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Elizabeth came up on her elbow. “You cannot stay here. What if the soldiers return, thinking you might press your advantage with me?”

He gave her a leering grin.

She pushed at his shoulder. “You know what I mean. What will we do now that you’re here?”

John’s smile faded. “I will allow nothing to happen to you, sweetling. I will be here to protect you. Sometimes I find myself wishing that you and I were simple people, who could marry freely as they will. I would take you without dowry, without a title, without concerns about households and money.”

She sat up, pulling the sheet up about her breasts, distancing herself from him. “But we aren’t those people, John. I know you are a man of honor. You made something of yourself when your family thought you couldn’t. You honored your family’s promises to mine, though it took you away from the life of travel that you love.”

Something flashed in her eyes so quickly, he almost thought he imagined it.

Softly, she said, “You’ve risked everything for me⁠—”

“And I would risk it again. I love you, Elizabeth.”

But instead of joy, he saw pain in her eyes, and she swiftly looked away. He’d meant to woo her, to seduce her, to show her that they could love one another, and instead he only added to her pressure.

“And I have brought you heartache,” she continued in a low voice. “I know not how this will end with Bannaster. Tonight I fear that dawn is approaching, and our time cut short.”

“Elizabeth—”

“Nay, you must leave now. I could not live with the guilt should someone discover you here.”

He got out of bed and saw that she couldn’t meet his eyes as he dressed. He knew that he could not leave with something unstated between them. He left Elizabeth seated in the middle of his bed, the sheet as her defense, though he wanted to drag her to him and coerce the truth from her.

“I will not leave you until you tell me what you’re thinking,” John said.

Her glance was uncertain, but that regal way she had of seeming untouchable, unattainable, returned. “I am worried that the only plan we have to protect my people might cause even more harm.”

“’Tis not what I’m talking about, and you know it,” he said. “I told you I loved you, and you immediately became distant with me. Aye, mayhap I should not have spoken my feelings so quickly. You are frightened and⁠—”

“I am not frightened.” Her eyes flashed at him.

“Then tell me what it is. I am not pressuring you to make such a declaration yourself. These are dreadful times for you, watching everything your family has worked for come under the power of an outsider.”

“And that is just it!” she whispered furiously, her fists gripping the bed sheet. “I am faced with a situation I cannot resolve, yet it was so easy for me to—” She broke off and looked away from him.

He wanted to touch her, but he knew the dilemma she wrestled with. “Easy for you to what, Elizabeth?”

After a hesitation, she spoke in a low, firm voice. “I don’t like feeling like this, unable to…control myself when I am with you.”

Though inside he softened in sympathy for her, he knew she didn’t want such emotion from him, not right now.

“Passion that brings two people together can feel overwhelming,” he said quietly. “Maybe it even feels unsafe to you, unnatural, but only because you have never experienced love before.”

“And you have?”

“Nay, I do not claim that. You are the only woman I have ever loved.”

“Or thought you loved,” she quickly said.

“Because you are confused, you think I don’t know my own heart? I may not have loved before, but I have been intimate with women, and I enjoyed it each time.”

She flinched, and he hated hurting her.

“But enjoying sex is not the same thing as giving of yourself in every way. What I had here with you tonight I have never experienced before. There is an intimacy between us that humbles me, that makes me realize that I want to share this with you for the rest of my life.”

“And you are not…afraid of it? Afraid of change? Afraid of…losing yourself?”