Chapter 21

I hate him, or do I?

If you looked at Alina, she would appear to be sitting, no sprawling rather serenely in a stuffy armchair next to her favorite window in the library, but inside, dear reader, she was what you these days call, a hot mess.

Passionately engaged in a solo session of self criticism, her actions were flashing before her eyes and she just couldn't believe how stupid she had been. Inwardly groaning, she threw her head back and closed her eyes. Of all the times she could have chosen to have an assignation, she had chosen the middle of an extremely cold winter night and very smartly, walked, walked to her lover's residence in clothing that offered very little protection against the cold. She had also foolishly seduced him in a place where anyone from his household could have walked in on them and she had given absolutely no thought to the consequences of being caught, she hadn't even contemplated the possibility of being caught!

'Well, I do admit that it was extremely foolish of me and a rather poor choice of timing', she said to herself, burrowing deeper into her chair, 'But I cannot deny that I quite enjoyed myself and it was rather thrilling to be the object of such admiration.' She could see Jason's flushed face and dazed expression in her mind's eye and a thrill ran through her. To think that she, Alina Fitzwilliam, who was rarely recognized as a woman by anyone in her family-unless it was to berate her for her manners-had been the recipient of such attentions by a man! Ah, it was almost too much.

However, the enjoyment she had derived from their encounter also confused her a little. Judging by what Robert had told her about such matters, men tried to fool women into accepting such attentions before marriage by weaving pretty stories about love and promises about a lifetime together. Good people, people like her, didn't engage in such activities until they were married, and they didn't even share a kiss till they were engaged. Alina however had done a lot more than just kissing with Jason and she had absolutely no intention of marrying him, a thought she believed he would completely agree with. Was it wrong to be delighted by what she had done? She had been careless, yes regarding the time and location of their meeting, but she couldn't see how what she had done was so morally wrong. Why was a person's goodness and morality associated with such actions instead of other parameters, such as the way they treated others for instance, which were a much better indicator of how good they were?

'Lady Catherine doesn't look like she has had the pleasure of consorting with somebody for quite a while and she is very clearly NOT a good person', Alina whispered to herself and giggled. Really, if her aunt was considered a morally upstanding citizen of society just because she was puritanical, then there was something clearly wrong with the rules. 'It's a shame I cannot discuss this with anybody. Almost everybody would have me drawn and quartered if they learnt I had been entertaining such radical notions in my head.' She settled her head against the back of her chair and sighed, the tempest in her head calmed.

'What radical notions are you entertaining in that nefarious head of yours?' A deep voice came out of nowhere and Alina lurched forward, the book in her lap falling to the ground with a loud thud.

She looked up to see Niklaus Wentworth walking towards her. They had last met in London the previous January and he seemed to have transformed in the intervening time. He seemed broader, his features sharper, his smile wider or his hair, oh dear god his hair-'

'What happened to your hair?' Alina exclaimed and then slapped a hand over her mouth in mortification. They were meeting after a year and this was the first thing she wanted to say to him!

Niklaus ran a hand through his criminally short hair and smiled nervously. 'Does it not suit me?'

'No, I mean, you know that you almost always look good', Alina blushed, she had a strong desire to strangle herself before any more stupid things could come out of her mouth. Her inability to compose herself was completely Niklaus' fault, why did he have to appear in front of her so unexpectedly and that too in her house. She had not been prepared to see him, much less talk to him sensibly. 'What I mean to say is, you used to have long hair, it came to your shoulders I remember (Alina wished she could smack herself) and you used to tie it in a queue like Richard.'

'That was a style more suited for London', Niklaus replied. 'I have been living at Stanford House since last autumn and long hair is rather inconvenient when you're doing manual labour around the estate.' He was standing in front of her now and it seemed to Alina that he was filling up the entirety of her field of vision, she didn't want to look at him but there didn't seem to be anywhere else she could turn her gaze to, so she settled for looking at his cravat.

'Why are you doing manual labour?' she burst out desperately, anything to just distract her from his proximity and how handsome he looked. Her fingers clutched at the arm rests of her chair so hard, her knuckles turned white. Niklaus seemed unaware of the storm that was rocking Alina's boat and chuckled blithely.

'I forgot that we hadn't corresponded in so long and that you aren't aware that my father is rather sick and so I have shifted my lodgings to Stanford House now to manage the estate', he said, leaning against the window, his hands in his pockets and god, did he make a pretty picture.

'Oh', was all Alina had to say. She was finding it rather difficult to bring her thoughts in order-the last time she had seen Niklaus, she had turned her back on him and walked into her London home after finding him canoodling with Lady Susan in a dark alley. They had been close friends of a sort before that and she hadn't contacted him after that incident and neither had he, so she had expected their meeting to be awkward to say the least but here he was, acting perfectly normal while she was a puddle of emotions she couldn't identify.

'Your friend sent a package for you', Niklaus commented, fidgeting with his cravat. He pulled at it a little and it fell open and Alina could see his throat and could throats really be so attractive? She hadn't known but Jason had certainly found hers plenty attractive judging by the amount of time he had spent caressing it. 'She wanted to come too but couldn't for obvious reasons, so she sent a huge amount of presents instead. Her package is almost heavier than all of my luggage and I have a lot of luggage indeed.' He grinned suddenly and Alina felt that her heart was going to burst out of her chest.

