“Lucy, yes,” he said.

“I will scream,” she said.

“No one will hear you.”

She stared at him in shock, and even he could not believe what he was saying.

“Are you threatening me?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No. I’m saving you.” And then, before he had the opportunity to reconsider his actions, he grabbed her around her middle, threw her over his shoulder, and ran from the room.

Twenty-four

In which Our Hero leaves Our Heroine in an awkward position.

“You are tying me to a water closet?”

“Sorry,” he said, tying two scarves into such expert knots that she almost worried that he had done this before. “I couldn’t very well leave you in your room. That’s the first place anyone would look.” He tightened the knots, then tested them for strength. “It was the first place I looked.”

“But a water closet!”

“On the third floor,” he added helpfully. “It will take hours before anyone finds you here.”

Lucy clenched her jaw, desperately trying to contain the fury that was rising within her.

He had lashed her hands together. Behind her back.

Good Lord, she had not known it was possible to be so angry with another person.

It wasn’t just an emotional reaction-her entire body had erupted with it. She felt hot and prickly, and even though she knew it would do no good, she jerked her arms against the piping of the water closet, grinding her teeth and letting out a frustrated grunt when it did nothing but produce a dull clang.

“Please don’t struggle,” he said, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “It is only going to leave you tired and sore.” He looked up, examining the structure of the water closet. “Or you’ll break the pipe, and surely that cannot be a hygienic prospect.”

“Gregory, you have to let me go.”

He crouched so that his face was on a level with hers. “I cannot,” he said. “Not while there is still a chance for us to be together.”

“Please,” she pleaded, “this is madness. You must return me. I will be ruined.”

“I will marry you,” he said.

“I’m already married!”

“Not quite,” he said with a wolfish smile.

“I said my vows!”

“But you did not consummate them. You can still get an annulment.”

“That is not the point!” she cried out, struggling fruitlessly as he stood and walked to the door. “You don’t understand the situation, and you are selfishly putting your own needs and happiness above those of others.”

At that, he stopped. His hand was on the doorknob, but he stopped, and when he turned around, the look in his eyes nearly broke her heart.

“You’re happy?” he asked. Softly, and with such love that she wanted to cry.

“No,” she whispered, “but-”

“I’ve never seen a bride who looked so sad.”

She closed her eyes, deflated. It was an echo of what Hermione had said, and she knew it was true. And even then, as she looked up at him, her shoulders aching, she could not escape the beatings of her own heart.

She loved him.

She would always love him.

And she hated him, too, for making her want what she could not have. She hated him for loving her so much that he would risk everything to be together. And most of all, she hated him for turning her into the instrument that would destroy her family.

Until she’d met Gregory, Hermione and Richard were the only two people in the world for whom she truly cared. And now they would be ruined, brought far lower and into greater unhappiness than Lucy could ever imagine with Haselby.

Gregory thought that it would take hours for someone to find her here, but she knew better. No one would locate her for days. She could not remember the last time anyone had wandered up here. She was in the nanny’s washroom-but Fennsworth House had not had a nanny in residence for years.

When her disappearance was noticed, first they would check her room. Then they’d try a few sensible alternatives-the library, the sitting room, a washroom that had not been in disuse for half a decade…

And then, when she was not found, it would be assumed that she’d run off. And after what had happened at the church, no one would think she’d left on her own.

She would be ruined. And so would everyone else.

“It is not a question of my own happiness,” she finally said, her voice quiet, almost broken. “Gregory, I beg of you, please don’t do this. This is not just about me. My family-We will be ruined, all of us.”

He walked to her side and sat. And then he said, simply, “Tell me.”

She did. He would not give in otherwise, of that she was certain.

She told him everything. About her father, and the written proof of his treason. She told him about the blackmail. She told him how she was the final payment and the only thing that would keep her brother from being stripped of his title.

Lucy stared straight ahead throughout the telling, and for that, Gregory was grateful. Because what she said-it shook him to his very core.

