Which was nonsense, of course. She was safer in his home than anywhere else, and she knew better than anybody why Felton must leave. If anyone was going to find the man trying to destroy her it was him.
Even so.
He turned the stirrup iron and grabbed the candle, preparing to mount, but hesitated. This was nonsense. There was no reason he should stay or give in to her frightened whispers like some sort of fool.
But he unsaddled his horse anyway. He jogged back to the house and reentered the breakfast parlor, where she sat at the rounded table as stiff as a corpse.
Papa turned the page of his newspaper. “Forget something, did you, Son?”
“Yes.”
Eliza turned in her chair. Moisture brightened her eyes.
“Come, Eliza, and if you plan to wear a bonnet, you had better fetch it now.”
She jumped from her chair and a small laugh escaped. “Where are we going?”
He grabbed her hand. “Just come and do not ask questions.” Together, they hurried outside into a world of singing birds and playful breezes. He prepared the gig while she denied need of a bonnet, and they journeyed the quiet road with not a word spoken between them.
Yet she leaned so close to him. After a time, as the sun heightened and cast sunrays onto the dusty road, she slipped her arm around his. Why would she do such a thing? If anyone passed, they would whisper and gasp. Didn’t she know such affection between an unwed gentleman and an unwed lady was unseemly?
No, she didn’t know. She didn’t know anything. In some foolish way, he hoped no one ever taught her. He hoped she stayed just as she was today, without her bonnet and without decorum, clinging to his arm as if she needed him, a wild and unlearned creature of the woods.
Hiswild creature. ’Twas not true, of course. She wasn’t and likely would never be. A hundred reasons stood in the way of such a match, and if he cared anything for his name he would end his maddening downfall.
But she felt like his. Like they belonged together. Like he couldn’t keep living if one day she left. Or cast her smile upon someone else. Or died at the hands of the beast in her dreams.
Please, God, let me protect her.
They crested the grassy hill in the jostling gig, and the first sight of the ocean changed her face. “Oh Felton.” How quickly all the shadows flitted away. How beautifully all the lovely thoughts in her head made her eyes shine and lips smile and voice turn breathless.
He hopped to the ground, then reached for her. He pulled her into him and might have repeated his last mistake, lowered his mouth in another damaging kiss, if she had not grabbed his hand and started running. They raced down the sandy hill, stopping only when they reached the water’s edge and the foamy waves wet the tops of their black boots.
“Let us go in, Felton. Please.” Like reckless children, they took off their shoes again and waded into the warm water. He held both of her hands. She laughed and tugged her fingers loose every so often to brush the wind-tossed hair from her face.
Then they climbed back to the shore, laid next to each other on the sand, hands still entwined. Above them, the sun shifted in the blue, cloudless sky, and the hues of morning slowly morphed to hues of afternoon.
His lungs took in the air, salty and warm and hinting of rose water every time the wind gusted.
She told him stories of nonsense. Sometimes he listened with interest, pained at the tears in her voice, knowing her heart still longed for the one she had lost. Other times he didn’t hear at all, just listened to the cadence of her voice, soothed by the enthusiasm of her imagination.
He loved her.
He was a fool in a thousand ways, but he could not help himself. He wanted to be a fool. Let the righteous residents of Lodnouth stroll by and find them this way, a shocking tale, another reproach on the Northwood name—only this time it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but now. But this.
But her.
He rolled his head and cut off her story with his lips. Every nerve exploded, as his sandy hand framed her jaw, as he dragged his kiss to the corner of her mouth, her cheek, her nose.
She sat upright, hair fluttering around a face blushed in color. “I am afraid.”
“Why?”
“I am afraid for you to kiss me.”
“I am afraid of it myself.”
“Felton, I—”
