9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

E liza didn’t pick her head up when she heard Nick’s voice. The pain was far too great to face him again. She deserved to feel the depth of her suffering in peace and not to have him bear witness. “Go away,” she cried into her pillow. “Please.” The last word came out as a sob.

He didn’t do as she asked and stepped closer, kneeling on the floor beside her head. “My love, I never sent you a letter.” His voice cracked on the last few words.

“What?” she asked, lifting her head to look at him. “You did. Why are you doing this?”

He shook head, agony written on his features. “I didn’t.”

She climbed off the bed and dug around in her trunk until she returned with the crumpled piece of parchment, the one she had read thousands of times, which would remind him of the pain and destruction he had caused since he seemed to have forgotten. She shoved it into his hands.

He stood and unfolded the paper, holding it closer to the candle. She watched his pained expression and slumped shoulders as he read the missive. “I didn’t write this, Eliza. Where did you get this?”

“My father gave it…” her voice trailed off before the realization washed over her face. “I can’t believe this.” She shook, and a heart-wrenching sob escaped her body. How could their fathers have done this to her? To them?

Nick rushed to her and wrapped his arms around her. “I never stopped loving you, sweetheart, I promise.”

“I…I don’t know what to think.”

He eyed the missive again. “You have carried this with you for three years?”

She sighed and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I needed it to remind me why I was foolish to love you and why I could never give my heart to another.” Eliza had taken it with her everywhere she went and read it more times than she would ever admit. Part of her carried it with her because it was all she had from him and the only reminder that what they had shared had really happened.

Nick embraced her again. “I have always loved you, Eliza. ”

She pushed back from him. The whole situation still made little sense. “Why didn’t you come for me? Why didn’t you meet me at the hunting cabin?”

“I came to call on you earlier that day for tea. I couldn’t wait until that evening to see you,” he said, reaching out to take her hand in his. “Your butler told me you had left for London.”

“So you just gave up and never tried to see me again? You just walked away?” she asked, trying to pull her hand from his, but he gripped it tighter.

“I left for town a quarter hour after I heard you had left. I hoped to catch up with you on the road, to no avail. Then, when I finally arrived, I went straight to your family’s townhouse. Your butler there said you didn’t wish to see me.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, and he sat beside her. Her father had their servants in on his deception. Servants she would have believed she could trust. “I can’t believe this.”

“I went back to your townhouse every day for weeks, begging your butler to have you see me. I tried to break into your house but was caught and thrown out. I left notes for you and I sent you flowers. At the start of the season, I went to every event and searched for you in every ballroom, hoping to find you there to make you speak with me. ”

“I didn’t go to Town for the season,” she said, sighing. “I delayed my come out a year because I was too miserable and heartbroken to attend society events. I just stayed in my room and missed you. Hating and chastising myself for missing someone who I believed never loved me.”

She couldn’t control her sobs, and he pulled her close, rubbing her back as her shoulders shook. “If my father weren’t already dead, I might kill him,” he said.

“Why your father?” she asked, wiping her eyes with her hand. “My father must have done this. He had our entire household in on the deception. I can’t believe he would break his own daughter’s heart over something as frivolous as a stream.” She couldn’t imagine hatred and bad blood being so strong to ruin your own flesh and blood.

“I don’t believe he acted alone,” Nick said. “That letter you received is in my father’s hand. The only reason I stopped trying to find you is because my father told me after a couple months of my endless search for you that you had married. I didn’t even ask to whom. Ockham was in Italy, so with a broken heart, I left the next day so I wouldn’t risk seeing you with your husband.”

She touched his cheek, realizing how hurt they had both been these last few years. “When you saw me here, you asked where my husband was. I thought you were being cruel and mocked how I believed you would marry me,” she said. “I’m sorry I said such awful things to you.”

“Please don’t apologize. I will never forgive myself for falling into their trap or for the unforgivable things I also said to you,” he said, holding her tight in his arms. “I love you, Eliza. I always have, and I always will.”

“I love you, too, Nick.” She nuzzled his neck. She had never stopped loving him either, but she just hadn’t been willing to admit it to herself. Believing it made her a fool with no self-respect for loving a man who could discard her so easily, but like some sort of Shakespearean tragedy, they both loved and longed for each other every day they had been apart.

He released her and slid off the bed to kneel before her. He took her hands in his and looked up at her, locking on her gaze. “Lady Eliza Nelson, will you please marry me? I will spend every single day of our lives making up for the time we lost and every tear you shed believing my heart didn’t ache for you.”

“I want nothing more in this world than to be your wife, Lord Nicholas Craven.”

He rose and pulled her to him. She needed his kiss the same as she required air in her lungs. She sank into him, and they fit together perfectly, the same as they had from their very first kiss .

“We shall depart tomorrow,” he said. “Our hosts will understand once we explain things to them. We can get a special license and marry right away.”

“Yes, I don’t wish to wait any longer than is required,” she said. “It’s just…”

“What, my love?” he asked. “What is it?”

She laid her head on his shoulder. “I don’t believe I should wish to see my papa again. I don’t think I can forgive him for what he did. For whatever part he played in this scheme.” How could she be expected to face the man after what he had done to them? She wasn’t certain that she or Nick could do so without inflicting bodily harm.

