Page 12 of Her Heart's Rightful Earl
“Please, wait!” Alexander held up a finger as he darted to the side of the room to his mother’s mahogany writing bureau and scooped up a page from her formal letter-writing stationery. Beside the paper stood a quill in an inkpot, and Alexandersnatched it up, hurriedly scratching some message across the page.
Margaret and Arabella exchanged a glance of confusion as he scribbled. Arabella seemed to consider waiting at his request, but standing inanimate seemed only to add to her vexation, and with a whisk of her skirts, she clicked her tongue, turning to leave.
“Please!” Alexander appealed to her as he completed his note, replaced the quill quickly into the inkwell, and strode urgently across the room towards her. He held out the page for Arabella to take, and she stared at him for a moment before her eyes flicked down to the note. Blinking, she raised her hand to silently take it from him.
As the page passed from Alexander’s hand to hers, he angled his thumb very slightly to brush against hers, intended as a tender comfort; the only way he could atone at that moment.
He saw Arabella shudder at his purposeful touch, and she pulled away suddenly, taking the note with her. She dipped her eyes to the floor and hurried out of the room without a word of utterance.
In her absence, Alexander permitted himself a few seconds to acknowledge the turbulent beating of his heart before turning to his mother.
“I must leave,” he told her, apologetically.
“You must!” Margaret rushed to him and took her son’s face in her hands, bowing him low so that she could kiss his forehead. “Do return, please.”
Alexander swallowed hard. Returning had not been in the original plan. But then, he supposed, neither had he anticipated seeing Arabella.
“God speed, my beautiful son …” Margaret whispered, and Alexander gently broke free from her maternal grasp, rushing to the door as quietly as his footsteps would carry him.
He carefully opened the door and checked both ways down the dark corridor before heading directly to the tunnel, which had brought him to his mother’s sitting room.
Rushing through and closing the door of the secret tunnel behind him, he stood motionless for a moment in the darkness among the cobwebs, holding his hand to his heart.
“Arabella …” he whispered, exploring how her name felt in his mouth after years of neglect. He knew he was in trouble now that his secret was exposed; he knew he had been frivolous and foolish, but despite the danger that now inevitably loomed, theenchantment of seeing Arabella again filled him with such joy that, at that instant, it felt absolutely worthwhile.
***
Alexander practically fell into the hallway as Thomas opened the door and, as before, Thomas ushered him into the study, locked it, and turned to Alexander with an exasperated look of confusion.
“What in God’s name are you doing here, man? You’re fortunate I instructed my household staff not to open the door to callers and that it was me who attended!”
Alexander ran his hands through his hair with relief at having made it to his destination without being seen and a simultaneous acknowledgment of the foolish risks he seemed hell-bent on taking.
“Could you not find lodgings in Whitechapel?” Thomas shook his head, not understanding why his friend had returned.
“No—I did. But my evening took a diversion …”
Alexander looked Thomas up and down, noticing for the first time that he was dressed in a white nightshirt with a burgundy linen robe thrown around him.
“Did I wake you?” Alexander had thrown stones up at the window he knew to be Thomas’s bedchambers to rouse him to attend to the door, but also knew his friend was prone to reading late into the night.
“Of course, you did; it’s near midnight!”
“It is?” Alexander frowned, looking around the dark-wood study and noting that all candles from earlier had been extinguished, the only light in the room glowing from the candle Thomas held.
“Why are you here?” Thomas repeated, hissing through a whisper.
“I …” Only at that moment did Alexander realize his friend would be strongly disapproving of the direction his night had taken and of his ill-advised actions. “I went to see Mother …”
“What?” Thomas’s dark eyebrows shot up in consternation. “Tonight?”
“Yes …” Alexander fumbled behind him for an armchair he knew would be there. He sat down in it heavily, and this prompted Thomas to circulate the room, lighting various candles with his own, pulling the other armchair closer to his friend, and taking a seat opposite him.
Alexander looked down at the palms of his hands in the mellow candlelight and realized they were shaking. He wondered when he last ate and couldn’t recall.
Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, Thomas implored, “Tell me.”
“I decided it would be safer to visit Wellwood under cover of darkness to avoid being seen …”
