“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.