He cocked his head to the side, his eyes glimmering in the shadows with an emotion so powerful it shook her to her core.
“Thank you, Elizabeth,” he said softly.
She had half expected him to make fun, to point out that she had little personal power, but he did not. He took her words earnestly.
“Let us seal it with a kiss?” he murmured.
She gave herself to him then, tilting her face up for that kiss that she’d hungered for, for the pleasure that he had promised, and for the freedom that was now within her grasp.
For she was not afraid to be Tom’s wife. She knew that he would never attempt to make her do things the way her father or any other man might do, and it was the greatest moment in all of her life.
Chapter 13
Elizabeth woke up to pain lacing through her scalp.
She let out a cry of dismay as she felt herself dragged out of the bed. Her body hit the floor, but that thing ripping at her hair did not vanish.
She reached up and grabbed it.
A hand.
There was a hand pulling at her hair.
And suddenly she heard her father growl, “Did you think I would let you make a fool of me?”
She could not even think to reply, instead, she ground her teeth and tried to make certain he would not pull out a fist full of the strands. For that seemed to be his intent.
He was pulling her backward across the floor. Her bare heels were the only thing keeping her from being dragged entirely as she quickly moved with him as he went for the doors.
“Did you?” he bellowed.
“I don’t understand,” she managed to grit through her teeth. She had to stay calm. If she panicked, all would be lost.
“I think you understand very well, Elizabeth,” he bit out. “You thought that you could make a fool out of me, after all I’ve done for you. After everything that we have worked for.”
His face twisted with disgust and fury. “You were supposed to make a perfect marriage to someone like Blackwood. Not someone like Courtney, who now probably won’t even marry you because he’s had you. The entire ton knows already.”
Her heart slammed against her ribs. It had gone fast. Faster even than she and Tom had thought it might.
And she had certainly not expected such an attack from her father. How naive she was. A punishment? Yes. He was usually calm and cold about them. This was different? This was unmitigated rage.
He blew out a derisive breath. “Did you think that they would not? My God, you are such a piece that you could give yourself to a man you barely know. Tell me he forced himself upon you, Elizabeth,” he said through gritted teeth, “Tell me he climbed through your window and took you like the animal that he is.”
“No,” she ground out recklessly, “I gave myself to him because I wanted to. Because I like him. Because I care about him. Because he is everything that you can never be.”
In that moment she felt herself being launched across the room.
She hit the floor, her cheek bouncing off the wood. It cracked and she let out a cry of pain. She pushed herself up on her hands.
“If you think that I will let you marry a man like that, then you are a fool.”
“You cannot stop me,” she retaliated as her face throbbed.
“Indeed. I can,” he said flatly brushing his hands along his breeches as if her touch had corrupted him. “You are mine. I possess you. By rule of law, you may not marry anyone that I do not approve of until you come of age. And Elizabeth, you have not come of age.”
His face was white like paper, his wrinkles seemed to have vanished as if his entire face had been stretched with his anger. His eyes had gone terrifyingly cold and his mouth was like a slit.
He shook his white-haired head. “The very idea that you thought you could defy me. I should kill you right here and now, but I will not spend my life in a prison with your murder on my hands. The ton knows the scandal you have caused and so they would know without doubt that it was me who’d murdered you, even if it was righteous. In the times of old, a father could do with his daughter as he liked, but I cannot do what I like, but never fear… I do have a plan for you.”