46

E lizabeth crouched in total darkness. She was awaiting the sound of approaching footsteps before she sprang from the shadows. Elizabeth hated waiting. Springing up and slicing down were second nature, but biding her time was an absolute nightmare.

To distract herself, she took inventory of her body. Despite holding an uncomfortable position for what felt like weeks, she was still a solid seventy-five percent. Possibly it was the return to the warmth and safety of home that had invigorated her after a month in a drafty castle. Or perhaps it was the new mission, which had consumed her thoughts from the moment she stepped foot back in Islington.

She enjoyed infiltrating unknown territory, at least. That part was fun.

The waiting, on the other hand… Lurking in the shadows alone with no sounds but her own breaths, no smells but dust, nothing to see but blackness—well, it gave a skulking interloper plenty of time to think.

And all Elizabeth could think about was Stephen.

One more hour with him wouldn't leave her satisfied. She wanted more than that. She wanted to spend every hour with him. Clothing optional. Even swordplay optional. What mattered was not the activity, but whom she shared it with. And the person she longed for most was Stephen.

She was glad his cousin was a complete disaster. If the Earl of Densmore had been competent in his duties, Stephen would not have been at Castle Harbrook.

She was grateful her siblings had all been busy, and had therefore been forced out of pure necessity to send Elizabeth 120 miles southwest to Dorset all by herself. If they had come with her from the beginning, or if Jacob or Graham had been sent instead, Elizabeth would never have spent that blissful time with Stephen. Or discovered she indeed had the capacity to fall in love.

Elizabeth apparently also had a limitless capacity to bollocks it up. Not only had she walked away from the person she most wished to keep close, but had also wasted the past few hours of her life hunched in an extremely uncomfortable shed despite it becoming increasingly obvious no one was going to come and open the door.

With a sigh, she rolled back her shoulders and eased around the sharp edges of dozens of jutting wooden boxes and pushed open the door.

Well, pushed anyway. The door did not budge.

Elizabeth pushed harder. The hinges squeaked and the door moved only slightly, but it was enough to rattle heavy chains against the outer side.

No one was coming. She was locked in!

The dust in the musty air now tasted a bit like panic. She didn't mind dark spaces, and even now had gained an affection for wooden boxes, but this was not the moment to stand around waiting to be rescued. She was the one who intended to do the conquering.

She certainly wasn't going to let a locked door stop her from trying. Not with Stephen on the other side.

Elizabeth unsheathed her sword with a flourish. Or tried to. It was a semi-flourish, interrupted by the sharp edge of a wooden crate, and twenty full seconds of swearing as she picked splinters out of the skin of her hand. Swashbuckling in an enclosed space sounded dramatic, but in practice it was bloody near impossible.

She was going to do it anyway.

Once her sword was free, she positioned herself halfway between the locked door and the hulking crates and swung her sword with all her might.

A satisfying crack exploded into the wood before her, and a stream of dust-filled sunlight dazzled her eyes. Without waiting for her vision to adjust, she swung her sword again and again, concentrating instead on dislodging one of the individual panels that made up the door.

At last it popped free, and sunlight poured into the storage shelter. One skinny panel might have been wide enough for Tommy to slip through, but wouldn't do for Elizabeth. So she pried at the next one, fully expecting footsteps to come running at any moment to investigate the destruction unfolding in the rear garden.

Nothing. No one. Not even a maid, a footman, a gardener.

The security in this place was absolute rubbish.

She squeezed out through the hole she'd carved into the door and brushed dust and splinters of wood from her dress. She'd looked nice when she'd left the house this morning, but now she looked like she'd spent the day wrestling with a wooden crocodile. Bites were missing from her skirt, and her hands were pricked with blood.

Elizabeth shook the extraneous shards from her hair and turned her gaze toward the house. A short wooden ramp connected the storage shed to a rear door that might have been a servants' entrance. Tall hedgerows blocked the house from the neighbors' view. Out front, an imposing stone wall with a thick iron gate indicated no visitors were welcome.

Luckily for Elizabeth, she wasn't a visitor. Not in the traditional sense. She'd been delivered inside a wooden crate, hidden amongst a dozen other such crates. A Trojan horse, if you will.