All day Gregory had been trying to imagine what terrible secret could possibly induce her to marry Haselby. He’d run twice through London, first to the church and then here, to Fennsworth House. He had had plenty of time to think, to wonder. But never-not once-had his imagination led him to this.

“So you see,” she said, “it is nothing so common as an illegitimate child, nothing so racy as an extramarital affair. My father-an earl of the realm-committed treason. Treason.” And then she laughed. Laughed.

The way people did when what they really wanted was to cry.

“It’s an ugly thing,” she finished, her voice low and resigned. “There is no escaping it.”

She turned to him for a response, but he had none.

Treason. Good God, he could not think of anything worse. There were many ways-many many ways-one could get oneself thrown out of society, but nothing was as unforgivable as treason. There wasn’t a man, woman, or child in Britain who had not lost someone to Napoleon. The wounds were still too fresh, and even if they weren’t…

It was treason.

A gentleman did not forsake his country.

It was ingrained in the soul of every man of Britain.

If the truth about Lucy’s father were known, the earldom of Fennsworth would be dissolved. Lucy’s brother would be left destitute. He and Hermione would almost certainly have to emigrate.

And Lucy would…

Well, Lucy would probably survive the scandal, especially if her surname was changed to Bridgerton, but she would never forgive herself. Of that, Gregory was certain.

And finally, he understood.

He looked at her. She was pale and drawn, and her hands were clenched tightly in her lap. “My family has been good and true,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “The Abernathys have been loyal to the crown since the first earl was invested in the fifteenth century. And my father has shamed us all. I cannot allow it to be revealed. I cannot.” She swallowed awkwardly and then sadly said, “You should see your face. Even you don’t want me now.”

“No,” he said, almost blurting out the word. “No. That is not true. That could never be true.” He took her hands, held them in his own, savoring the shape of them, the arch of her fingers and the delicate heat of her skin.

“I am sorry,” he said. “It should not have taken me so long to collect myself. I had not imagined treason.”

She shook her head. “How could you?”

“But it does not change how I feel.” He took her face in his hands, aching to kiss her but knowing he could not.

Not yet.

“What your father did-It is reprehensible. It is-” He swore under his breath. “I will be honest with you. It leaves me sick. But you-you, Lucy-you are innocent. You did nothing wrong, and you should not have to pay for his sins.”

“Neither should my brother,” she said quietly, “but if I do not complete my marriage to Haselby, Richard will-”

“Shhh.” Gregory pressed a finger to her lips. “Listen to me. I love you.”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I love you,” he said again. “There is nothing in this world or the next that could ever make me stop loving you.”

“You felt that way about Hermione,” she whispered.

“No,” he said, almost smiling at how silly it all seemed now. “I had been waiting so long to fall in love that I wanted the love more than the woman. I never loved Hermione, just the idea of her. But with you…It’s different, Lucy. It’s deeper. It’s…it’s…”

He struggled for words, but there were none. Words simply did not exist to explain what he felt for her. “It’s me,” he finally said, appalled at the inelegance of it. “Without you, I…I am…”

“Gregory,” she whispered, “you don’t have to-”

“I am nothing,” he cut in, because he wasn’t going to allow her to tell him that he didn’t have to explain. “Without you, I am nothing.”

She smiled. It was a sad smile, but it was true, and it felt as if he’d been waiting years for that smile. “That’s not true,” she said. “You know that it’s not.”

He shook his head. “An exaggeration, perhaps, but that is all. You make me better, Lucy. You make me wish, and hope, and aspire. You make me want to do things.”

Tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

With the pads of his thumbs he brushed them away. “You are the finest person I know,” he said, “the most honorable human being I have ever met. You make me laugh. And you make me think. And I…” He took a deep breath. “I love you.”

And again. “I love you.”

And again. “I love you.” He shook his head helplessly. “I don’t know how else to say it.”

She turned away then, twisting her head so that his hands slid from her face to her shoulders, and finally, away from her body completely. Gregory could not see her face, but he could hear her-the quiet, broken sound of her breathing, the soft whimper in her voice.