AS it turned out, the temporary negotiated truce allowed for the most carefree afternoon that Max had enjoyed since the start of this torturous Season. He found that when she wasn’t restricted by fear, or politeness, or a desire to provoke her companion, Gail Alton was quite pleasant company. Playing at being friends opened a wealth of curiosity each had about the other.
It started slowly. As Max was walking from one set of shelves to the next, he passed the open door and saw Mr. Ellis intently sorting papers.
“How did your family become acquainted with Mr. Ellis?” Max asked casually.
Gail looked up from her own volume. “He met my father in…India, I believe. They struck up conversation right away. After that, he would meet us in Greece, Egypt, anywhere our paths crossed. He quickly became a favorite uncle with us, popping up with toys and stories from his travels, always eager to listen to two little girls who moved around too much to have many steady friends.”
“Both he and your father are well traveled. I imagine they have much in common.”
“Not as much as you would think. They are friendly, yes, but they are forever in the middle of a row. Mr. Ellis is very liberal minded. He believes we should not attempt to enforce our British ideals on other cultures—that we really shouldn’t engage them at all. He would say that the best way to learn about another place is to become part of it, blend in, meeting locals, learning the language, et cetera. Basically renouncing everything English.”
“Sounds close to your own philosophy. And your father, the diplomat, is very much opposed to Mr. Ellis’s extreme view,” Max concluded.
“Such differing points of view can cause some friction,” Gail conceded.
“Friction?”
“I believe furniture was thrown at one time,” she admitted.
Max guffawed in disbelief.
“But in the end,” Gail continued, “they respect each other and enjoy the fights. Healthy debate was the foundation of a solid friendship—as opposed to mutual loathing.”
A skeptical eyebrow rose. “Thrown furniture is the foundation of a solid friendship?”
Gail shrugged. “It was merely a foot stool. Hardly worth signifying.”
As Gail’s attention returned to her book, Max allowed his gaze to drift over her. Her eyes moved rapidly over the text, her small pink tongue pressing into her upper lip, her face a picture of studious concentration. Max remembered how Sir Geoffrey had commented that Gail was much more like himself than Evangeline was. She didn’t have her father’s penchant for blustering or his ability to negotiate the intricacies of a peace treaty with a hostile but defeated nation, but she certainly seemed to have inherited his love of impassioned debate.
Smiling just a little, he turned his attention back to the shelves. After a while, all Max heard was the rustling of skirts in the next aisle over, the turn of a page. Since they had agreed not to bait each other, they were able to go about in companionable silence. Which was a nice change, he decided. He certainly had never had any companionable silences with Evangeline, although silence itself was abundant. Whenever he was alone with Evangeline, the air was so fraught with awkwardness he could barely breathe. Luckily, they weren’t alone too often.
“Do you know,” Max began, and heard the distinct clunk of a book being dropped. “Did I startle you?” he asked, grinning.
“No…er, well, yes,” came the voice from the side of the shelves. “But pray continue.”
“I was simply going to comment on how I think I have been in your exclusive company far more than I have been in your sister’s.”
After a silence, she replied, “Well, yes I suppose you have. But there’s alone, and then there’s alone-kissing-in-a-moonlit-garden.”
“We called a truce, remember?”
“Apologies,” she said quickly. “What I mean to say is your current situation is predicated not on the amount of time you spent alone with a lady. It’s based on your being caught in a compromising position. Really, you’re quite lucky. Imagine if you had been caught alone with me at the ball when we were behind the curtain. In my state, it would have looked to anyone as if something untoward was going on, and then it would be we who were engaged quicker than you could say ‘jack rabbit.’ What a horror that would be, eh Max?”
“Definitely,” was the immediate reply, standard and ingrained. He was lucky that it was Evangeline he found himself attached to. But a niggling little voice in the back of his mind started to whisper. What if? What if it had been Gail?
Would it have been so bad?
“Besides, they don’t worry about me,” she said quietly. “Not like they do Evangeline.”
“They should,” Max answered automatically and honestly. More honestly than he cared to admit.