Which she'd specifically warned Stephen to check for.

She was tempted to chop down the next door out of pure disgruntlement that her advice had gone unheeded, but Marjorie had provided her with a special lock-opening key. Besides, Elizabeth was tired of picking splinters from her skin. It was on to the next contingency plan.

She removed the special key from the hidden pocket Tommy had sewn in Elizabeth's skirt, and inserted it into the lock. After twisting it a few times and banging the end with the hilt of her sword the way Chloe had shown her, the mechanism sprang open, and Elizabeth gained access to the interior of the residence.

It looked like… Well, it looked a lot like the storage structure she'd just been locked inside, honestly. This room was twice the size of the largest parlor at home, and filled floor-to-ceiling with shelves and boxes and contraptions.

Her quarry, unfortunately, was nowhere in sight.

She sheathed her sword and carefully picked her way forward, testing each slat of the parquet before placing her full weight on it. A good thing, too, since one of the panels had a slight give to it, indicating it was either a trapdoor to a hidden dungeon, or a lever that would have filled the air with nettles and stinging wasps. Her darling anarchist was nothing if not consistent.

A few more steps, and—Ha! A trip wire! The thin strip of string a mere inch from the floor would have been invisible to anyone not specifically searching for just such devious methods. She stepped over it gingerly, taking even more care with her balance, lest the vibrations of her footfalls cause gears to turn and pulleys to raise, unleashing a trough of boiling oil on her head.

By her count, she dodged no fewer than fifteen more near disasters before reaching the door on the other side of the workroom. The handle was unlocked. Unlocked! Then again, perhaps she was being lured into another murder room.

She cast a suspicious eye at every surface as she crept through the silent house. It was surprisingly pretty. For a man repulsed by the notion of entertaining guests, Stephen had surrounded himself with plenty of beauty. There was a guest room that appeared untouched, and a study that seemed likewise unused. She imagined Stephen spent most of his time in his workroom, when he wasn't… wherever he was at this moment. Was he even on the premises? Had she broken in too early?

But, no—the next door was ajar, and low voices spilled out from the interior. Elizabeth caught her breath and flattened against one wall of the corridor.

Only when she was convinced that whoever was on the other side had not heard her approach, did she peek through the crack between the hinges. A man and a woman were seated at a small table, engaged in a game of cards. Casino, if Elizabeth had to guess. She'd also guess that these were Stephen's servants. He'd mentioned only having a single maid and a single manservant. Elizabeth would have to give them lessons in defending against Trojan horses, too.

She eased past the door and continued on down the hallway.

Contingency plan five , she mouthed to herself. That was the one where she shook a trail of rose petals to his bedchamber, and arranged herself naked atop the—

There he was! Beside the bed. Fully clothed, alas. On his side, facing away from her, engaged in a dizzying series of press-ups on the floor.

She didn't move a muscle.

He sensed her anyway, his head jerking up from the floor. His eyes widened at the sight of her. " Elizabeth ? But how—?"

"What did I tell you about Trojan horses?" she scolded him before she remembered that wasn't how she'd intended to start off at all. "Wait. Forget about the Trojan horse for the moment."

He sprang to his feet. "I definitely want to know about the Trojan horse. You're covered in sawdust. Did you come in an actual wooden horse? How did my servants not see that?"

"An important discussion we can have with them at another time. But I didn't pay this call to upbraid anyone. I came to beg forgiveness."

He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her. "Forgiveness for what?"

Elizabeth took a deep breath and leaned her hip against the wall for physical and emotional support. She was going to have to talk about her feelings .

She should have brought Jacob as an interpreter. He was the poet of the family, not Elizabeth.

She gripped the handle of her sword one last time, then tossed it aside. It clattered noisily to the floor.

Stephen raised his brows.

Elizabeth tried to smile bravely. It probably came out like a grimace. She removed the daggers from her bodice and threw those to the ground as well.

Her dress, she'd chosen for a reason: She could remove it without assistance. Elizabeth untied the ribbon beneath her bodice. The back of her gown loosened enough to slip the cording free, which tugged the sleeves down over her shoulders.

