The man she loved.
The man she would never stop loving.
She released a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Explain yourself then, if you think it will make a difference.”
“I don’t know if it will,” he said, his voice tinged with sadness. “Not when you hear the entire tale. But I owe you the truth. The whole truth. And I mean to give it.”
Some foolish part of Elizabeth had hoped Torrie would reassure her. That he would tell her she hadn’t seen at all what she supposed she had seen. That he would profess his undying love for her, and they could pretend she had never seen him alone and in a state of alarming dishabille with the Countess of Worthing.
But his countenance looked as if it had been chiseled in marble, and his tone was grim. Any remaining hope inside her shriveled and turned to dust.
She swallowed hard, willing herself not to weep. Not to allow him to see her inner devastation. “Go on. Do it. I cannot bear the waiting.”
“Will you not sit with me?” he asked.
The question nettled. She resented it, resented him.
Elizabeth shook her head. “Standing shall suffice.”
He gave another nod. “As you wish.”
And then he said nothing else. Simply stood there staring at her, looking as if he hadn’t slept in days and he was the one with the broken heart instead of her.
“Do you love her?” she blurted, and then cursed herself a hundred times for allowing her weakness and fears to so thoroughly rule her.
“No.” He reached for her, finding her hands although they had been hidden in the skirt of her borrowed gown, gently plucking them from her waist. “There is only one woman I love. Only one woman I’ll ever love, and she isn’t the Countess of Worthing.”
Her breath caught. Was he saying…?Her?
No, this Elizabeth could not believe. It was more of his tricks. More attempts at persuading her to believe whatever he wanted her to believe. Manipulation, just like the plate of chicken for Angel.
Wasn’t it?
“I wish you would speak plainly, my lord,” she managed, still afraid to look at him.
Torrie was her Gorgon, and if she stared at him directly, he would cause every modicum of common sense she possessed to flee, along with any ability to resist him.
“Bess, look at me. Please.”
The pleading in his voice affected her. How could it not? He sounded a hundred times more vulnerable than she had ever heard him, and so she turned.
Looked at him as he had asked.
And saw it there, written plainly on his handsome face. Saw the emotion, the tenderness, the caring. Saw what she had seen so many times before, only magnified a thousandfold.
Saw it and wasn’t certain she dared to believe it.
“I’m in love with you,” he said quietly. “You’re the woman I love, Bess. Not Lady Worthing, not anyone else. You, only you.”
There was such earnestness in his countenance, blazing in his beautiful green eyes. She couldn’t look away. It seemed vastly impossible, yet another weapon in his arsenal of seduction and manipulation against her, and yet shewantedto believe him.
“You…love me,” she repeated weakly, confused.
Desperately hoping he was telling her the truth. Terrified he was using her own emotions against her. Afraid that she was too deeply in love with him herself to tell the difference between Torrie attempting to save himself and Torrie being brutally honest.
“I love you.” He didn’t look away, the intensity of his stare burning into her like twin flames. “This isn’t how I intended to tell you, but neither will I stand before you and lie. You’re the woman I love, Bess. Now and forever.”
“How?” she bit out. “And why? Why would you do what you did with Lady Worthing if you loved me?”