He could hear the eye-roll in her voice. “Max…”
“You shouldn’t do that, you know.”
“Do what?” She poked her head around the corner, her brow creased with confusion.
“Call me Max,” he said clearly. “’Tis wholly improper. Your sister doesn’t call me Max, and one would think she has more right to it than you.”
Gail smiled reflectively. “Sometimes I call you Max to provoke you,” she admitted, stepping into full view, leaning her long frame against the shelves, arms crossed over a book held to her chest. “But the rest of the time, I forget not to.”
“Huh,” Max said, nonplussed at her bold-faced honesty. “You do realize, such an intimacy would give me automatic leave to address you as Gail.”
“But you won’t,” Gail stated.
“No,” he admitted. “I probably won’t. It wouldn’t provoke you the same way ‘Brat’ does.”
“And provoke it does,” Gail said, her voice full of dry humor.
Max regarded her quizzically. “Does it truly bother you so much?”
“I hate it,” she replied vehemently. “Almost as much as I despise being called ‘Abigail.’”
“I’ll stop, then.”
She blinked at him a few moments. The corners of his mouth turned up. That certainly threw her off balance.
“But if you don’t call me ‘Brat,’ I shall have to leave off calling you Max,” she replied pertly, once she had regained her voice.
He lifted a shoulder. “Now that I know you do it to be provoking, it shan’t provoke any longer.”
“Your logic astounds me, Max.”
“I should imagine it does, Gail.”
“I thought you weren’t going to call me Gail, either.” She eyed him suspiciously.
Another shrug. “With ‘Brat’ and ‘Abigail’ off limits, I changed my mind about ‘Gail.’ Have to keep the field even, don’t I?”
As she was reduced to laughter, Mr. Ellis stuck his head in and shushed them with all the gravity of the principal librarian. When he had again retreated to his classification system, and Gail and Max snickered their way to the next isle of books, Max realized that he was truly enjoying himself. How very peculiar.
Soon enough, each had a stack of books under their arms, and they made their way to the private reading rooms. The one they were directed to was about the size of a small drawing room, fully paneled in wood, with oil lamps and magnifying glasses available to assist detailed inspection. A small fire grate was lit and situated next to a pair of winged velvet chairs. A large table was in the center of the room, with sturdy chairs on each side. Max and Gail reverently placed their stacks of books on the table and began to sort through them.
Max was quickly engrossed in a collection of maps, drawn by the first explorers to the New World.
“Have you ever been here?” he asked Gail, drawing her away from a tome on the Greek system of congress.
“No.” She stood closely behind him, looking over his shoulder. “We never traveled to the colonies.”
“I don’t suppose they take kindly to being called ‘colonies’ anymore.” He flipped a page. “What about here?”
“The West Indies?” She shook her head. “No, never been there, either.” An errant curl that had escaped her coiffure bobbed along with the movement of her head, momentarily capturing his attention.
“So, there is still much in the world left for you to explore,” he said after clearing his throat.
“And I intend to see it all.”
Silently Max agreed. He longed to see the tropical islands of the Caribbean, the shores of Boston, the pyramids on the Nile. But being an Earl, or next in line, with a huge property to maintain was not conducive to year-round travel. But then again, neither was being a single young lady.
“You’re lucky to have seen all that you have,” he ventured. “But what if your husband doesn’t wish to travel?”
Gail scoffed. “If my nonexistent husband doesn’t wish to travel with me, I shall go alone. There are some things that do not yield to the wishes of others.”
Max shook his head. “You only say that because your desires have never been tested. You will marry, have a brood of children—very impertinent ones—and find yourself ten years from now leg-shackled to the life you have, and the dreams of exotic places just that. Only dreams.”
“That won’t happen,” she replied staunchly.
He simply looked at her, sad that for once, he knew more of the world than she. She seemed to understand his thoughts, for she replied adamantly, “In that case I shan’t marry.”
“Yes, you will.” And though the thought gave him a moment’s pause, he plunged on. “You will be married and subject to the rule of your husband. If he doesn’t wish you to go, then…” He shrugged, allowing the sentence to trail off.
