VOLUME 1, CHAPTER XVI.
REVEALS THE BARRIER
Edris sat as if turned to stone. The air in the room seemed to have vanished, leaving her gasping in short, jagged breaths. Her hands, resting on the dark fabric of her gown, trembled so violently that she gripped the edge of the settee to steady them. The silence stretched, agonizing and thick, until Marcus broke it.
He dropped to one knee, his face pale with the sheer terror of his own confession. "Edris, I... I had to tell you. Since that day in Wengen, when I spoke of Elaine and you offered me your heart in sympathy, I have been yours. For a year I have stifled this fire because I believed you belonged to Lionel. I thought it was a crime to speak."
She didn't move. She felt his hand, warm and steady, covering hers, and the contrast to her own icy skin was startling.
"You don't speak," he said, his voice cracking. "I've offended you. I knew my age was a wall—a forbidden barrier. You deserve a man with the sun still rising on his life, not one who is watching the shadows grow long. Forgive me, Edris. I withdraw the words. I am a fool."
"Do you really wish to withdraw them?" she whispered, finally finding her voice.
"Wish it? No!" he cried with a desperate intensity. "But I know the truth. You cannot love me."
Edris looked down at the carpet. Her mind was a whirlwind of conflicting ghosts. Since Lionel's betrayal, she had walked through the world with a heart she considered dead—a cold, hard thing that she had sworn to use as a weapon against any man who dared approach her. She had planned to flirt, to charm, and then to discard men with the same callousness she had suffered.
But looking at Marcus—the "Architect" who moved the pieces of nations but was now trembling before her—she felt the ice crack. This wasn't the shallow, egotistical chatter of the young men she met in London. This was the raw, terrifying honesty of a man who had waited half a lifetime to feel anything at all.
"You have my forgiveness, Seton," she said, tears finally blurring her vision. She stood up, and he rose with her, his hand coming to rest on her bare shoulder.
"I worship you," he murmured. "My soul is in your keeping. I know I cannot ask for your love in return, but I had to let you know that you are my idol."
Edris leaned into his touch, almost imperceptibly. She realized now why he had fled to Paris, why he had avoided her invitations. It wasn't boredom or travel; it was the honorable retreat of a man who wouldn't covet another's prize.
"I don't know what to say," she faltered. "My faith in men... it's a shattered thing, Seton. Lionel was my ideal, and he was hollow. I've come to loathe the boys of my own age. They're so... inane. So full of themselves."
"Lionel was a boy," Marcus said softly. "A human sail drifting on every wind. He didn't know how to treasure what he had."
"And you?" she asked, her gray eyes searching his. "If I told you my secrets, would you be like the others? Would you be jealous?"
"Jealousy?" Marcus laughed, though there was no humor in it. "I told you, I don't know the malady."
"It's a living hell, Seton. If I ever gave my heart again, and it was doubted..."
"It won't be," he promised, his arms finally finding their way around her waist. He drew her close, and for a moment, the world outside—the crashing Channel waves, the looming Balkan crisis, the ghosts of Elaine and Lionel—all ceased to exist.
Edris didn't pull away. She felt the strength in his embrace, the stability of a man who had lived through a thousand storms and remained upright. She thought of his kindness—the adopted daughter he'd raised, the bedridden woman he'd supported for twenty years. He was a man of deep, hidden currents.
"I never dreamed you cared this much," she whispered against his chest. "I thought I had offended you."
"Never," he said, his breath warm against her hair. "But Edris, I must be honest. I still fear this is a dream. Love between us... it feels forbidden. I have turned toward the path of old age."
"No," she said, pulling back just enough to look at him, a small, defiant smile touching her lips. "You have more life in you than a dozen twenty-year-olds. You're my pal, Seton. My 'greatest friend.' And perhaps..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't have to. Marcus saw the shift in her eyes—the softening of the armor. He leaned down, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, and pressed a long, lingering kiss to her brow.
"I love you," he whispered into the golden light of the room. "Edris, my darling... can you ever be mine?"