“Stupid, reckless, foolish,” Madeline panted, her lungs burning in the freezing air. With the fur-lined hood of her cape pulled up around her ears, everything was muffled. It helped calm her panic to have the only sound be her heartbeat pounding in her ears.
She stomped through the snow, her body buzzing with nerves. In less than a fortnight, she’d gone from being a pampered young lady who never strayed as far as a well-lit back garden without a chaperone, to traipsing all around the wilds of the English countryside in the dark of the night.
The only problem was that all this adventuring had done nothing to cure her of her fear of the dark. The only thing that got her to Warren’s cabin in one piece was the overwhelming need to see them, to leap into her greater fear of not having them. But now she was alone again, with only her frustration and resentment to keep her warm.
She trudged through the dark, every crack and snap in the trees making her shiver with fright. But walking was the only option. She couldn’t possibly share a carriage with Rosalie and her three devoted lovers. It would be too painful to watch them all pretend for her sake that there was nothing between them except friendship.
Their hidden joy at being reunited only made her own reality starker. After nearly a fortnight at Alcott Hall, and ten days since she’d asked Charles to marry her, he’d still not given her an answer. Her time was running out. More than her time running out, his delays were breaking her heart. What was so wrong with her? Why this hesitancy? Why could he not just—
“God damn it, Madeline. Stop walking!”
She let out a silent scream as a large hand closed around her arm, pulling her back. Her knees buckled, heart racing out of her chest, as she gave in to her overwhelming panic.
“Madeline, what—”
She scrambled in Warren’s hold, but he lifted her back on her feet as if she weighed no more than a leaf. “What are you doing?” she cried, slapping at his chest. “You scared me half to death!”
“I called your name twice,” he growled. “You’re not even paying attention. A carriage could have rattled past and bowled you over!”
“I was distracted,” she panted, raising both hands to press them against her racing heart.
“Distracted,” he scoffed.
“I was thinking!”
“About what?”
“About…everything,” she replied, turning away from him and marching up the path. With her little stride, it was nothing to him to keep pace.
“Are you engaged to Tom Renley?”
She slid to a halt and spun to face him, eyes wide. “You would ask me that?”
“Burke said—”
“Burke is a consummate joker,” she huffed, pacing away again. “The day a serious word passes his lips will be the day I sprout wings and fly!”
Behind her, Warren grunted in irritation. “Why did it not surprise you!”
She stopped again, glancing over her shoulder. “What?”
He came right up behind her. Heavens, why was he so tall? She had to crane her neck to hold his gaze. “When he said the words, everyone in the room responded with shock and confusion, but not you. I want to know why.”
She dropped her gazed to the hastily tied knot of his cravat. “He was only teasing me.” She turned away again, marching down the snowy lane.
“Madeline, goddamn it, you’re going to talk to me,” he called after her. “Is the money really all you care about? Charles is dragging his feet, so you’re done with both of us now? You got what you wanted. A quick fuck, a few passionate kisses. Now it’s on to the next man, right?”
“I’m glad to know you think so highly of me,” she said, irritation rising as she stomped through the snow.
“Did you ask Tom Renley to marry you?”
“No!” she cried, still not stopping.
“But you wanted to,” he called. “Didn’t you.”
She stopped.
“That’s why you really came to Alcott. You came for Renley.” He marched up behind her, grabbing her shoulders to hold her captive. His face lowered until his warm breath fanned over her ear. “How many men did you ask before Charles?”
“Warren—”
“Did he even make your list? Is that the paper you showed him in the gazebo?”
She sucked in a breath. So, Warren really had watched their entire exchange. “That was a private conversation—”
“Nothing is private,” he growled in her ear. “Not between the three of us. Tell me the truth, Lady Madeline. How many men did you propose to before Charles? Who else made your list?”
“It doesn’t matter—”
“Renley, obviously,” he went on, pulling at her shoulders to turn her around. He gripped her chin in a firm hand, tipping her face up. “What about Burke? Did you propose to him?”
Tears stung her eyes and she tried to blink them away. “Warren, please—”
“Oh, Christ,” he muttered, dropping his hands away from her.
