Again the Magic (Wallflowers 0.5)(88)

She dozed on the settee until the fire burned low and the shafts of sunlight that came through the half-closed curtains were replaced by the glow of sunset. A quiet sound awakened her, and she stirred reluctantly. Opening her bleary eyes, she saw that Marcus had come into the room. He stood near the hearth, staring at her as if she were a puzzle that he was uncertain how to solve.

“What do you want?” she asked with a frown. Struggling to a sitting position, she rubbed her eyes.

Marcus lit a lamp and approached the settee. “Mrs. Faircloth tells me that you haven’t eaten all day.”

Aline shook her head. “I’m just tired. I’ll have something later.”

Her brother stood over her with a frown. “You look like hell.”

“Thank you,” she said dryly. “As I said, I am tired. I need to sleep, that is all—”

“You seem to have slept most of the day—and it hasn’t done you a damned bit of good.”

“What do you want, Marcus?” she asked with a spark of annoyance.

He took his time about answering, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat as he appeared to be thinking something over. Eventually he glanced at the shape of her knees, hidden beneath the folds of her blue muslin skirts. “I’ve come to ask something of you,” he said gruffly.

“What?”

He gestured stiffly toward her feet. “May I see them?”

Aline gave him a blank stare. “My legs?”

“Yes.” Marcus sat on the other side of the settee, his face expressionless.

He had never made such a request before. Why would he want to see her legs now, after all these years? Aline could not fathom his motive, and she felt too exhausted to sort through the many tiers of emotion she felt. Certainly it would do no harm to show him, she thought. Before she allowed herself to think twice, she kicked off her slippers. Her legs were bare beneath the gown. Lifting them to the settee cushions, she hesitated before tugging the hem of her skirts and drawers up to her knees.

Other than a nearly undetectable hitch to his breathing, Marcus showed no reaction to the sight of her legs. His dark gaze moved over the ropy pattern of scars, the patches of rough, ravaged skin, down to the incongruous whiteness of her feet. Watching his impassive face, Aline didn’t realize that she was holding her breath, until she felt the taut burn of her lungs. She let out a slow sigh, rather amazed that she was able to trust Marcus to this extent.

“They’re not pretty,” he finally said. “But they’re not quite as bad as I expected.” Carefully he reached over to pull the skirt back over her legs. “I suppose things that are unseen are often worse in one’s imagination than they are in reality.”

Aline stared curiously at the overprotective, strongwilled, often annoying brother she had come to love so dearly. As children, they had been little more than strangers to each other, but in the years since their father’s death, Marcus had proved himself to be an honorable and caring man. Like her, he was independent to a fault, outwardly social and yet fiercely private. Unlike her, he was always scrupulously honest, even when the truth was painful.

“Why did you want to see them now?” she asked.

He surprised her with a self-derisive smile. “I’ve never been certain how to contend with your accident, other than wish to hell that it had never happened. I can’t help but feel that I failed you in some way. Seeing your legs, and knowing there is nothing I can do to make them better, is damned difficult for me.”

She shook her head in bafflement. “Good Lord, Marcus, how on earth could you have prevented an accident from happening? That’s taking your sense of responsibility rather too far, don’t you think?”

“I’ve chosen to love very few people in this world,” he murmured, “but you and Livia are among them—and I would give my life to spare either of you a single moment’s pain.”

Aline smiled at him, feeling a welcome crack in the numbness that surrounded her. Despite all better judgment, she couldn’t prevent herself from asking a critical question, even as she struggled to crush the feeble stirring of hope within herself. “Marcus,” she asked hesitantly, “if you loved a woman, would scars like this stop you from—”

“No,” he interrupted firmly. “No, I wouldn’t let them stop me.”

Aline wondered if it was really true. It was possible that once again he was trying to protect her, by sparing her feelings. But Marcus was not a man to lie out of kindness.

“Don’t you believe me?” he asked.

She looked at him uncertainly. “I want to.”

“You are wrong to assume that I insist upon perfection in a woman. I enjoy physical beauty like any other man, but it’s hardly a requirement. That would be hypocritical, coming from a man who is far from handsome himself.”

Aline paused in surprise, regarding his broad, even features, his strong jaw, the shrewd black eyes set beneath the straight lines of his brows. “You are attractive,” she said earnestly. “Perhaps not in the way that someone like Mr. Shaw is…but few men are.”

Her brother shrugged. “Believe me, it doesn’t matter, since I’ve never found my looks—or lack thereof—to be an impediment in any way. Which has given me a very balanced perspective on the subject of physical beauty—a perspective that someone with your looks rarely attains.”