“I would wager you’ve been punished enough,” Vivien said.
Tears swelled in Elise’s eyes and she blinked to keep them from falling. “Ask Lucien if that’s true. I’m certain he will tell you I haven’t paid half my penance yet.”
Vivien’s gaze slid away from her face to a point behind her and she smiled softly. “It seems you could ask him yourself. He just came in and he’s obviously looking for you.”
Elise spun in her chair to look at the door behind her. Indeed, Lucien was there, beautiful as always, scanning the room. When his eyes found her, there was a moment when pleasure crossed his face and he looked just as he had when he still loved her. The tears she’d forced not to fall returned and one trailed its way down her cheek before she wiped it away.
“Don’t throw away hope, Your Grace,” Vivien said as she pushed to her feet. “Good luck.”
Stenfax let his gaze move over the room in Vivien’s club, ignoring the writhing bodies and moaning couples, and instantly found Elise. She was sitting at a table with Vivien and he couldn’t help but smile. She wasn’t with some gentleman. She wasn’t offering herself to a protector.
In that moment, he thought of Felicity and his smile fell. His feelings were exactly what she feared. That he was giving himself over to emotions that would only damage him and the people he loved.
In that same moment, he knew he had to end what he had foolishly started with Elise. Before he loved her again. Before he lost her again. Before he tore his own heart out and damaged it beyond repair.
He felt sick as he moved toward her. He watched as Vivien got up from her place and turned toward him. Her little smile as she passed him made him realize she and Elise were likely discussing him, and that made it all the worse somehow.
Elise stood as he reached her table, her face a combination of welcome and wariness. “Good evening, my lord,” she said, her voice catching a fraction.
He fought the urge to reach for her and nodded. “Elise, I—” he began, and couldn’t find the words. He wasn’t going to do this out here. It wasn’t right. “Would you come with me?”
There was a moment when all her pain, all her fear, all her hesitation flowed over her face like a waterfall. But she reined it in, of course she did, and nodded. “If you’d like,” she whispered.
He didn’t touch her, mostly because he feared what would happen if he did. He merely turned and started off across the room with her walking behind him. At the hallway, he murmured what he wanted to one of the men who worked for Vivien and he gave Stenfax a key to a room.
He moved down the hall, ignoring the sounds of pleasure that pierced into the narrow space, taunting him, arousing him. He stopped at a chamber and unlocked it, letting her in past him, her sweet scent swirling up around him as she did.
He locked the door behind himself to give them privacy and turned to face her. She stood in the middle of the room, just in front of the bed, her hands clenched in front of her. She looked like she was being taken to the gallows and he briefly wondered if she could read his mind…if she knew his thoughts thanks to his face or his posture.
Once upon a time she’d been able to do that, or so it seemed. But that was a lifetime ago.
“Elise, I need to talk to you,” he began.
She swallowed hard, and for the first time he saw how tired she looked. How wrung dry by everything she was doing. It swept away his intentions and he moved toward her a step even though he knew there was no prudence in the action.
“Why are you doing this?”
Her face crumpled when he said it, and she caught her breath on a wavering sob. “You keep asking me that. Over and over, no matter how many times I give you the answer. I know you have every reason to doubt me, but am I so evil that you think everything is a lie? Even my deepest and darkest pain?”
He drew back at the emotional display. Elise had kept her feelings so close in, never revealing much beyond her pleasure since the moment he’d first seen her again. To see anger, pain, desperation now…it was like he’d opened a book and found the girl he once knew all those years ago.
It was like he saw the real her.
“Elise—”
“No!” She held up a shaking hand. “I understand you have every right to despise me. To punish me. To want to see me suffer. But I do, Lucien. I do suffer. And I’m doing the best I can in a situation that is so terrifying I can hardly express it to you. So if you came to batter me about my motives for seeking a protector, then I…” She caught her breath and spun away. “Ican’t.”
He moved to her even though he shouldn’t. He just couldn’t stop himself. He slipped behind her, wrapping his arms around her, feeling her tremble as he pulled her against him. She didn’t fight him. In fact, she went almost limp, like she needed him to prop her up as she drew in harsh breath after harsh breath.
He turned her gently, folding her into his arms as she clenched a fist against his chest, her cheek coming to rest there. For what seemed like forever, they stood like that. He smoothed her hair gently as she clung to him.
And it was like no time had passed. She lifted her face and he stared into it, seeing the future they once would have had. The future snatched away by her decisions. But for the first time, he didn’t blame her for that.
He just mourned what they had both lost.
He slid a hand into hair, tilting her face even more. Then he lowered his mouth to hers and gently kissed her. She made a soft sound in her throat, something on the brink between pleasure and pain. Something that spoke volumes in the language of their relationship.
He pressed his tongue to her lips and she opened for him easily, taking him in, welcoming him. There was no desperation, just a gentle caress. And in that moment he wanted to make love to her.
