“You look tired,” she said as he re-took a seat at the dining table, turning the high-backed chair to face her fully as she sat down too.
“I feel it,” he said, rubbing the bags under his eyes. “But I will get no rest until I have asked you something first.”
“Ask me what?” she said softly, waiting as he lowered his hands from his face and set his eyes upon her again. For a minute, neither of them said anything, they just gaze at once another, leaving her to dwell on what he had said to her earlier that day before he ran back into his house to stop the fire.
He is in love with me!
Such a thing she hadn’t dared to hope for, but now it had been said, she was eager to jump out of her chair and fall into his arms, just to tell him that she loved him too.
“Your husband is a demon, Phoebe,” Francis said eventually, his voice so quiet and strained that she had to lean forward to hear him. “I cannot imagine ever letting him get near you again, but he has already proved himself more than capable of finding us once.”
“I know,” she said, trying to hide the true extent of her fear, but it was no good, her hands trembled regardless. He reached out and took those hands in his, resting his elbows on his knees as he did so. With their palms pressed together, the trembling began to fade.
“I have a proposition for you,” he whispered. “A way that you could escape that man forever, and you and I…could stay together.”
“You do? How?” she said excitedly, leaning toward him with sudden hope.
“Come away with me.” His words didn’t register at first. She had to blink a few times before her mind worked to catch up.
“Away? Where?”
“To the continent.” He leaned forward even more, nearly falling out of his seat as he clung onto her hands. “Run away with me. We’ll go abroad. We’ll go to Egypt, to Paris, to Italy, all those places you wanted to see, and I have always promised I’d devote my life to seeing. We could be happy together.”
“But…living together as what?” she asked, frowning a little. He didn’t answer at first, he hung his head and stared down at their joint hands, entwining their fingers together. “I see,” she said softly, having no wish to take her hands out of his. “And you’d be willing to risk your reputation in that way? Running off to live a life with a married woman?”
“In a heartbeat,” he said, lifting his eyes to hers again. She smiled a little at these words, feeling the warmth that his love could bring spreading through her.
“I love you,” she whispered, confessing what she didn’t have time to tell him earlier.
“Phoebe,” he said her name with relief and moved toward her, loosening one of her hands from his so he could lift his hand to her face and pull her toward him. He was about to kiss her again, how she wanted that kiss, but she couldn’t take it. She placed her hand in the center of his chest and stopped him from coming any closer.
“It is because I love you that I cannot say yes.” Her words made a heavy silence fall between them that was broken after a minute by Francis’ panicked tone.
“I do not understand.”
“I could not do it to you, Francis. You’d be a duke living in sin forever more with a married woman. You’d be ostracized wherever you went! Insulted, vilified, even. I couldn’t do that to you. It would be destroying your life as you know it.” The conviction swam inside her with these words. She knew she could never be so cruel to him as to accept his offer. “I wish to say yes, to be with you, of course I do, but I could not condemn you to that stained life. I love you too much for that.”
It was not difficult to see the heartbreak on his face. He turned his head downward and tears pooled in his eyes, prompting tears to spring to her own eyes and blur her vision. He lifted her hand and kissed the back, holding onto that kiss for longer than usual, until the tears began to slip down her cheeks.
“Let me know if you change your mind, Phoebe.” He stood to his feet and left her there. “Good night.”
The moment he was gone, Phoebe’s tears came harder.
* * *
“My lady, please, you have to sleep.”
“How can I sleep?” Phoebe said, fidgeting on the side of the bed. She was sat in her nightgown on the very edge of the bed in the new room they had taken for the night at the inn. Her restless gaze passed around the room, jumping between the white curtains that were pulled tight across the tall windows, and the small fireplace in which the old fire was dying down to embers.
Phoebe wrapped her arms around her body, holding tightly onto herself as she bowed her head forward, letting her loose hair fall past her shoulders.
“How can I find peace again?” Phoebe muttered.
“You must, my lady,” Louisa said, coming and sitting at her side. “We are safe here. Hayward and the Marquess took great pains to get us here unnoticed. We are safe!”
Phoebe couldn’t believe it. Not when the bruise on Louisa’s head was so clear to see.
“How is your head?”
