She blushed and looked down. “I never liked that bit. Of course, yes, it is flattering, but I believe it frightened away just as many people as were drawn to me.”
He offered a dry huff. “Well, believe me, I thought it all rot at first. But then I saw you enter the room, and I had eyes for no one else. Nor did any other gentleman.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “But I never saw you. Not even a glimpse. I feel sure I would have remembered.”
He smiled ruefully. “No. Because I knew you were as far beyond my reach as the stars. Yet I could not look away.”
She sniffed and swallowed, glancing at the window—the floor—his shoes. “I never meant to…”
“Yes you did.” His voice softened. “You walked in like the room belonged to you, and perhaps it did. Not because of your father’s name, or the whispers of your dowry. It was the way you moved, as if joy followed in your wake. The way you looked at each person who spoke to you—as though their words truly mattered.”
He risked one step closer to her—just enough to reach for the worried knot of her fingers to try to soothe them. “I watched you laugh with a girl whose name I never caught. You tucked a flower back into her hair when it slipped from her ribbon and whispered something to her that made her glow. I watched you rescue a plate from a nervous footman and hand it off before the hostess saw. And I watched you take a seat beside an elderly lady who seemed utterly forgotten, and make her feel the center of the room.”
His voice wavered. “You made the tedious seem delightful. The pomp and vanity of that hall dimmed in your presence. You... outshone everything.”
She was still staring at their hands, letting him do as he pleased with her fingers. But at his last words, she locked her hand to capture his, not permitting him to withdraw it.
He hesitated, then continued, his voice thick with emotion. “There was a moment when you reached for a biscuit and found the plate empty. You blinked, made a face, and then laughed—laughed like it was the best joke you had heard all evening. And in that ridiculous moment, I knew.”
“…Knew? What?” She was gazing up at him now, eyes wide and glittering with a sheen of tears.
He worked one hand loose from hers and let his fingers trace her cheek, shaking his head. “I realized then that I had seen the woman to whom I would compare all others for the rest of my life. A woman I could never hope to even speak to.”
She narrowed her eyes faintly and tried to open her mouth, but her voice cracked before she could release even a single word.
He exhaled a shaky breath. “I left the ball shortly after, apologizing to Lady Matlock for not dancing with any of her guests. She did not forgive me for months. And I did not forget.”
Elizabeth finally cleared her throat. “You… you really thought all that, did you?” she whispered.
He smiled faintly. “When I saw you that night at Buckingham House,” he murmured, “brought into the Prince’s chambers, shaking and frightened... and then entrusted tomycare...“ He closed his eyes. “Great heavens, I felt unworthy. Incapable. My failures nearly cost you your life.”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears again, but her features hardened. “No! The mistakes were mine, not yours.”
He shook his head. “I cannot accept that. I could never live with myself if any harm came to you. Because the woman I once placed on a pedestal, whom I watched from afar, whose name I sought in every broadsheet, every carriage in Mayfair...”
He cupped her face gently. “You are no longer a distant dream to me, Elizabeth. You are a part of my heart. And I would sooner tear it from my chest than do anything to hurt you.”
He leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to her cheek. As he pulled back, she caught his face in her hands, attempting to bring his lips to hers. But he resisted, stepping away.
Clearing his throat, he mumbled, “I should check the perimeter.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hehadfledtheroom.
Not in haste. Not in disgrace. But in that deliberate, careful manner he used whenever he was afraid he might do something reckless.
She had not moved from the chair by the window since.
The fire was low. The shutters still drawn, though she peeked through them every few minutes. And somewhere beyond the walls of this stone-wrapped sanctuary, Darcy was pacing the cold earth, trying to forget how it felt to touch her.
She curled her knees beneath her, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders, though she was not cold.
Half in love with her before they had even spoken.
Darcy’s confession echoed again and again in her mind, recalling every stolen glance, every silent hesitation, every moment of misjudged reserve he had offered her since they met.
He had known her name long before she learned his. Had watched her dance, smile, tease some simpering peer in a golden ballroom, and had thought her beyond reach. And then, somehow, she had landed—quite literally—in his care. Bruised and hunted and more herself than she had ever been in satin and jewels.