He kissed her forehead. “I’m not certain I will ever forgive him either, but I will support whatever you wish if you should change your mind one day,” he said. “You needn’t decide now. You are of age, and he can’t stop us from marrying. I don’t give a fig about your dowry if he withholds it.”

“Thank you, my love,” she said, releasing a small sigh of relief. There was nothing they could do to change the past, and it was time they focused on their future. They had lost far too much time together already.

“We will send for your things, and we’ll buy whatever you require so you don’t have to step foot inside your father’s home again if you don’t wish to.”

“Please don’t leave me tonight,” she pleaded, and if she had her way, she would never sleep apart from him again. “I don’t wish to be apart from you. I’m afraid I shall wake up in the middle of the night and find this has all been a dream.”

He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “There is nothing in this world that could get me to part from you. I have lost far too many nights of holding you while you sleep. Should you wake, you shall be safe in my arms.”

That was like music to her ears. She turned away from him, giving him her back. “Help me out of my dress,” she said. “I don’t want to ring for Dot.”

He worked her buttons. “Were you really going to kiss Irvine?” he asked, a pained edge to his voice. He lifted her gown over her head and dropped it to the floor.

“I don’t know,” she said, wanting to be honest. She turned to face him. “I imagined it was you who stood before me, so I’m not certain if I would have gone through with it. I hoped the attention of another might finally help me get over you.”

He pulled her close again. “If I had seen his lips on yours, I am not certain what I would have done.”

Eliza pulled back from him, pushing him away. “And what of you and Lady Preston? You seemed quite friendly with the use of your given names. Was that an attempt to vex me, or did you find your way into her bed?”

He laughed and tried to pull her back to him, but she shoved him away from her. “My love,” he started, “Rosina was married to a friend of mine and Ockham’s before he died. Nothing more. I’m quite certain her bed won’t be empty at this house party, but it has never been me warming it.”

She relaxed her shoulders. As much as he would have been driven mad had she been with another man, she wasn’t sure what she might have done if she had witnessed him with a woman. They were quite the pair, and she knew their marriage would always be a passionate one. And she couldn’t wait to finally become his wife.

“Make love to me, Nick,” she whispered, tugging at his cravat. Once she got it loose, she dropped it to the floor.

“You mean I didn’t thoroughly satisfy you earlier? I am clearly out of practice,” he jested.

She laughed. “You know you did. But we were both hurt and taking what we could from each other then. We weren’t even undressed. I wish to be with you now only because of love.”

He released a low growl and worked to unlace her stays, then removed them from her body. She unbuttoned his coats and pushed them off his shoulders. He shrugged the rest of the way out of them and tossed them aside before pulling his shirt from his breeches. She unbuttoned a few of his shirt buttons, and he pulled it over his head. Clothes were flying, and their movements were hurried. The need to be in each other’s arms was beyond paramount.

She removed her stockings and chemise while he worked his way out of his boots and socks. He refocused his attention on her and began removing pins from her hair. She aided him in the effort and soon her long hair fell down around her shoulders in waves.

When they both stood naked before each other, the emotion of the moment set in and tears escaped her eyes, running down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry, my love,” he said, doing his best to catch her tears with his thumbs. “I’m sorry we lost those years, but we will make the many more we have together the happiest of our lives.”

She threw herself into his arms, and he scooped her up, cradling her before he set her gently on the bed. He blew out the candle on the bedside table and crawled into bed next to her, pulling the covers up over them.

Eliza pulled him to settle on top of her. He took her lips in a series of long, deep kisses before he kissed her jaw. “I love you so very much,” he whispered against her cheek.

Wrapping her legs around him, she urged him to enter her. “The words ‘I love you’ don’t feel like enough to describe what I feel for you, Nick,” she replied. “I fear I shall never leave your side.”

He reached his hand between their bodies, and her breath became ragged when he touched her between her legs.

“I fear I shall never allow you to leave our bed,” he said.

Nick removed his hand and supported himself with his hands on each side of her head. He entered her slowly, pushing himself all the way inside.

Eliza held him tighter with her legs, reveling in their joining and being as one again. He dipped his head down and took her lips, sweeping his tongue across her bottom lip until she opened for him. Their kiss was as slow and intense as the deep thrusts of his cock. She had missed him so much, missed the love and intimacy they had once shared, and it was as if they picked right back up where they had left off.

“Nick,” she moaned. Her fingernails dug into his back, and she pulled him down to rest his weight atop her as he continued to drive her closer to the brink of ecstasy. “Perhaps you don’t pull out this time,” she whispered in his ear.

“Are you certain?” he asked, his breath frantic.

“I have never been more certain. I wish to be yours in every way and feel the throb of your cock releasing inside of me.” He had never done so before besides…in other places. It was the only intimate act they hadn’t experienced together.

He increased the intensity of his thrusts, and she could hold back no longer. When she cried out, he pressed his lips against hers to catch her moans. He pumped into her only a couple more times before he reached his climax and spilled his seed with small thrusts deep inside of her, whispering her name before kissing her again.

Nick shifted beside her on the bed and pulled her against him. With her back to his front, he wrapped his arms around her.

“Sleep now, my love,” he whispered, moving her hair to the side so he could kiss the back of her neck. “I shall be right here.”

She sighed and settled against him and hoped that if it had all been a dream, she would never awaken from it.