“Your father?” he challenged, as he turned them about the room… “He has not made you feel safe, Lady Elizabeth.”
“He has,” she insisted. “I have known every possible pleasure, wealth.”
“And,” he said carefully but without hesitation. “You have never been able to be yourself. You have known you would have to marry for funds. And you have known that he would hurt you any way that he could to make you do what he wants.”
She bit the inside of her cheek.
“Am I not correct?”
“You are correct,” she whispered.
“Safetyis the greatest thing that one can have,” he ground out. “You have never known it, and we are going to find it for you.”
And in that moment, it seemed as if her entire life opened up over a great chasm as she realized that he was correct.
The terror that she had felt every day, every night wondering what would befall her?
Never knowing love.
She’d not known love since she was a small girl. She’d never known any sort of peace, really. And suddenly she understood what Tom meant.
He was offering her something, some glimmering, shining possibility of a future, and she wanted to reach out and seize it with both hands.
And it had nothing to do with being ruined. “I want it, Tom,” she said. “I want you to show me what that means.”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” he vowed. “I shall.”
Chapter 10
Tom was thrilled to shock the ton and so he’d asked Elizabeth to dance again as soon as the waltz had stopped.
He found that he loved the feel of her in his arms. He wanted to ruin her more than anything in the whole world. Well, if not ruin,have.
He wanted to have herforever. He’d be happy to ruin her deliciously for the rest of their lives.
Or at least so he told himself in this moment.
He needed to be careful. He did not want to be deluded or foolish. He barely knew her. She barely knew him. Perhaps they would hate each other in a week’s time.
He doubted it.
Something had been struck between them. An understanding, especially in this last dance. It only seemed to grow with every moment he saw her. All the raw pain and hopes beneath her surface. And she looked at him and saw him too.
He savored it.
For the first time in years, he felt as if he was no longer adrift at sea alone. She was a light in a harbor calling to him and he longed to go to that light.
Mary… his friend he’d lost? She’d be so happy that he’d found the possibility of clawing his way out of abandonment.
Did he dare try?
Did he dare allow himself?
Wouldsheallow herself? For they both had been strong and alone. Oh, he had been alone, in a way she could not fathom.
But he was not entirely certain that she had ever had anyone. He had at least had his friend Mary whilst they were children, before she’d been ripped away from him.
He did not know if Elizabeth had known the love of anyone. And suddenly a voice in him urged that she would. Thathewould give it to her. That he would show her unrelenting love that asked for nothing in return but her joy, her happiness, and her thriving.