back with his head upon her thigh and look up at her as though she was the most important thing in his world. But he didn’t. He just sat there beside her, his hands clenched in front of him.
She laid a hand upon his arm. “Talk to me, Marcus,” she urged. They’d been best friends for as long as she could remember. And he’d never been this reserved. He’d never avoided her gaze. He’d never shut her out.
“I received word from my father today.” His shoulders slumped as he turned to face her. “He wants me to succeed him.”
Cecelia laughed. That was impossible. “But doesn’t he know you have responsibilities here?” She laughed again. Because it was quite a laughable topic. The very thought of Marcus leaving the land of the fae was ridiculous. “You told him no, right?”
He reached out to touch the side of her face, his hand shaking as he let his thumb trace her lower lip. “I’m going.”
She pulled back, gripping his wrist to push his hand down. “What?”
“I’m going to their land. I don’t have a choice.”
Cecelia’s heart pounded in her chest like a team of runaway horses. “I don’t understand.”
“My parents want me to be there. There’s a lot I don’t know about being a viscount and my father’s holdings. I need to learn.”
“But what about his oldest son? Isn’t his name Allen?”
“I’m the oldest son. Allen is a year younger than I am.”
“But he’s been groomed to become a viscount.”
“But I’m the oldest son. We’re all going to be introduced to the ton as their children. They’re going to claim us.”
Marcus had always wanted a family. His grandmother and grandfather had raised them all, but he’d spoken often of how he wanted a mother and a father. Now he had them, apparently.
“So, you’ll go there and take care of your duties and then you can come back.” Hope bloomed within her, but only for a moment.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, wincing as he said, “I’ll be expected to marry outside the fae, to produce an heir and a spare, as they say.”
Cecelia gasped. “They said that?”
He shook his head and the viselike grip of fear on her heart eased a bit. “They didn’t say that. I said that. I need to dedicate myself to their way of life. I need to learn how their world works. I’ll need to marry a human.”
She bit back a gasp. “No, Marcus…” she began.
But he just shook his head and held his hands out as though in surrender.
“You’re giving up the life of the fae?” He wouldn’t do such a thing. It was too much a part of his being.
“Probably not entirely. Sophie and Claire still go on missions. But they’re not the eldest son. I’m simply afraid it’s going to take too much of my time. I have a lot to learn.” He reached for her face again, but she caught his hand and shoved it aside.
She looked into his brown eyes. He wasn’t avoiding her gaze right now. But he was done. She could tell. He’d made his decision. He hadn’t asked her to go with him. He hadn’t asked her to marry him. He hadn’t asked her to wait for him. He hadn’t asked for anything. And that was because he didn’t want anything. Not from her.
“I wish you the best, Marcus,” she said, her voice no more than a whisper to her own ears.
“Cece,” he breathed. He reached for her again. His head lowered toward hers.
“No,” she said. She turned her head at the last minute and his lips grazed her cheek.
“Cece,” he pleaded, his mouth still pressed to her cheek. Hot, moist breath rushed against her skin. “Please don’t be angry.”
She wasn’t angry. She was furious. And hurt. Damn it all, she’d dreamed of a life with him. But it wasn’t going to happen. And she refused to beg. “I’m happy for you,” she said. “I know you’ve wanted to connect with your parents for a long time. I hope life in their world is everything you’re hoping for.”
“Cece,” he breathed. His voice cracked. “Please don’t hate me.”
She couldn’t possibly hate him. Not when she loved him as much as she did. She got to her feet and walked away.
“You have to try to see things from my point of view, Cece,” he called to her retreating back.
“I highly doubt I could shove my head that far up my own arse, Marcus,” she called back.
He groaned and flung himself on the ground. She kept walking.
One
Six months later…
Marcus Thorne pulled his hat from his head as he stepped across the threshold. Before him were the elite of society, the lords and ladies of the realm. The very people he’d detested his whole life, but now was expected to l
ive and interact with. He was supposed to become one of them. Good heavens, he was dicked in the nob.
Wilkins, his sister’s butler, took his hat and his coat, and opened his mouth to announce him. But Marcus held a finger to his lips and shook his head. He didn’t want the butler to herald his arrival. He didn’t want these people to even know he was here. Wilkins glared at him for a moment and inclined his head. The man was nothing if not proper.
“Are my parents here?” Marcus asked.