Stephen sat up straight. "What are you doing?"

"Removing my armor."

The dress fell to the floor. Elizabeth lifted her chain mail up and over her head, then added it to the growing pile at her feet. She was now wearing nothing more than silk stockings and a cotton shift. Her fingers itched for the comfort of her sword. She left it where it lay. Then remembered a hidden knife tucked into her garter, and added that to the pile as well.

"I stand before you, defenseless." Elizabeth straightened and clutched her hands together. "I've never felt more vulnerable. I've never been more vulnerable. But it's not the lack of armor and weaponry that makes me this way. It's how I feel about you."

He started to rise from the bed. She held up a palm to stop him. If she didn't get through this now, she never would. And he deserved all the words in her heart.

"I'm sorry I walked away. I wanted to stay with you forever from the very beginning. I never frighten, but my feelings for you terrify me. So I chose safety. The familiarity of the known instead of the adventure of a lifetime."

"I didn't mean to frighten you away."

" I did that. I couldn't even admit to myself that this short time with you had filled me to the brim with happiness. I don't like people, much less need them. And yet you slipped in through the tiniest crack, sand filling my empty hourglass, until I was so full of contentment and peace, that I felt I did not deserve this much joy."

"Elizabeth, you deserve all the joy."

"I should have told you I was falling in love as soon as I knew it. Instead, I bottled the truth inside, as if that way I could keep myself safe. I thought I was guarding my heart, but my silence broke our bond instead. Instead of protecting what I cherished most, I abandoned you out of fear."

His eyes watched her with hope.

Softly, she said, "Without you, I will always be fifty percent of what we could have had."

"And what could we have had?"

"Everything. I don't want to walk away or say goodbye. I want to be with you , Stephen. Here, or wherever you happen to be. I love you. I lost my heart to you weeks ago, on a string connected to a pulley connected to gears that launched an arrow straight into my chest. Nothing could stop me from loving you. You're stronger than any force I've ever known."

"Impossible." He rose to his feet and stepped forward. "You're the strongest force I've ever known. My first glimpse of you was as Beth the Berserker, and you've given me no reason to doubt your strength any moment since. I did not strip you of your armor. You chose to remove it. And as for me…"

She held her breath.

"I've been defenseless from the moment you swashbuckled your way into my life," he said softly. "I love you, Elizabeth Wynchester. I love you two thousand percent and rising. You're phenomenal and fearless and… How did you get into my house?"

"Through the murder room."

"Through the murder room," he repeated. "How did you know where all the traps were?"

"I didn't. But I know you." She gave him a crooked smile. "Don't worry, I didn't destroy anything. Even I could see that it wasn't an environment where I could hack my way through with a sword."

He took her hands. "I'm glad you didn't."

"The storage shelter, on the other hand…" She winced. "You might need to replace a few panels."

A startled laugh escaped him. "You were inside the barn?"

"I was delivered with your latest supplies earlier today. You always immediately unpack every crate. I was so certain you'd pry open mine at any moment." She swallowed. "Is it unromantic to hide in a wooden crate? I fear my methods may always be a bit abnormal."

He placed her arms around his neck and wrapped his own about her. "In case it was unclear whilst you were picking your way through a murder room… I am not a man who craves normal."

"What do you crave?"

"You. Always and only you." He covered her mouth with his.

Elizabeth kissed him back for all she was worth. He loved her, thorns and all. They tumbled together onto the bed.

"Say you'll marry me," he murmured between kisses.

"Hmm," she teased. "I'll think it over. Does this proposal come with jewelry and my own army?"

"No," he said. "But I did commission you a bejeweled claymore. I can turn it into a ring if you'd rather have—"

She silenced him with a kiss. "I was yours at ‘bejeweled claymore.'"

"That's more like it." He trailed his kisses down to her bosom. "Now I'll never let you go."

"Where would I go?" She tugged his shirt from his waistband. "I'm finally home." She glanced down. "I'm also shedding wood shards onto your elegant bedsheets."

He tossed his waistcoat aside and grinned. "I'll try to think of a way for you to make it up to me."