She hadn't felt this way with Jason at all, this seemed to be a sort of nervous excitement, a feeling of giddiness so strong that it was making her nauseous.

'Lord Wentworth', she said. Dear God, what was this madness plaguing her? Maybe Dr Landry had been wrong and she hadn't recovered properly and was now suffering from feverish delusions. She had seen things that weren't real and felt weird emotions in response and perhaps it was happening again?!

Alina rose from her chair, took a deep breath and then pinched Niklaus. Hard.

He squealed. 'Allie! Why did you do that?' He looked at her completely flabbergasted as he, rubbed his arm.

Alina was pretty sure her cheeks were on fire, she was blushing so hard. 'I just wanted to check if you are real', she croaked out and hid her face with her hands.

'What?' Niklaus' tone was colored with disbelief. 'Allie, are you well? Do you feel feverish? Have you eaten something since morning? Have you slept properly? Are you sleeping properly?'

Alina just groaned inwardly. Couldn't the ground just open up and swallow her? Before she embarrassed herself further?

He pulled her hands away from her face and brought his hand to her forehead.

'You don't seem feverish', he said. He touched her the back of her neck, as if to confirm, and Alina shivered.

'You're cold', he exclaimed. 'Where is your shawl? Why don't you have a blanket? Wait a second, let me give you my coat.'

He began to remove his coat but Alina stopped him with a hand on his arm.

'I'm fine', she said. 'I'm just surprised to see you and surprised that you're talking to me as if we didn't part ways acrimoniously and didn't write each other for more than a year.'

'I think you'll have to do some explaining, Allie because I don't remember us having a fight', Niklaus looked at her steadily and it was a tad unnerving to be the sole object of his focus.

'Then why haven't we written to each other for a year?' Alina asked. 'If nothing was wrong, why didn't you write to me after our meeting in London?'

'I believe that is a question I should be asking you', he replied. 'You haven't replied to any of my letters and when I wrote to your brother asking if something was the matter, he asked me to give you some time.'

'What letters are you talking about?' Alina couldn't help sounding angry. 'I have seen neither hide nor hair of a missive penned by you since we met in London. I was not going to be the first person to reach out to you after what you did and when you didn't write me, I inferred that maybe you had better things to do, better friends', this she emphasized, 'than a foolish young country girl.'

'I would thank you to stop making assumptions about what I think of you', he bit out. 'There seems to be some gross misunderstanding regarding my actions and I would request you to give me an opportunity to explain myself.'

Alina nodded. Perhaps he would finally apologize for his shoddy behavior that night. Canoodling with Lady Susan in a dark alley and ignoring her on an outing he had invited her to had been the height of rudeness in her opinion.

'When I brought you home after that lighting show in London, I could see something was wrong, you seemed angry with me but I didn't think it was the correct time or place to have a conversation, so I didn't say anything. I did however send your mother a request for an audience with you but she replied that you were too busy preparing for your journey home.'

'I was not informed of this, not by mother or anyone else', Alina said, crossing her arms. 'And are you really that chuckle headed that you would expect my mother, the second greatest proponent of female propriety after Lady Catherine, to grant you an audience with me?'

'No, I did not', Niklaus replied. 'Which is why I wrote to you after you arrived at Milton Hall. I must have written you weekly and when you didn't reply, I was so puzzled that I thought about coming here myself and asking you what was wrong.'

'I didn't receive any letter', Alina bit out exasperatedly. 'Are you lying because you don't want to admit that you forgot to write me now that I'm standing in front of you? And why didn't you come then? If you were so puzzled.'

'No, Lady Alina-Marie I forgot your middle name Fitzwilliam', Niklaus snapped, 'I'm not lying. Dear God, you'll make my hair turn white in a day.' He pushed the window in annoyance. 'Just allow me to explain and then ask questions at the end, please. We'll be standing here arguing all day if we go on like this.'

'Fine', Alina said and flopped into her chair. 'Please pardon me for sitting but I really do think I need to be seated for your long winded tale of excuses and reasons.'

Nikalus nostrils flared but he sighed before continuing. 'I was going to come but my father fell ill rather unexpectedly so I had to rush to Stamford House. He wasn't getting better so I had to take over the management of the estate. I discovered the land was grossly mismanaged and the records were a complete mess so I've spent the last year fixing everything and I simply didn't have time to go anywhere other than London for business. I did write to you even from Stamford but when you didn't reply even on your birthday, I wrote to Robert and he asked me to give you time. So I stopped writing. It was out of respect of your wishes and not because I lost interest in continuing our friendship.'

He had been standing near the window the entire duration of his speech but now he moved towards her to stand right in front of her, until she could smell the fragrant substance he had applied after shaving.

'What did I do to offend you so greatly?' Niklaus looked lost. 'What have I done to make you look at me with such disappointment?'