“Lord and Lady Ramsdale are involved in a waltz,” Wilkins informed him.
“And my sisters and their husbands?”
“Lord Phineas and Lady Claire are in the nursery, I believe, checking on the twins.”
Marcus chuckled beneath his breath. Claire was infatuated with her children and insisted on taking them everywhere with her and Finn. “And Robinsworth and Sophie?”
“Meandering about the room,” Wilkins said.
Marcus’s sister, Sophie, had stepped into the life of a duchess as though she’d been born to it, instead of being born with wings and magic dust. Marcus ambled into the room and pushed to the edge of the throng, heading toward Robinsworth’s study. He was almost certain the man had some brandy secreted in a cabinet that would ease some of Marcus’s anxiety.
Marcus wasn’t at all comfortable in these gatherings. But he would someday step into the role of a viscount, and he supposed he had much to learn to be able to do so. His parents hadn’t even known of his existence until two years ago, when he was five-and-twenty.
Good God, he needed a drink.
He continued on toward Robinsworth’s study, stopping briefly to bow at people with whom he couldn’t avoid making eye contact. There were whispers behind his back; he could hear them all. But he chose to pay them no mind. Perhaps if they were whispering about him, they would cease their relentless whispering about his sisters and their chosen husbands. It was the price he was willing to pay. He might even choose the most scandalous woman in the room and ask her to dance.
Marcus stepped into the study and shoved the door closed. He leaned heavily against it and took a deep breath. These things rattled him more than he wanted to let on.
“It’s about time you arrived,” boomed a voice from the other side of the room.
Marcus searched the shadows of the dark room. But then the chair behind Robinsworth’s desk kicked back and he saw Ronald, the family’s garden gnome, resting there in the chair. Although he was no more than two feet tall, he was a sight for sore eyes with his purple waistcoat, green breeches, and pink cravat. He was familiar. And Marcus dearly needed familiar.
“What are you doing in here?” Marcus asked as he crossed to the cabinet and retrieved a crystal decanter. Though he was secretly happy to see the little man, he didn’t want to appear overly friendly. Ronald did live to tease him, after all. Marcus splashed a generous amount of the amber liquid into a glass and drank it in one swallow. Then he put the decanter away and turned to face Ronald. Marcus adjusted his waistcoat and wiped some invisible lint from his sleeve.
“I was waiting for you,” the garden gnome said.
“Why?”
The little man pulled a scroll from his inner pocket and held it out to Marcus. “You have a mission.”
A mission? Marcus hadn’t had a mission in months. He took the scroll and tucked it into his pocket.
“Don’t you want to read it?” The gnome’s red eyebrows drew together sharply.
“I think my attendance at the soiree is mandatory. Father sent a reminder of it. Three times.” Marcus heaved a sigh. “The mission will have to wait.”
The gnome’s voice grew weary. “How are things with your parents?” he asked.
“Things are fine with the parents,” Marcus said. His younger brother, Allen, was the problem of the moment. His brother had been groomed from birth to become a viscount, and now Marcus had stepped into his place. If given the choice, Marcus would have let his brother precede him, even though Marcus was the oldest male. But, apparently, it wasn’t a choice. He would have to step into his father’s shoes at some point. And in doing so, he would stomp all over Allen. “Allen isn’t too keen on me, however.”
“He’ll come about.” The gnome tapped the desk with one neat fingernail as his eyes narrowed. That look never boded well. But then his face softened, as if the thought had left his head as quickly as it had entered.
A flutter in Marcus’s coat pocket drew his attention. The soft shiver in his pocket always made him think of a trapped bird. He jerked the chain that was connected to the compass his grandparents had given to him on his twelfth birthday and pulled it out. He flipped it open. “Northwest,” he said aloud.
“That’s what I needed to know.” Ronald got up and stretched widely.
“You’re returning to the land of the fae tonight?” How he longed to go with the gnome.
“I am now that you have pointed me toward a portal.” Toward home. The compass always pointed toward home. The land of the fae. Marcus was the only one who had such a device, and no one was at all certain how it worked. But the compass always pointed him and others like him toward home.
He longed so deeply to go home. The rolling hills and the peaceful streams. The bare feet and the house he’d grown up in. Ladies with wings and faerie dust. Ladies who knew him. Ladies who didn’t expect him to be something he wasn’t. One lady in particular.