She sagged without the strength of his arms holding her up.
“You did. You proposed to Burke. He made your list too,” he growled, dragging a hand through his long, dark hair. “And after Burke shot you down, you what? You ran to Charles? Is he your consolation prize? A last-minute addition to the list?”
She turned away. “I don’t have to explain myself to you—”
“Aye, but you do, Madeline! For, until you do, I’ll never know how truly worthless I am in your eyes. So, let’s get it all out there now.”
She stumbled back as if slapped. Searching his anguished face, she traced that jagged scar. “Warren, what can you mean?”
“I mean that I am most definitely not on your list!” he bellowed. “I am nothing. No one. A lowly gamekeeper not fit to be anything but fucked.”
Her heart dropped out of her chest. Is that truly the way he saw himself?
“You run around all of England, proposing to anyone who will sit still for five minutes together—”
“That’s not fair—”
“Only thinking about your great fortune—”
“I’m not—”
“And yet, when I attempt to say the words, when I tell you that I will marry you, that I want to make your list, you silence me!”
She gasped, glancing around, lost in the thicket of his delusions. “You never said you wanted to marry me! Our conversations have always centered Charles. He is the one you would marry in your heart, not me. You see me as a friend and nothing more. You’ve talked several times of friendship, of knowing me like an old friend, needing me as a friend.”
“Aye, and so have you!” he bellowed. “And what is a marriage without friendship first? Even without Charles, you have what you say you’ve always wanted, Madeline. A man who—” He swallowed back his words, spinning away.
The truth of his declaration pierced her heart like arrows. “A man who what?” she whispered, placing a hand on his back.
He shrugged her off, striding away towards the woods.
“Warren! Don’t you dare say those cruel things and then walk away from me!” She stumbled after him, using his footprints to ease her way, hopping like a bunny from print to print, with her layers of skirts twisted in her hands. “Warren—”
“Go back, Madeline! Back to Alcott where you belong.”
“I’m not going back! I’ll follow you all night if I must. Warren!” She chased after the giant, his strides easily outpacing hers. “I never wanted to marry Tom Renley! I never even asked him. I considered it, but that is all. And yes, I proposed to Burke. But it was a-a moment of desperation. It was panic!”
He paused, swinging around, and she nearly crashed into him. He caught her easily, his firm hands holding her upright. “And Charles? Was he a moment of desperation too?”
She held his gaze, chest heaving. “Yes,” she admitted. “And no,” she added quickly.
But he’d already dropped her like a hot coal and was back on his way, marching into the trees.
“You have to understand the pressure I was under—am under!” she called after him, trying again to keep pace. “You have no idea what it is to be a woman in this world, Warren. You have no idea the fear we live with, the constant debilitating terror that our fathers or our brothers will turn into cruel men. That they’ll marry us off to crueler men—”
Warren slowed his pace, but he didn’t stop.
“My whole life has led me to the singular moment of becoming a man’s wife,” she went on. “I would pass from being my father’s property to my husband’s. So yes, in desperation, I asked Charles to marry me. Not only to give me use of my aunt’s fortune, but to free me from my fear. I wanted to choose my own fate, Warren, like you do yours. Every day you get a choice. I wanted a kind man. A man who wouldn’t ignore me and dismiss me. A man who wouldn’t hurt me.”
Warren stopped again, turning to face her. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he glared down at her, saying nothing and giving nothing away in his expression.
She tipped her head back, holding his dark gaze. “It was desperation, yes. We women are all desperate creatures, Warren. But I also wanted to ask him. I wanted to ask him for me. I think we could do well together. I think he could make me happy, and that is a reality I never once envisioned for my future. I want to marry him, Warren.”
Slowly, he raised a hand, cupping her cheek. His calloused thumb brushed the tear away from under her eye. “If any man ever dares raise a hand to you, I will cut out his heart and burn it before his eyes.”
She lifted her hand, placing it over his on her cheek. “I believe you,” she murmured.
“You still want to marry Charles.”
She nodded, turning her face to kiss his palm.
“Where does that leave me?”
