“You’re being blackmailed.”
It wasn’t a question.
She did not answer, but she knew that her face gave her away.
“Lucy,” he said, his voice soft and careful, “I can help you. Whatever it is, I can make it right.”
“No,” she said, “you can’t, and you’re a fool to-” She cut herself off, too furious to speak. What made him think he could rush in and fix things when he knew nothing of her travails? Did he think she had given in for something small? Something that could be easily overcome?
She was not that weak.
“You don’t know,” she said. “You have no idea.”
“Then tell me.”
Her muscles were shaking, and she felt hot…cold…everything in between.
“Lucy,” he said, and his voice was so calm, so even-it was like a fork, poking her right where she could least tolerate it.
“You can’t fix this,” she ground out.
“That is not true. There is nothing anyone could hold over you that could not be overcome.”
“By what?” she demanded. “Rainbows and sprites and the everlasting good wishes of your family? It won’t work, Gregory. It won’t. The Bridgertons may be powerful, but you cannot change the past, and you cannot bend the future to suit your whims.”
“Lucy,” he said, reaching out for her.
“No. No!” She pushed him away, rejected his offer of comfort. “You don’t understand. You can’t possibly. You are all so happy, so perfect.”
“We are not.”
“You are. You don’t even know that you are, and you can’t conceive that the rest of us are not, that we might struggle and try and be good and still not receive what we wish for.”
Through it all, he watched her. Just watched her and let her stand by herself, hugging her arms to her body, looking small and pale and heartbreakingly alone.
And then he asked it.
“Do you love me?”
She closed her eyes. “Don’t ask me that.”
“Do you?”
He saw her jaw tighten, saw the way her shoulders tensed and rose, and he knew she was trying to shake her head.
Gregory walked toward her-slowly, respectfully.
She was hurting. She was hurting so much that it spread through the air, wrapped around him, around his heart. He ached for her. It was a physical thing, terrible and sharp, and for the first time he was beginning to doubt his own ability to make it go away.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“Gregory-”
“Do you love me?”
“I can’t-”
He placed his hands on her shoulders. She flinched, but she did not move away.
He touched her chin, nudged her face until he could lose himself in the blue of her eyes. “Do you love me?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, collapsing into his arms. “But I can’t. Don’t you understand? I shouldn’t. I have to make it stop.”
For a moment Gregory could not move. Her admission should have come as a relief, and in a way it did, but more than that, he felt his blood begin to race.
He believed in love.
Wasn’t that the one thing that had been a constant in his life?
He believed in love.
He believed in its power, in its fundamental goodness, its rightness.
He revered it for its strength, respected it for its rarity.
And he knew, right then, right there, as she cried in his arms, that he would dare anything for it.
For love.
“Lucy,” he whispered, an idea beginning to form in his mind. It was mad, bad, and thoroughly inadvisable, but he could not escape the one thought that was rushing through his brain.
She had not consummated her marriage.
They still had a chance.
“Lucy.”
She pulled away. “I must return. They will be missing me.”
But he captured her hand. “Don’t go back.”
Her eyes grew huge. “What do you mean?”
“Come with me. Come with me now.” He felt giddy, dangerous, and just a little bit mad. “You are not his wife yet. You can have it annulled.”
“Oh no.” She shook her head, tugging her arm away from him. “No, Gregory.”
“Yes. Yes.” And the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. They hadn’t much time; after this evening it would be impossible for her to say that she was untouched. Gregory’s own actions had made sure of that. If they had any chance of being together, it had to be now.
He couldn’t kidnap her; there was no way he could remove her from the house without raising an alarm. But he could buy them a bit of time. Enough so that he could sort out what to do.
He pulled her closer.
“No,” she said, her voice growing louder. She started really yanking on her arm now, and he could see the panic growing in her eyes.
“Lucy, yes,” he said.
“I will scream,” she said.
“No one will hear you.”
She stared at him in shock, and even he could not believe what he was saying.
“Are you threatening me?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No. I’m saving you.” And then, before he had the opportunity to reconsider his actions, he grabbed her around her middle, threw her over his shoulder, and ran from the room.
Twenty-four
In which Our Hero leaves Our Heroine in an awkward position.
“You are tying me to a water closet?”
“Sorry,” he said, tying two scarves into such expert knots that she almost worried that he had done this before. “I couldn’t very well leave you in your room. That’s the first place anyone would look.” He tightened the knots, then tested them for strength. “It was the first place I looked.”
“But a water closet!”
“On the third floor,” he added helpfully. “It will take hours before anyone finds you here.”
Lucy clenched her jaw, desperately trying to contain the fury that was rising within her.
He had lashed her hands together. Behind her back.
Good Lord, she had not known it was possible to be so angry with another person.
It wasn’t just an emotional reaction-her entire body had erupted with it. She felt hot and prickly, and even though she knew it would do no good, she jerked her arms against the piping of the water closet, grinding her teeth and letting out a frustrated grunt when it did nothing but produce a dull clang.
“Please don’t struggle,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “It is only going to leave you tired and sore.” He looked up, examining the structure of the water closet. “Or you’ll break the pipe, and surely that cannot be a hygienic prospect.”
“Gregory, you have to let me go.”
He crouched so that his face was on a level with hers. “I cannot,” he said. “Not while there is still a chance for us to be together.”
“Please,” she pleaded, “this is madness. You must return me. I will be ruined.”
“I will marry you,” he said.
“I’m already married!”
“Not quite,” he said with a wolfish smile.
“I said my vows!”
“But you did not consummate them. You can still get an annulment.”
“That is not the point!” she cried out, struggling fruitlessly as he stood and walked to the door. “You don’t understand the situation, and you are selfishly putting your own needs and happiness above those of others.”
At that, he stopped. His hand was on the doorknob, but he stopped, and when he turned around, the look in his eyes nearly broke her heart.
“You’re happy?” he asked. Softly, and with such love that she wanted to cry.
“No,” she whispered, “but-”
“I’ve never seen a bride who looked so sad.”
She closed her eyes, deflated. It was an echo of what Hermione had said, and she knew it was true. And even then, as she looked up at him, her shoulders aching, she could not escape the beatings of her own heart.