“What do you mean?” Allan asked, his voice gratingly quiet.
“I mean from the moment we met, he was insistent. He was determined that we should marry. Oh, I could not stand him.” She turned away and moved toward the winged chair, gripping to the back of it. “He terrified me. He looked at me in a certain way. It was unlike anything I had ever known.”
“But you —” He walked toward her, reaching the chair, but she cut him off.
“I put myself in a dangerous situation. I made myself alone in a library. It was my own foolishness that I thought I was safe. My father was right. It was my doing. My doing that led to what happened next.”
It was not.
Yet Allan didn’t want to interrupt her again. He was determined to hear everything he had to know.
“He came,” she said in a horrified whisper, staring down at the handkerchief as she no longer tried to mop up the tears on her cheeks. “He insisted we married. He talked about love, but it wasn’t love.” She shivered. “It was possession he wanted.”
Allan watched her, examining every inch of the terror on her face. Never had he seen her so petrified.
“He tried to kiss me, and I pushed him off. I attempted to flee the room, but he was so tall and strong, he had me in his arms when the door opened, and we were seen together. I had to attack him to run. I threw a candle at him and just kept on running. I ran all the way to Charlotte’s house.”
Her breath hitched, and she stammered as she carried on. “I ran to a place I knew I could be safe.”
“Where?” Allan asked gently. “Where did you go?”
“To my aunt’s. Aunt Honora. My father and mother do not know. They don’t like her.” Her face softened into a sad smile. “She is the best of women. She took me in at her home in Cornwall. She never questioned me and just welcomed me with open arms. I thought I was safe until…”
She looked up from the handkerchief. “A letter arrived. From him. He insisted that I return to London, and that if I did not return, he would hurt Dorothy.”
Allan flung his hands into his hair, for it all suddenly made sense. He understood why Frederica was so desperate to find his sister that night at the Almack’s Assembly Rooms.
“You returned for her,” he whispered.
“I didn’t know what else to do. The morning we married, he sent me another letter,” she said, her voice still shuddering. “He’s obsessive. He told me to call off the wedding, but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.”
“That’s who you were looking for throughout the ceremony, every time you looked at the door,” Allan realized in horror. “You were fearful of him arriving to stop it.”
“I was.” She nodded firmly, now raising that handkerchief to dry some of her tears. “You see, Allan? This is all my fault. If I had not put myself in a vulnerable situation, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s mad.”
“It’s not!” she insisted. “I am right to feel my parents’ censure.”
Dead air fell between them.
Allan wasn’t sure who he was more disgusted at — her parents or the man who had pursued her so vigorously. He wanted to ask the name of this gentleman, but also feared what he was capable of if he knew this man’s name. He might well fling himself from the house and go and hunt him down to break something and make sure he could never get Frederica alone again.
“Do you understand now?” she whispered after a minute of silence.
Allan still didn’t speak. He slowly rounded the chair, moving toward her.
“Please, say something, Allan,” she begged.
He reached toward her, offering his hand. He didn’t take it, for he would never force anything from her. Instead, he waited patiently. She tucked his handkerchief into her other hand then placed her palm in his.
Ever so slowly, so he could judge her reaction all the way, he raised her hand to his lips. Across the tops of her cheeks, there was a sudden pinkening. It gave him hope where he had not dared to hope before.
She is affected by me as much as I am by her.
He held that kiss to her hand far longer than he had done in the church at the end of the marriage ceremony. Slowly, he lowered that hand again, feeling his gut still trembling with excitement at the touch.
“Now, tell me, was that kiss your fault?” he whispered.