She let out a soft breath through parted lips. Tipping up on her toes, she mirrored his gesture, cupping his face, her thumb brushing lightly over the “v” of his scar. “My being with you is in no way contingent on also being with Charles. If he wants us, he will know what to do.”
“Speak plainly, Madeline. I’m just a lowly gamekeeper.”
“I—Warren, I think I might love you,” she said on a breath.
He went impossibly still, saying nothing.
“I know it’s mad to say it out loud,” she admitted. “We’ve only known each other a short time, but there it is. I feel like a part of me has always known you. It doesn’t feel like I found you that night in the dark. It feels like I found you again.”
“I know,” he murmured, his thumb brushing her cheek. “From the moment I met you, it’s felt like there’s a piece of me walking outside my skin.”
“Yes, exactly,” she echoed, inching closer. “All my life, I’ve been so frightened of everything. But with you, I’m not afraid. And I’m sorry if this ruins all your grand plans, but I don’t intend to be without you. I want Charles for Charles, but I want you for you.”
He pulled her closer, his hands smoothing down her shoulders to brace her hips.
“You think you haven’t made my list,” she murmured, brushing two fingers over his bowed lips. “John Warren, you are my list.”
He lowered his face, claiming her lips in a fierce kiss, and it felt like coming home. She met him eagerly, wrapping her arms around his neck and letting him lift her off the ground. The hood of her cape tipped back, the silver fur ticking under her chin, as she opened for him, tasting the man that made her heart calm.
He dropped her back to her feet, breaking the kiss with both of his large hands cupping her face. “Madeline, I—”
CRACK.
Madeline shrieked, climbing Warren like a tree, as she tried to spin around at the same time to face the crashing snapping sound.
“Whoa,” he soothed. “It’s just a falling branch. Too heavy with snow.”
She groaned, dragging a hand through her hair, which caused her little holly crown to tumble down to the snow. She quite forgot she’d been wearing it.
“What—are you alright?” he murmured, his hands back on her shoulders. “Madeline—”
“I can’t,” she whimpered. “Warren, please take me back. I—I know I said I’m not afraid, but I meant that in a more metaphysical sense, like of the future,” she mumbled. “But I am afraid. I—it’s—I’m frightened out here. I—the noises and the—”
He tipped her face up, holding her still. “Madeline…are you afraid of being outside?”
“Not outside, necessarily. I like the outdoors as much as the next person. I—”
His face split into a grin. “You’re afraid of the dark.”
“Don’t mock me. Plenty of people are afraid of the dark. It’s—there could be bears!”
He chuckled. “There hasn’t been a bear spotted in this part of England since the time of William the Conqueror.”
“There could be wolves.”
“Never seen one in my life.”
“Boars, then.”
“Unlikely. At this time of night and this time of year, they’ll be nestled in tight in their thickets. They want naught to do with us, lovely.”
“But—”
He pressed two fingers to her lips. “I have been gamekeeper here for nigh on a decade. I know these woods like the back of my hand. You are safe.”
“But—”
“Madeline, the only thing you need to fear in these woods is me.”
She gasped, eyes going wide. Her heart was racing for an entirely new reason as she took in the heat of his gaze. “What are you—”
“I hunt these woods, they do not hunt me. Do I look afraid to you?”
She shook her head, heat unfurling deep in her core.
“Then here is what we will do.” He turned her bodily away, his hands still on her shoulders. “You are already set on a path. Do you see it? It opens at the side of the park.” He pointed over her shoulder, his finger tracing a clear line in the moonlight through the trampled snow. “Do you see it? Speak.”
She nodded at first, forgetting herself until she murmured out a ‘yes.’
“Good girl. Now, listen to me. People are not afraid of the dark. They are afraid of what is in the dark. Do you understand? I am telling you now that the only thing in here is me. Are you still afraid?”
Her heart was racing. Why was he using that gravelly voice. Why was he holding her quite so tight? She couldn’t help herself. She panted out her answer. “Yes.”
“Good. Because I want you to run.”
“Warren—”
He let her shoulders go, giving her the slightest push forward. “Run, Madeline. And know that if I catch you, I am going to fuck you against a tree until you scream. Now, run.”
