“What happened?” she whispered. “Won’t you tell me if it might help?”
Lizzie worried her lip gently and then sighed. “You truly have become like a sister to me in the short time we’ve been acquainted,” she began. “There is so much of me that wants to tell you the truth. Only—only I worry you will…not…not…”
“Not what? Understand?” Amelia encouraged.
Lizzie placed her head in her hands and her shoulders began to shake. “I fear you won’t love me anymore if you knew. That you’ll never look at me the same way again.”
Amelia drew back at that statement. She had assumed Lizzie’s reticence came from something minor, but this breakdown implied something far deeper and bigger and more painful than she’d ever guessed.
Something Lizzie really did need to talk about.
“Look at me,” Amelia whispered. When Lizzie dared to do so, Amelia gently wiped tears from her cheeks. “I couldnevernot love you, no matter what you tell me. I promise you that.”
Lizzie smiled through her tears. “You make me believe you.”
“Because it’s true. Oh, Lizzie, I can see what a weight you’ve carried. If you would like to let me shoulder some small part of the load, I’m happy to do so. And if you’re not ready, I respect that, as well.”
Lizzie got up and walked across the room, her expressive face filled with pensive worry. Amelia forced herself to remain in her place, allowing her friend to work through her feelings on her own.
At last, Lizzie turned and said, “There was…a man.”
Amelia caught her breath. Lizzie was so sweet, so innocent, it was hard to believe she would have involved herself with someone. But she kept the shock from her face and nodded. “I see.”
“He lived in the village,” Lizzie continued. “He seemed so kind. We met at a little soiree at the meeting hall and he asked me to dance. When I said I didn’t like to dance, he took me for a walk instead, and it was…”
“Very romantic,” Amelia said when Lizzie did not seem capable of continuing.
Lizzie nodded. “When I look back now, I suppose I can see that it was part of some trap he was setting. He had studied me, I think, determining my personality so he would know how to best s-seduce me.”
Lizzie’s cheeks flamed and Amelia got up, wanting desperately to comfort her. But she stayed in place and did not push, not yet. “That is what he did?”
“Well, he asked me to marry him. Hugh had been gone and I was hesitant. I knew this man had so little to recommend him, at least in my brother’s eyes. And he said the same, that the great Duke of Brighthollow would never accept him or allow him the chance to prove his worth.”
Amelia wrinkled her brow. “That does not sound like a man with your best interest at heart.”
“No. But I thought myself in love with him by then. Foolishly, it seems. He convinced me that if we ran away, Hugh would have to agree to our union and that one day this man would prove his worth.”
“Oh dear,” Amelia breathed.
“I was so silly.” Lizzie balled her hands into fists at her sides. “Sixteen and wanting so much to be loved that I agreed. I convinced myself that he would love me and that Hugh would understand some day.”
“You ran away with him?” Amelia gasped, thinking of Hugh and his deep love for his sister. He must have been terrified when he found out.
“I did, expecting we would marry within hours and make it proper, or at least less scandalous. But we didn’t. Hours passed and he started talking to me about Scotland, Gretna Green.”
“Four days from here?” Amelia said, her mouth dropped open in shock.
“Yes. I was horrified, for I knew what people would say if they discovered I’d spent three nights alone with the man before I married him. But he insisted it was best.”
“And it was too late to escape,” Amelia said.
A nod was her reply. “I felt increasingly that it was. The first night we stopped along the road, he only kissed me. I…liked it enough, I suppose. He was forceful and didn’t seem to care that I didn’t know what I was doing.” She shuddered. “By the second night we stopped, he told me we were practically married already. That we would be soon enough. He convinced me to—”
Lizzie’s face was almost purple with humiliation now, and Amelia caught her hand at last. “I understand. I understand what you did.”
“I had such romantic notions,” Lizzie sighed after she had gathered herself enough to speak. “He wasn’t cruel, but I didn’t…like it. And when it was done, he wouldn’t even hold me.”
Amelia shut her eyes, thinking back to her own wedding night. To how gentle Hugh had been, how giving and caring. And how he had been just the same every night since. What they shared in their bed was not cheap, it was not cruel. It had bonded them physically and helped her see him as more than some ogre who had stolen the life she thought she wanted.