Ronald shoved open the shutters and began to climb over the windowsill.
“Will I see you again soon?”
The little man shrugged. “I know not the future.” Then he winked and threw himself from the window. Marcus bit back a smile. Then he steeled himself and went back to the ballroom, which didn’t call to him the way home did. In fact, it did the opposite.
Marcus heard his name called from across the room and turned to find his mother, Lady Ramsdale, walking toward him with her arms outstretched. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, smiling broadly enough that he felt somewhat guilty for hating these affairs so much.
“As am I,” he lied, the sentiment falling from his tongue more easily than it used to. This was to be his lot in life. He might as well accept it. “Did I miss the big announcement?” he asked.
She beamed at him as she shook her head. “No, you’re just in time. I think everyone is in place.”
“Are you certain this is going to work?” he murmured out the side of his mouth.
“I’m not certain at all,” she replied. “But there are enough fae here, I think…”
Marcus looked about the room. There were fae mixed with the peers for the sole purpose of this night, to solidify this announcement in the eyes of the ton.
Marcus’s parents planned to welcome their three fae children into the fold publicly. The only problem was that the ton had no idea they even had these three children. So, it would take a bit of creative maneuvering to convince society that the Ramsdales had known of Marcus, Claire, and Sophia’s existence all along.
The quartet’s song slowed and then stopped, and the musicians put away their instruments. A slow rumble of voices rolled across the room. But then Lord Ramsdale, Marcus’s father, clinked a utensil against the side of a glass. Every head in the room turned toward him.
“If I may have your attention, please,” he said with a smile. “We’ll go back to the merriment in a moment, but I wanted to say a few words, if possible.”
The crowd whispered loudly to one another and strained to hear him as he pulled Marcus’s mother to stand beside him. He beckoned the duke and Sophie, and then Lord Phineas and Claire, who had found their way back from the nursery. Then he called Marcus and Allen forward as well.
“You’re all aware of the new additions to our family. Our daughter Sophia married the Duke of Robinsworth and they recently had a son of their own, and we have claimed Lady Anne, Robinsworth’s first daughter, a
s our own grandchild. She tolerates us, most days.” Laughter rumbled through the crowd. “And then Claire met and married the duke’s younger brother, Lord Phineas, and they gave us not one, but two new grandchildren. Lord Phineas always was an overachiever.”
Lord Phineas raised a glass and grinned.
His father stopped to clear his throat. “As you’re aware, Marcus, Claire, and Sophia spent much of their time in the country with Lady Ramsdale’s parents when they were younger, and we’re delighted to have them in Town with us this season.”
That wasn’t exactly true. But that was the point of the gathering, wasn’t it? They were to plant memories in the minds of the ton, making them think the Ramsdale children had been the darlings of Society all along, rather than never having been heard of. By the end of the ball, everyone would leave with knowledge of the three, believing the three of them had always existed.
“My younger daughters, Rose and Hannah, are not quite old enough to join us, but my sons, Marcus and Allen, are here, and I hope you’ll all welcome Marcus, Claire, and Sophia with as much enthusiasm as you would my wife and I.” He stopped and spoke very clearly and slowly. “You all knew of my six children since the days of their births. You knew of all six of them.”
Marcus looked around as magic dust began to swirl in the air. It lived and breathed, as did the supplanted memories. The fae held the magic aloft, and even his sisters and his mother and grandmother helped to stir the dust. Their power made the air in the room shake, and Marcus reached out a hand to a nearby table to steady himself.
Everyone in the room, aside from the fae, was frozen in place as the dust fell. It shimmered like diamonds in the air, and Marcus’s gut clenched as he realized that this act sealed his fate. He couldn’t go back home. Now the ton knew who he was. In fact, they would probably be telling stories of him as a small lad, all figments of their own imaginations, of course, before the night was over. He hadn’t grown up in this world, but now everyone would think he had.
His father repeated, his voice rising in volume, “You all knew of my six children since the days of their births. You have memories of them as children, as adolescents, and as adults. You welcome them with open arms.” His father’s words could do nothing without the fae and their magic dust. But he spoke them clearly, and when the dust settled at their feet, the people in the room all woke, and they raised their glasses in a toast. “To my children, their health, and their happiness,” his father said.
The Magic Between Us Page 1
