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“I will not be your wife. I refuse to marry a man who is dishonest.”
“I have never been dishonest with you.”
Fresh malice boiled in Eliza’s belly. “You said you would not harm Thomas if I promised to return here and marry you, did you not?”
“I did.”
“So why did you tell Donaldson to burn Thomas’s property after we were married? I refuse to be your wife, since you have rescinded on our agreement.”
A monster unleashed before her. Samuel shoved Eliza against Father’s rows of books, their hard covers stabbing into her back just as Samuel’s eyes stabbed into her chest.
“If you do not marry me, not only will his house burn, but Thomas will as well.”
Eliza’s blood escaped her face and she braced herself as the room twisted around her. “You wouldn’t.”
Samuel’s eyes narrowed into small black slits. “I would.”
Her bones wanted to crack under the weight of his words and her voice refused to work, but somehow she found her ability to speak. “If I find that you have done anything to him after we are married I will do everything in my power to leave you, make no mistake.”
Samuel relaxed his numbing grip, a wicked laugh rumbling in his chest. “You can’t leave me, Eliza. Not after everything I’ve done for you.”
“I can and I will!”
Samuel roared and without warning slapped her across the face, causing her to tumble sideways. She hit Father’s chair and landed in a rough heap on the floor.
He rushed to her, panic lighting his features, as if it had been someone else who had struck her. “Eliza, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Are you hurt?”
A trickle of warm liquid ran down her cheek. He tried to touch her face, but she slapped his hand away.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
His face drained of all color and he sputtered as he spoke, his voice quiet. “I’m so sorry, Eliza, I—”
“Thomas would have never dreamed of hitting me, Samuel.” She straightened to her full height, breathing in deep heaves. “He lets me speak my mind and ask questions. He believes that what I think matters. He loves me!”
Samuel lowered his brow and his tone rumbled in his chest as he shook her shoulders. “You will never speak of Thomas again. Today we will be married, and you will be mine forever and you will love me! As far as you are concerned, Thomas never existed.”
The finality of his statement sluiced over her, causing her knees to buckle. She gripped the row of books behind her to steady her stance.
“So be it, Samuel Martin,” she said, filling her voice with razors. “But know this, there is only one man that I will ever love—dead or alive. And it will never be you!”
Eliza’s words stripped Samuel of every bit of hope still clinging to him.
She bolted from the room as if he were some kind of thief, ready to steal her very innocence. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking and the fury in his gut consumed every ounce of his body until his limbs grew weak.
Samuel righted the fallen chair and sat. His shoulders slumped and his features dropped. He stared ahead of him into the rows of books and cringed as if they derided him for his weaknesses. He replayed Eliza’s murderous statement over again in his mind. There is only one man I will ever love—dead or alive. And it will never be you.
The recollection burned him anew and a powerful rage bubbled in his already boiling blood. He scratched his fingers through his hair and grabbed at his scalp squinting his eyes so hard the muscles in his face began to cramp. How could she? After all he’d done for her, after the love they had shared.
He clenched his fists and ground his still wounded knuckles into one another, grinding his bones until the cracks in his skin peeled and oozed blood. The pain helped him to think clearer. To think harder.
She still loves me. I know it. She has been brainwashed. Once we are married, and I have a chance to show her the full measure of my affection, when I can clear her mind of Thomas, then she will remember how she loved me.
Samuel sat straighter and rubbed at the blood on his hands. Once they were married. Yes. Once they were married and Thomas was dead, she would have no choice but to accept him and love him the way he knew she could.
That would be tonight.
Chapter Twenty-seven