She quirked her head. “Is that what happened to you?”
His eyebrows shot up.
“Not the husband, exactly. But every book you picked is about some far-off place. And yet, beyond your grand tour, you never traveled. Why?”
Max sighed. “It’s quite complicated. My father…” he trailed off. “Well, suffice to say, it’s a long story.”
“Oh, I have time,” Gail said, seating herself in one of the large wingback chairs by the fire grate. “Indeed, the world seems to have forgotten us.”
It was true. The private reading room lived up to its name. No one had come to check on them. Mr. Ellis and his assistants were engrossed in their work, and Evangeline and Will had promised to make their excuses to Romilla. They were completely alone, and no one seemed to care.
“The door is closed,” Max said, dazedly.
Gail waved off his unspoken question in her very Gail-like way. “They saw us before in the other room. They don’t worry about you and me.”
Unbidden, they should, again flashed through his brain. Instead, he said, “I doubt your mother would be much pleased by that closed door.”
“Stepmother, and you are purposely avoiding the subject. I have settled into a somewhat comfortable chair for the promised long story. I suggest you do the same.”
Max weighed his options before her steady golden stare and realized he might as well admit defeat. Gail’s intense curiosity would not allow her to give up until she knew what she wanted to know.
And strangely enough, Max wanted to tell her.
“To understand my situation, I think you have to understand how I grew up,” Max started as he settled into the chair opposite Gail. The firelight flickered against her hair, making the ordinary brown glow with red flame.
“I was raised in Sussex, near a small coastal town called Hollings. For such a small place, it has a fairly good-sized shipping trade in place. Holt Shipping established its first port there, you know.” When she nodded, he continued. “Of course you know, you know everything. Well at any rate, I spent my formative years at Longsbowe Park. I spent a good amount of time by myself. My parents had separate lives. I had nurses and governesses. My father was still active in the House of Lords, so he wasn’t in the country some of the time. But when he was…he taught me to fish in a stream on the estate. And to shoot. And about the lands that would one day be mine. My father…Longsbowe hasn’t changed in generations, you see. Hundreds of years and the land, estates, it’s all been exactly the same. I was taught the history of every tree, who planted it and why, the crops and how long we’ve been growing the same thing in the same place. Now, I enjoy history. Learning about new places and things and ideas that never landed on our shores is interesting—after all, without knowing what came before how can we advance? But Longsbowe is history. It can be…” Max’s voice became a little too rough for his liking. He cleared his throat, and began again.
“Anyway, my father wasn’t around often when I was young, and I was relatively alone, which isn’t abnormal. I would run three miles into town as a boy and watch the ships go out to sea, and I adored it. I would ask sailors where they had been and what they had brought back, and they would laugh and tell me I’d be a devil of a sailor one day. And I wanted to be—Lord, did I want to be—but I was to be an Earl. That’s the way it was, the way it is, and the way it always will be. And Earls are not common sailors. But I was very young. When the Holt family purchased an estate that was not too far from ours, I finally had a friend nearby. Their blood may not have been as blue as my father would have liked, but their money was certainly the right color—and amount. So now, instead of just me running into town, it was Holt and I harassing the sailors and fishermen.”
“It made it easier, to have a friend along,” Gail said quietly.
“Yes…and harder, too.” He frowned. “I knew he was going to have the chance to be on a ship like that one day—and I wasn’t. So when I was about twelve or so, I decided to run away. I packed a bag—mostly full of cheese and books I believe”—he smiled as Gail chuckled at his boyish folly—“and went to sign up as a cabin boy on one of the ships headed out to sea. The captain knew who I was, of course, and escorted me back to Longsbowe, where my father locked me in my room for a week. Never in my life had I seen him so angry. He yelled, railed, told me I was ungrateful for not wanting to stay and be who I was to be. That leaving the country was foolhardy. When he finally let me out, I was sent immediately to Eton.”
Max’s voice cracked, and he had to cough into his hand to cover the effect this distant childhood memory had on him.
