Chapter Seven
By the time Felicity reached her room, she was shaking so hard she couldn’t walk steadily. Tristan put an arm around her and opened her door. He kept saying her name, his concerned gaze glued to her face, but she couldn’t answer. She couldn’t make her lips move or feel her tongue.
He half carried her through, closing the door behind them. He led her to her bed and sat her down before turning away to pour a glass of water from the pitcher.
“Drink this.”
She gripped the glass, but she couldn’t feel it in her hands. When he let go, it slipped from her fingers and shattered on the floor.
He cursed and grabbed a cloth to scoop up the glass and water.
“Flick, you’re frightening me,” he said.
A sob tore out of her throat, and Felicity hunched over her middle, a pain so sharp and cold slicing through her belly.
“He saw me,” she cried. “He saw me, and he’ll tell. He’ll know where I am.”
Tristan kneeled before her. He cradled her head. “Who is he? I will find him right now. I’ll make sure he can’t remember his own name by morning, but I can’t leave you like this.”
“He’s going to find me, Tristan. He’ll find me and take me home!”
“Who?”
“My father. He’ll make me marry him. They’ll punish me for running away!”
“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—I need to 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 the truth. 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 me if I 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 the strongest 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. ”
His hands tightened on hers. She wanted to throw her arms around him.
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to go on,” she confessed. “I feel like I’m carrying this massive wound, bleeding everywhere, but no one can see it but me. How am I to marry a man I hardly know and be a wife? He’ll know I’m not pure.”
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “You are everything that is pure and good in this world. The right man won’t care about your past.”
He didn’t understand. The idea of laying with a man now revolted her.
What man would want her now? “I can’t even think about .
. . Oh, Tristan. I’m so broken. Who’s going to want to marry me?
I can’t be a wife, not now. I can barely be in a room alone with a man without my heart beating through my chest. How will I . . .”
She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t have intimacies with a man. She would not be able to perform her wifely duties. All she knew was the pain she’d felt. The helpless terror. The weakness of her own body when she’d needed to fight.
“I’m so scared. I’ll never be able to let a man touch me, not even my husband.”
“You let me touch you, Flick,” he said. “I’m touching you right now.”
She wanted to melt into his embrace. He didn’t see himself like she did. He might be dark and brooding, the elusive spy of the Black Widow of Whitehall, but he was also a brother, a son, her hero in so many ways he might never understand. “You’re different.”
He lightly snorted. “I’m no different than any other man.”
“That isn’t true. When you touch me, it feels . . . like comfort. Like I’ve always known you. I know in every part of me you won’t hurt me. I’ve never felt that before. When other men touch me, I have to brace myself.”
His eyes searched her face. “Flick . . .”
She’d said too much and made him uncomfortable now. “I’m sorry. I’m burdening you with all this and—”
“Don’t ever say that. You could never be a burden to me. But I’m afraid I won’t say the right thing. I don’t want to cause you more hurt. I’m honored you can trust me and that my touch doesn’t disgust you.”
Felicity smiled. She lowered her hands, and he caught them in his. The warmth of his hands was so lovely. She wanted to be cradled like this.
“Tell me what you need. Tea? To scream? To punch something? I’ll let you punch me if it will make you feel better.”
Felicity bit her lip. “Will you hold me?” With his arms around her, she’d have all that warmth surrounding her.
His teasing smile faded. “You want me to hold you?”
Felicity nodded. “Please, but if it is too much, you don’t have to.”
Tristan stood and sat beside her. “Like this?” He put his arm around her shoulders.
Felicity leaned into his warmth. Her body felt cold, like in telling him her darkest secret, she’d carved out herself.
She felt better, but empty. His body was so much stronger than hers, and yet it didn’t frighten her.
She wanted to surround herself with that strength. To feel safe inside his embrace.
“Will you lie down?”
He stilled, then slowly he pulled his arm back and shifted on the bed, leaning back against the spindle headboard.
His uncertainty was written all over his face, but for once Felicity felt confident about this.
She wanted to lay beside him to absorb his heat and let it thaw out her frozen soul.
She hadn’t hugged or held another person since the evening before Chadwick ruined her.
Georgiana had curled up with her and read a book.
Her mother had sat behind her, running a brush through her hair. She missed them so much.