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.”