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“Of Hartford, I know,” he murmured. “I will marry no other woman while I love another.”
His words settled into the fraught silence. Elliot placed a hand on his chest. He’d not know he would have made that admission, and inexplicably it felt gloriously right. “I love Miss Emma Fitzgerald, with all parts of me. I’ve loved her for ten years, and I have foolishly let my pride stand in the way of chasing her.”
His grandmother's eyes widened in evident shock. “Chase her?” she whispered furiously. “You are the duke of—”
“Of Hartford, I know, I suppose all the ladies of society are supposed to fall at dukes’ feet, and we do not pursue them?”
Her outrage was apparently too great for a rebuttal.
“I love Emma Fitzgerald,” he said again. “I’ve finally allowed myself to imagine a life with her, and I cannot let her go. She does not want me, in fact, I offered for her yesterday, and she rejected me, for the fourth time.”
Profound relief glared from the duchess’s eyes. “Sensible girl, she is unsuitable.”
“I should never have left,” he said, walking toward his grandmother to stand in front of her. “I foolishly left her when she needed me the most. A wounded animal fights those who try to help them, and I never realized that’s what Emma did. She was hurt, profoundly, and the more I pushed to be there for her, to make her my wife so I would always be there for her, the more she pushed me away. I gave up on her,” he said hoarsely, unashamed of the burning in his eyes. “I gave up on her, and I never saw it, I gave up on us.”
His grandmother remained stiff and disapproving, but he did not care.
“I will never give up on her again or on our love. If she travels to America, I will take a ship and follow her. I am but a shadow of the man I want to be without her, and I suspect, she is just as wounded without me.”
He bent and pressed a kiss to his grandmother’s papery cheek. Elliot smiled wryly at her shock. “Thank you, Grandmother, for thinking of my future. But I’ll marry no woman unless it is Emma Fitzgerald.”
Then he turned and exited the drawing room, planning his campaign to win his love.
Emma reposed on the chaise in her room, gazing through the window, not seeing the wild beauty of the land in springtime. At first, she’d cried, then did some gentle stretches on her leg, then read, anything to wrest her mind from the tormenting memories of the last few days, but the pain and tension had not dissipated.
Three days had passed since she saw him last, and it felt like a lifetime.
She had refused him out of sheer fear he would find her lacking. That when he saw the mess of scars on her legs, she would see pity in his eyes. She was a damn coward. Saying it in the most disparaging way she could think of did not make her feel better. She was truly aching down to her bones. All she could see was the raw flash of pain in Elliot’s eyes. It haunted her. She’d hurt him when he deserved nothing of the kind. Earlier he’d looked at her as if he loved her with every part of his soul.
Oh, Elliot.
She’d only spent a few hours with him and had been branded, and she wanted a lifetime more. A knock sounded on her door, and she jerked.
“Yes?” It was impossible to soften the abrupt nature of her demand. Partly because of her turmoil over Elliot, and partly because she had insisted her parents not invade her space after having to assert her right to privacy when they had bombarded her earlier. Mamma and papa had been fueled by Aunt Beatrice’s fanciful account of Emma’s attendance to Lady Waverly’s ball.
“It’s Maryann,” her sister said before opening the door and entering.
She waddled over, her stomach seeming impossibly larger in the couple days she had been gone. “When you did not come down for luncheon I felt concerned. Is all well?”
“I…yes.”
“Your eyes are suspiciously puffy and red,” Maryann said climbing atop the bed and reclining against a few pillows.
“The duke visited while you were in Bath.”
“Oh dear.”
“He knew it was me…at the masquerade ball.”
Maryann’s eyes widened, quite dramatically. “Upon my word, however did he discover?”
“He said,” Emma cleared her throat, and shifted from the windows to face her sister. “He said he knew it was me, the moment he saw me.” She closed her eyes, tilting her head onto the cushion. “I’ve missed him so, Maryann. He is different. Harder, more elegant, he wears authority like a second skin.”
“Well he is a duke now,” her sister said archly. “The dowager duchess’s tutelage would have been thorough.”
“I want to know the man he is today.” Emma hungered for the long walks, the reading by the fire, playing chess, and then the wicked kisses. “When he told Anthony of his intention to marry, I do not believe the duke thought I was a candidate. My heart is so afraid it is because of my wounds he didn’t seem to reconsider me, but I must logically think it was because I rejected his offer of marriage three times.”
Maryann gasped. “I thought he only approached papa once.”