“Eton wasn’t too bad,” he continued. “My father approved of it only because it’s where generations of Fontaine men had attended, and it was nearly as stuffed with history and tradition as Longsbowe. I know some gentlemen emerge with only horror stories of ruthless pranks and strict headmasters, but I didn’t mind so much. I was a viscount, with an ancient name, so the bullies were careful not to dunk my head in any chamber pots. Holt came up the same year as me, so we remained mates. And I liked to study,” he said wryly, indicating the pile of books he had left on the center table. “When I went home for holidays, my father and I, we no longer saw eye to eye. I started to notice that he had changed. A little at first, then rather dramatically. He began spending all his time at Longsbowe Park, stopped attending the House. My mother died while I was at school, and…I know that they had little affection for one another, but having her gone I think gave him permission to stop being in London. In the world, really.”
Max sighed, leaning forward on his knees, moving his shoulders as if to protect himself from imaginary blows. “I thought that if I waited until I was grown, I could do as I liked, and my father couldn’t stop me. He was a recluse by now, what would he care if his son spent a few years abroad? But I was wrong.
“When I came down from Oxford, I was ready to see the world. Holt and I set out on our grand tour. However much my father objected, he couldn’t very well forbid me—it was part of the consummate British experience, I had argued. I intended to go about Europe and maybe even Russia for at least a year. But two months into my travels, I received a missive that my father was on his deathbed.”
Gail sucked in her breath. Max nodded in agreement. “As you see. I rushed home, at record speed, and when I arrived, it was to see my father sitting up in bed eating a luncheon of hearty stew. I spoke with the doctors—they had been gravely worried about my father’s health, but it seemed he had beaten back the severe cold that had threatened to take him. I was relieved. I couldn’t believe how much I was relieved,” Max said almost to himself. “I stayed at Longsbowe with him for a month, every day he got stronger. When the doctors felt his health had been fully restored, I packed my bags, intending to rejoin my friends abroad. But on the eve of my departure, it rained. And my father showed his true colors. He stood outside in the damp the whole night. By morning, all the repairs to his health that had been made in that last month were undone, and he was on his deathbed again.”
“That’s horrible,” Gail whispered. “Why?”
“Because he wanted me to stay! He didn’t want me out of England, out of Longsbowe, and out of his control. It only took him three weeks to recover this time, but once he had, I called him out on his behavior. And we had the biggest row in our history—and believe me, my school days were peppered with some thunderous arguments. He accused me of not living up to my duties to Longsbowe. He thought I should remain in England, learn about the estate, become his drone, his copy, his Earl. As he was a copy of the one before him…I told him to go to hell.” At Gail’s taken-aback expression, Max smiled ruefully. “But I said it less politely.”
Gail was on the edge of her chair. “What was his reply?”
A cynical smile twisted his lips.
Max remembered very well what his father had said in reply.
“YOU can’t live without me boy! So you shall live where I tell you.”
His father’s gruff voice echoed in his head. They were in the study of Longsbowe Park, a grand room that had not changed in seven generations of Fontaine men. The high shelves of unread books were the same. The wood and leather were the same. Even behind the large mahogany desk was the same chair, in which the Earl sat, lord of all he surveyed. Including his son.
“You’re cutting me off? Fine—I don’t want your money,” Max said with more bravado than he felt. He was still young enough to have the idealism bred in university, but it was quickly lost when he pictured having to face the prospects of a world that turned on gears greased with cash and prestige. His father simply cackled.
“You won’t last three weeks in the world without what Longsbowe provides! You will stay here and learn to appreciate it, learn to run it, and learn to love it.”
“You’ve drilled into me the lessons of running an estate since I could walk,” Max fired back. In every one of his letters to his son, the Earl would include a detailed lesson on crop rotation, tenant farming, or the estate’s maintenance. It had gotten to be a bit of a joke between Max and his mates, for every time a letter had arrived, they would ask, “What’s the Earl’s lesson this week?”
“Time to put them to use then. I’m not as young as I used to be. You will now run the estates. I will oversee, advise when I think you are going astray, but I will have the stewards take orders from you. You will become Longsbowe, lad.”