'You invited me to the lighting show and yet you spent the entire time cozying up with Lady Susan', Alina could not look at him as she said, she could not let him see how much it had hurt, 'you ignored me so completely, I felt I was invisible. If you wanted to spend your evening with her, you shouldn't have invited me. I haven't felt so slighted and so small in my life as I did with you that night. I wanted you to apologise for the way you treated me, but you didn't that night. And then when I didn't hear from you since then, I thought that I simply wasn't important enough to you to merit your notice and that hurt even more. It is only logical that I didn't want to write to you then.'

Alina couldn't stop the tears from running down her face. She hated that Niklaus could see how much the fact that he hadn't acknowledged her hurt had affected her. She wiped her tears but they seemed rather determined to fall so after a couple of tries, she gave up.

Niklaus covered her hand with his as he kneeled before her and she looked up to see that he was crying too. 'I'm so sorry, Allie', he almost sobbed, 'I apologize from the bottom of my heart for making you feel like that. You're probably my favourite person in the world after Tom the Barman at KnobbyHeads, and I am so sorry my actions made you believe otherwise.'

'Why are you crying?' Alina couldn't help but smile through her tears. 'You're such a softie.'

Niklaus wiped his eyes on his sleeve. 'You know very well that I have a tendency to cry in moments packed with intense emotions'.

'Oh', Alina exclaimed, her tears forgotten. 'I completely forgot that you cried buckets when Richard left for the army. Your red scarf was soaked with your tears and snot before he had even disappeared from view.'

'It was an emotionally overwhelming moment for me', Niklaus sniffed. 'I will not apologize for being concerned about my best friend's wellbeing. Will you forgive me, though? Will this blackguard be redeemed?'

'You know I cannot remain angry with you for long', Alina commented, smiling at him fondly. 'I always forgave you quicker than Richard or Fitz when you three troubled me.'

Niklaus smiled at her and Alina wanted to wipe the remnants of his tears off his cheeks with her fingers but she knew that would be crossing the line so she contented herself with patting his head multiple times until his hair was completely mussed. His head with his lovely mussed silky soft hair.

'But I find it difficult to believe that you didn't even receive a single one of my letters', Niklaus fixed his hair with his fingers.

Alina sighed. She had a good idea who was interfering with her correspondence. 'It must have been Mother', she sighed. 'She has been enforcing various dictates of propriety ever since she started coaching me for my debut in London and I believe this was one of them. Maintaining a correspondence with you must fall under the category of highly inappropriate behaviour for her so she hid your letters from me. If I had tried to write you, she would have intercepted my letters as well.'

'I cannot blame her', Niklaus said, looking at her with big, sad eyes that made her want to comfort him in very inappropriate ways. 'I may have known you since you were a tiny wee thing but at the end of the day, we are not family by blood', and wasn't Alina extremely grateful for that, 'and any unchaperoned interaction between us falls outside the bounds of proper behaviour.'

'Then I believe you should scram from here as fast as possible', Alina laughed, 'Before my mother finds you kneeling in front of me.'

'I believe that it's a little too late for that', her mother interrupted dryly and Niklaus and Alina both jumped a little at her unexpected appearance.

'Now, Lord Wentworth, unless you're proposing to my daughter, I would really appreciate if you stood at a respectable distance', Lady Alexandra said as she straightened some books in the shelf in front of her.

Niklaus complied immediately. He even bowed a little as he moved back.

'And yes, I'm guilty of the crime you accuse me of, but I find that I can no longer approve of an unsupervised correspondence between you, because of the reasons you so wisely mentioned, Lord Wentworth,' Lady Alexandra continued as she moved to stand behind Alina. 'If you wish to court her, you may seek my permission to write her otherwise you two can chat all you want after Alina is married to a nice, handsome, rich peer.

'Mother', Alina hissed. And her mother called her improper! 'Please.'

Niklaus laughed. 'You are delightful as always, Lady Milton', he grinned at her and even Lady Milton blushed a little. It was impossible not to when Niklaus smiled at you with his dimples showing.

'I must apologise for meeting her unchaperoned as well', Niklaus bowed his head in mock repentance, 'and I'll make sure that it never happens again.'

Lady Milton smiled. 'I always knew you were a smart boy. Now come and give me a hug. I've missed you almost as much as Alina.'

Niklaus moved to embrace her without hesitation and Alina looked at them with longing. Oh only if she could embrace Niklaus so freely. It seemed that she would have to convince Niklaus to marry her if she wanted to even kiss his forehead. She sighed.

'I haven't forgotten about the letters, Mother', Alina commented as her mother kissed Niklaus cheek. 'I can't believe you hid them from me even if you didn't want me to write to him.'

'Oh Alina-Marie', Lady Alexandra's eyes twinkled as she looked at Alina, 'I did intercept them but it was your dear father who confiscated them and kept them locked in his desk.'

Alina was pretty sure she heard Niklaus swear under his breath and she just dropped her head into her hands. Her parents had interfered in a completely proper and innocent relationship while the highly improper and decidedly not innocent one had flourished right under their noses. Really, parents knew nothing.

THE END OF CH 21

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