She covered her mouth.
“I wanted to see you and I agreed to this”—he yanked at his bindings—“because I wanted to apologize. To clear the air so that I could begin anew and with good conscience. In other words, I wanted to thank you.”
“There’s no need…” Her voice wobbled.Hewanted to thankher? When she’d demanded the Wolf back truss him up like a pig for slaughter? He wanted to thank her so his conscience would be free to ask her—as Eliza—to marry him.
She reached out to remove his blindfold. As her hand hovered in the air, her body went cold.
The truth—that she and the Blackbird were one and the same—might kill the love he’d just proclaimed. And that might kill her, too.
Because she loved him, too.
She loved him and she was desperately afraid she’d lose him if he ever learned the truth.
With a cry of confusion, she fled the room.
Eliza stretched acrossthe bed face down in her pillow, damp from the stream of tears which she’d cried into it. Behind her, she heard Cassie’s feet shuffling against the carpet as her sister paced.
“Everything is ruined.” Down muffled Eliza’s lament. “There’s no hope of an honorable marriage for me.”
“Well. I imagine, after you cried out to ‘Adrian’ this afternoon, that Mr. Vane—like the rest of us—has realized you are closer to the marquess than you both pretended.”
“I hadn’t even thought of how Mr. Vane must be feeling!” Eliza lifted her head. “All my planning has come to naught!”
“The way you held out your hands to the marquess. The way you blushed, Eliza! I was never so shocked in my life. I knew you were more interested in Redver than you let on, but you acted like you were…”
Lovers. Theywere. Only Adrian didn’t know—couldn’t ever know—they had been.
Eliza indulged in another sob.
“Eliza, please. You never really wanted Jonathan Vane.”
“Perhaps not,” Eliza admitted. “I was becoming close to the marquess, but when Adrian discovers the how I deceived him, he, too will hate me.”
“You don’t know ‘Adrian’ will hate you.” Cassie sighed. “Was I this bad after Almack’s?”
Again, Eliza lifted her head. “Worse.”
Cassie wrinkled her nose. “I apologize.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one who has failed.”
“Who has failed at what?”
“At making a match that would restore our respectability.”
Cassandra sat down by her side. She brushed Eliza’s hair away from her face with gentle fingers. “When you fail, you fail spectacularly…”
Eliza flipped over, her laugh little more than half-hearted. “Be serious.”
“I am serious.”
Eliza set a hand against her forehead. “Everyone present must have been able to see that something…untoward had happened between Adrian and me.”
“Whatdidhappen?”
“Please don’t ask me to tell you. I can’t.” She squeezed her eyes closed, but she was still able to see the anticipated judgment in Cassie’s face. “What am I going to do?”
Cassie slipped her hand into Eliza’s.