And Max saw it. His future stretched out in front of him. All the new ideas he had drying up like dust. A long life of checking his work with his father, getting approval before proceeding. Always the Earl’s son, never his own man. Never leaving Longsbowe. Never discovering a damn thing about anything. Max’s throat closed in on itself, choking, suffocating.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely.
“What?” His father, who had clearly thought the issue was settled, looked up from his desk.
“I said no,” Max repeated, more resolutely this time.
“No?” the Earl asked, incredulous.
“I will not stay here and be your lackey.”
“Do you know what you are saying?” Desperation crept into the Earl’s voice. He sounded old. “You want to leave? Fine! You do it without my money! You won’t last a week without an allowance. You have nothing that is your own.”
It was the ultimate dilemma. His father refused to let go—but Max would die by inches if he stayed.
“I’m a sick old man,” his father had pleaded in a weak voice. “What will happen to me if you leave England?”
Max shook his head. “England is a big place. It will have to be big enough,” he said resignedly. “But I won’t live here under your rule.”
And with that, Max stalked out of the room. He calmly packed a bag and left the house, only venting his frustrations on an antique vase near the door. But that could have been considered an accident.
When he got to London, Max had only the money in his pocket and what was left of his last quarterly deposit in the bank. The Earl had been true to his word and quickly severed financial ties with his son. His father probably thought if Max couldn’t live high, he would come crawling home. Well, he would have to show the old man he was made of sterner stuff. Max set up house in an unfashionable but respectable part of town and began going about the business of becoming his own man.
Independence was his goal. Now, while the gentleman in him abhorred the idea of working for a living, the twenty-one-year-old in him was much more frightened of the prospect of marrying for money. So he learned to economize and looked for work.
“INITIALLY, some of my professors from Oxford assisted me,” he told Gail, who listened with rapt attention. “They had been impressed with my head for languages and liked me well enough, so they recommended me for some translating work. Then the government started commissioning similar work from me, as did publishing houses. I was soon earning enough money to pay my rent and expenses each month. But I wasn’t exactly living very well. Holt convinced me to invest a bit of each of my payments into Holt Shipping. And the rest, as they say, is history. I live economically, but I can’t say I want for anything. Very few people know I’m cut off. Most people just think I’m aloof,” Max finished with a sigh, settling back into his chair.
Gail looked at him for some minutes, twisting a lock of hair that had fallen out of her coiffure between two fingers. Late at night, Max would think about that lock of hair.
“But that can’t be the end of the story,” she said quietly. He looked at her expectantly.
“You have your own money now. The only reason you stayed in England was your father’s threat to cut you off. That’s no longer a threat. So why do you remain?”
Max exhaled a long breath. He looked at an innocuous spot on the floor—Gail’s gaze was too questioning, too direct.
“Fear,” he whispered, barely audible.
“Fear of what?” she whispered back.
“What he’ll do. I’m afraid he’ll make himself ill again. When he was out all night in the rain…” His voice broke. “I was so frightened. I was so very frightened of what would happen to him. You haven’t seen him. He’s not…strong anymore. He used to be the strongest man I knew. I have to keep my end of the bargain. I will stay in England. The world outside of it is a foolish place anyway.” He stared into the fire, forlorn.
His offhand comment made Gail frown. “That is your father talking,” she spoke, her voice resolute but her eyes soft and forgiving. She walked over to Max, kneeled before him. Placing a gentle hand on his arm, she drew his attention away from the grate.
“Max,” she said in soft kindness. “Couldn’t he see he was making you unhappy?”
Max was caught in her eyes, eyes that pleaded for that little boy, for that man who was still held back by the strong arm of his father. His voice came out lower, more hoarse than expected. “He can’t see beyond Longsbowe, beyond keeping things the same, within his control. He…manipulated me then. He still does, just in new ways. But I can’t risk it.”
“But how long? You have shut yourself off as effectively as he did. How long can you hold your true self in? How long before you are allowed to live?” Her hand was grasping his, a lifeline he didn’t know he needed. His other hand reached out, lightly fingering the softness of that errant lock of hair before seeking the warmth of the side of her neck and face. His thumb rubbed absentmindedly along her jaw, drawing her closer to him. Mere inches away.
