“No one will touch you, Flick. Not as long as I draw breath. The wolf pack won’t let anyone get through those doors who means to harm you. No one can get to you.”
She could hear him, but his voice was so distant. Like he was shouting across a field and the wind was carrying his words away.
Felicity sucked in a breath. “I must go. I have to get as far as possible from here.”
“Felicity—Flick, just stop.”
She met his gaze through the blur of her tears. She wiped her nose, and he handed her a handkerchief.
“I can help you. I want to help you—Ineedto help you. Please. It tears me apart to see you like this. Tell me what you need. Tell me who your monsters are, and I’ll slay them.”
Felicity smiled. She didn’t know how, but she could smile for him, for his valiant effort to save her. If only she’d met him before Chadwick. If only she met him before she ever had to run away, before he lost his home. Things would be very different if they’d found each other first.
Felicity touched his cheek. She was falling for him, she realized. Falling faster and faster the more time she spent with him. Felicity didn’t know how this was possible, but she was sure of it now.
“Tristan?” she said shakily. What was she going to say to him now after what he’d seen in the hall. To say the words out loud was like ripping open a wound.
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. The way he was looking at her right now, so tenderly and fiercely, she couldn’t bear to see it fade when he knew thetruth. But he should know. She didn’t want to hide this part from him any longer. He’d shared his past with her, let her see the man beneath the mask he wore.
“I’m hiding from my father and my fiancé,” she admitted. She balled the handkerchief in her hand. Her head went light, like that confession had been weighing on her, crushing her.
He stilled. He brushed the glass to the side and kneeled at her feet. “I’m listening.”
“My aunt left me a sizable inheritance because it didn’t seem likely I’d marry when there were no eligible men. My mother wanted us to travel to broaden the pool of suitors, but my father refused. He wouldn’t let me have the inheritance. He said he would only give it to meifI married. Then Chadwick arrived, and he seemed like the perfect choice. He was so charming, but really it was the fact that he was the only man of marriageable age that my father cared about. I agreed. I didn’t have a choice, really. I had nothing else to do with my life.”
He wrapped his hands around hers. The warmth seeped into her cold fingers. “Chadwick was promised the money. It was all he cared for. He wanted to marry immediately, but I wanted to wait. Just a little longer.”
“But he couldn’t wait,” Tristan said.
“He kept trying to kiss me and touch me. I told him I didn’t like it, that he should respect the sanctity of marriage. I only needed time—” A sob tore out of her.
Tristan ran a hand over her hair. “You don’t have to keep going.”
“No! I do. I want you to know. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone the whole of it.”
“You don’t need to relive that moment for my sake.”
Felicity framed his face with her hands. “Can you look at me the same?”
“There is nothing that could change that. Nothing. You’re thestrongest woman I know.”
Felicity shivered. It felt like her insides were churning like a storm. She had to purge this from her system and there was no one safer than him.
“He forced himself on me, ensuring that no matter what, we would have to marry as soon as possible.”
His face hardened. “Your father did nothing?”
“Chadwick went straight to Papa and confessed what we did. He claimed I’d brought out the worst in him. His baser needs overcame him because of his overwhelming love for me. He said that we must wed immediately, or our child would be born in sin.”
She expected him to back away in disgust, much as her mother and father had. As if she’d walked into their front room and announced she had the plague. But Tristan didn’t. A sort of deadly stillness came over him.
“So you ran away.”
Felicity nodded, relief sinking through her when he didn’t let go of her, proving everything she already knew but was afraid to believe with her shattered heart. Tristan was everything a man should be. Most likely the best man she’d ever know.
Felicity huffed out a laugh. “There was no baby, clearly. I walked all day and night to the next largest village. I sold my best boots for the money to take a stage, but I didn’t know where to go,” she said. “Trina was riding on that same coach, and she knew how to help me. She brought me here.” Felicity wiped at her eyes. The tears had stopped. “I don’t know what I would have done. But I will not go back to them. I’d rather die.”
