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"You'd have me do that, without a thought of what it would mean for Elizabeth's future?"
"Bah, the girl is resourceful. She's managed just fine without you, Crispin, and she will continue to be fine when she leaves."
It was the closest his mother had ever come to paying Elizabeth a compliment. How very ironic that it should be given only with the hopes of sending her on her way.
"Do you require assistance, Your Grace?"
Elizabeth cringed at the unexpected interruption and looked to the butler.
He stared back, a question in his eyes.
Elizabeth gave her head a jerky shake and, with careful steps, strode over to the waiting servant. "There is something you can do." He inclined his head. "Will you see that a carriage is readied?"
"Now?" His brown eyebrows shot to his receding hairline and then swiftly descended.
Yes, it was certainly in bad form to flee one's own ball, leaving the household altogether in the dead of night with a houseful of guests expected to remain for another six hours at the least. "Yes, as quickly as you are able."
The servant dropped a brow. "As you wish, Your Grace." As he took himself off, rushing in the opposite direction, Elizabeth continued briskly onward, not breaking stride until she reached her rooms.
Her lady's maid glanced up. Her already wide eyes went round. "Your Grace," she exclaimed, rushing over.
"Calista." Elizabeth started over to her dressing room, and bending down, she grabbed the handles of the trunk crafted by her father and dragged it from storage.
It scraped noisily along the floor as she went.
The girl glanced at the trunk, following Elizabeth's every move as she wandered to the armoire, tossed the doors open, and pulled out an armful of her garments.
"Your Grace?" the girl croaked.
"I don't require any assistance," she assured, not taking her eyes off her task.
Elizabeth dropped the neatly folded undergarments into the bottom and then returned to the rose-inlaid armoire and fetched her dresses. Nay. Dragon skirts were what they were.
"And did the students leave your tutelage with that same strength?"
Elizabeth jerked to a stop and clenched and unclenched the fabric in her arms. She drew the garments close. How many years had she spent justifying the work she'd done at Mrs. Belden's? She'd been... surviving. Only, it wasn't until Crispin had challenged her existence that she'd acknowledged the harm she'd done to others, all in the name of... survival.
Securing her own future didn't pardon the lessons she'd doled out. The spirits she'd crushed. The dreams she'd quashed.
Gritting her teeth, Elizabeth tossed the dresses into the bottom of the trunk and stalked over to gather the remaining garments, burying her head in the armoire. At her back, there was the faint click of the door opening.
Calista quit her position at the armoire and hurried from the room.
A moment later, the door closed behind her.
"My mother arrived a short while ago," Crispin said quietly from the front of the room. "With... a guest. Your uncle."
"I am aware," Elizabeth acknowledged, yanking at her cloak with its shredded collar. The mangled article remained caught on a gold hook. A loud rending filled the room as she at last managed to free the wool garment.
"You are aware," he echoed.
Elizabeth carried her cloak over to the trunk and dropped it inside. She made to turn, when Crispin said, "You overheard"--he grimaced--"what was said, then."
Finally, Elizabeth stopped and met his veiled stare across the room. Eyes that had seared her with unrestrained passion and love last evening now revealed nothing.
"I heard enough," she said quietly.
Chapter 16
Crispin had believed there wasn't a greater pain than what he'd suffered after finding Elizabeth gone all those years earlier.
Just as he'd been wrong about so much, he found himself proved wrong once more.
With a hollow numbness, he took in the frenetic movements with which she collected those heinous garments and stormed across the room, stuffing her belongings into the trunk made by her father.
I am losing her all over again.
Only this time, it would rip his heart apart in ways it hadn't before.
Because this time, when she left, the thread that held them together would be severed by their families... and as his mother had said, Crispin would be free.
Nay, Elizabeth would be free.
A cinch tightened about his lungs, squeezing off air flow, straining the muscles until they ached.
"Your uncle is contesting our marriage," he said, not recognizing the strained quality of his own hoarse voice.
"I heard as much," she muttered and resumed her packing.
How in blazes was she so collected? How could she be so bloody casual when his existence had been yanked out from under him?
Crispin took several steps and then stopped. And then took another, and another, until he stood at the edge of her trunk. He stared down at the contents she'd already piled inside.
"I told my mother I love you." As he should have told both of his parents when he and Elizabeth had eloped. She'd deserved a husband who'd been unafraid for her. Who'd battled the world and hadn't sought to mollify those unwilling to accept their union. "I told her that I've always loved you."
Elizabeth hovered at the armoire. "Did you?"
God, how he despised the hesitant surprise in those two short syllables. He nodded once. "I explained that you've always had my heart and that I admire you above all others. That your spirit and strength and intelligence mark you greater than any other woman she'd have me wed--regardless of station."
The long column of Elizabeth's throat moved up and down.
Encouraged, he took a step closer. "I made a mistake in rejecting my feelings for you before, Elizabeth," he said softly, the avowal echoing around the room. "It is a mistake I'll always carry, but I own every feeling I carry for you now." He crossed to her and took her hands in his, and the gray dress she'd been holding fluttered into a forgotten, whispery-soft pile at their feet. "And I don't care about familial alliances or the scandal that will follow when your uncle disputes our marriage." His throat worked painfully. "I want you, Elizabeth." He slashed a hand at the trunk. "And I'll be damned if I let you run this time"--his chest rose and fell--"unless that is what you wish." Because even as it would shatter him to let her go, he loved her that much, where her happiness and her future meant more than his own.
Elizabeth opened her mouth. But no words came out. And then...
"Is that what you believe?" She raised a tremulous palm to his cheek. "That I'm leaving?"
He blinked slowly. "Generally, that is what packing suggests," he said dumbly, glancing pointedly at her trunk.
Her lips turned up in a watery smile. "Oh, Crispin. Yes, that is precisely what it means. I am packing. But I did not intend to go alone."
His mind stalled. "I don't understand."
"I trusted that... given the state we find our marriage, an elopement was in order."
"An elopement." She hadn't been leaving. Or rather, she had been... but she'd intended to go, this time, with him.
"That is, I assumed you would wish to accompany me to Gretna Green." Her smile fell. "Unless you'd rather not..."
She still did not know. It was surely a mark of his own failing that she did not know, all these years later, just how much she meant to him. That his life was fuller for her in it. And empty with her gone.
"I lied to you." At that quiet confession, Elizabeth stiffened. "The day I found you at Mrs. Belden's, I was angry. I'd been angry for so long." Anger had been safer than the agony that had come with her abandonment. "I asked you for a day." He chuckled. "But a day was never going to be enough. I knew that the moment I set foot inside that harpy's school and saw you scrambling about for your spectacles."
Elizabeth pressed her fingertips to her lips.
Crispin dropped to a knee. "Marry me," he
whispered. "Again. Marry me, this time, forever."
Elizabeth's body remained stock-still, and then with a half laugh, half sob, she launched herself into his arms, toppling him backward. "Forever," she promised.
And with their laughter melding as one, Crispin wrapped her in his arms and claimed her mouth in a kiss that promised just that--forever.
The End