“I shouldn’t have told you all this,” he whispered.
“I’m glad you did,” she whispered back. “I think I understand you a bit better now.”
“Then you have the advantage over me,” he replied, lowering his forehead to rest against hers. It was a gesture of deep need and closeness. Both closed their eyes, taking comfort in the simple existence of the other. “Promise me that someday, you will tell me all about your deepest anxieties and frustrations. Then we may be on even footing.”
Gail sniffled, followed by a short chuckle. “Do you have a year?” she asked with a smile.
Max brought his head up, regretting the space between them, even if it was only inches. He looked into her eyes (which had become decidedly shiny) and murmured, “The world seems to have forgotten us.”
She kept her eyes locked with his, something shifting in her golden gaze. It became darker, molten. She didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. Indeed, it seemed as though she couldn’t.
But Max could. The space between them slowly began to close. As his nose lightly caressed hers, Max could feel the light stutter of her breath warming his cheek. Her eyes became hooded and flickered closed, as their lips met for the first time.
It was warm. Gail was so surprised by the warmth that flooded her face, her chest, down to her toes at the simple brush of his mouth against hers. His hand slowly stole from her jaw to the back of her neck, pulling her even closer, deepening the kiss.
As for Max, he felt the fire of her, and it inflamed him. His mind raced, filled with questions: How could he do this? How could he not? How long had he wanted her just this way? But he refused to answer any question as long as he could simply feel Gail—on his lips, beneath his fingers, all around him. Her hand wound its way into his hair—slowly, softly gripping him to her. A shot of lust went straight to his groin, and he grabbed her arm, pulling her onto his lap.
This shift from gentle and sweet to hot with need thrilled Gail as much as it frightened her. She could not have stopped him, and found that she didn’t want to—especially when he opened his mouth, his tongue inviting hers to come out and play.
So this was kissing, Gail thought, as she tentatively met his movements in equal measure. Before, she hadn’t understood its appeal—why the maids blushed and giggled, why the matrons were so rigid in their belief that it was a sin—and that wasn’t the only thing rigid right then. Gail could honestly not blame anyone for what was deemed base desires, because the only desire she had as she felt his hands running over her back, holding her to him, was don’t stop.
A sharp knock on the door broke the spell, freezing Max and Gail in their heated explorations.
“Hello? Miss Alton?” Mr. Ellis’s voice broke through the door and their warm, insulated little world. Max watched as Gail’s eyes went from heavy lidded and dark with lust, to wide with shock and, regrettably, horror. Her mouth a small, silent O, she lifted herself from Max’s lap, cool air rushing into the growing void between them. Max could see that she wanted to absorb their actions, process them, try to make some sense of it, but there was no time for that.
Quickly she moved away, straightening her shoulders and ruthlessly combing her hair with her fingers. She was acting with speed and caution, both correct for this situation, but Max couldn’t help but be saddened by it. Could she really let go of him so quickly? Only a few seconds had passed since the knock interrupted them, could she already regret?
Gail, satisfied with her hair, picked up a book from the table, and Max arranged himself more suitably just before Mr. Ellis opened the door.
“Ah! Miss Alton, Lord Fontaine. You are in here, excellent. I despaired of ever finding you. It’s six o’clock. The museum is about to close.”
If Gail’s face was more flushed than normal, her eyes shinier, her lips redder, and Max’s seated pose more carefully arranged, Mr. Ellis did not comment. Max dug for his pocket watch.
“Six o’clock! Already! Ga—er, Miss Alton, we seem to have lost the entire afternoon. Your parents will be curious as to your whereabouts.”
“Lord, yes!” Mr. Ellis exclaimed. “Although I, too, have lost many an afternoon in these rooms. I daresay, if one of my assistants hadn’t reminded me, I would have accidentally locked you in here all night. What a kerfuffle that would have been, eh?”
Mr. Ellis smiled at his own humor, while Gail and Max exchanged a glance.
A kerfuffle, indeed.