Lucien shuddered at those words. “It must have been horrible.”
She shrugged. “I was happy enough for it, I suppose. When he left me alone, I didn’t have toendurehim.”
She emphasized the word, and they both knew to what she referred. He stiffened and asked, “Did he hurt you?”
“No. It wasn’t like Felicity,” Elise rushed to say. “But he wasn’t gentle with me, either. My needs were nothing to him, just as no one’s needs meant anything to him. He took, he left, I prayed he’d find something else to do and celebrated when he did.”
“He did often, so I hear,” Lucien said through clenched teeth.
Color filled her cheeks. “Oh yes, his infidelity was widely known. He bragged about it even with me in the room. I remember once we were hosting a party and I was standing with him and one of his friends. The friend complimented me, said I looked pretty, I think. My husband snorted and said, ‘You should see my mistress’.”
“God,” Lucien said, fighting the urge to pace away. He had asked for this pain, he had to take it. To bear it and witness it. “I’m so sorry, Elise.”
“It was lonely,” she admitted, “but I found ways to harden myself to it. To accept it. I know people said I was cold, but I was cold to protect myself.”
He nodded. When he first saw her, he’d thought she was unaffected by it all. He’d accused her, at least in his mind and likely by his actions, of having no heart. Now he understood why she had buried it so deep.
If he could excavate that heart even a fraction, he was proud of that fact. And he knew it would be his job to protect it.
“I think the worst part of it all,” she continued, “was how I was seen after I threw you over. I would never be free, not just of him, but of all the hatred felt by those who once loved or even liked me. I would never be free of your hatred. That broke me more than anything he ever did.”
“No,” he said, moving toward her at last. “I do not hate you, Elise.”
She smiled at that declaration, but he saw her hesitation still. He heard it when she sighed, “Oh, but what does it matter now? It doesn’t change what I did to you. I still caused you pain.”
He frowned. “That is not the first time you’ve said that. You told me the same thing when I asked why you didn’t tell me the truth even after Kirkford was dead and you and I found each other again.”
She nodded. “And I still feel it is true. You have married me to protect me, but do I deserve that? Doyoudeserve the censure and gossip that is already spreading through London like a wildfire? Once again you’ll be hurt by my presence in your life.”
He stared at her, truly understanding her perhaps for the first time in years. “Our trouble is not that you don’t trust me or that I don’t trust you, is it? Our trouble is that you don’t believe you are worthy of a future.”
She made a strangled sound and he saw the truth of his statement reflected on her face. She tried to turn away, but he caught her arm and held her in place gently, forcing her to hold his stare.
“I forgive you, Elise,” he said slowly, succinctly. “But if won’t matter if you don’t forgive yourself.”
Tears slid down her face and she stared up at him with all her pain hanging on her every movement and twitch. “How can I?”
“Just say it,” he whispered. “Just say it for a start.”
She bent her head, and the words came out as a sob. “I forgive myself.”
She buckled and he caught her, holding her against his chest as she wept. He felt the pain pouring out of her, like poison from a wound. He had no doubt that she would have to revisit this action, probably for a long time to come.
But for the first time since he saw her in Vivien’s parlor a few weeks before, he knew that everything between then would be well.
He pulled away and smiled down at her. “Now tell me one more thing, Elise.”
She wiped at her tears. “What?”
“Do you love me?”
She leaned up, putting her face close to his, never breaking away from his stare. “I never stopped loving you in the three years we were apart. When my parents died, I was utterly alone. I knew I had no one left in my life who loved me. And then your note arrived.”
He winced. When she had mentioned to his mother her appreciation for her note of condolence, he had hoped that meant she had forgotten his. “It was not well written,” he said softly.
“It was short,” she admitted.
“Curt,” he whispered, thinking of how he had written and rewritten and rewritten that letter. Until his hand hurt.
