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“That’s not true!”

“It is. Even tonight, you took control with sex, in desperation.”

She shook her head, and though she was crying harder, he hardened himself against it.

“I am surrendering, don’t you see?” she cried softly.

“But it’s your choice, your power,” he said. “You’re not allowing me to choose. I have an army at my disposal.”

“This is the only way to avoid bloodshed, John, can’t you see that? How many more people have to have their lives disrupted so that I can have whatever I want? It’s wrong! Every woman of wealth has to accept that her husband will be chosen for her—even you were chosen for me! Maybe I am exercising my last right to choose, but it is my right and responsibility.”

“You had already decided on this foolish path before I arrived,” he said in a low, angry voice.

She bit her lip and nodded.

“So you used this as a last farewell?”

She closed her eyes as more tears spilled down her cheeks.

He dressed quickly, while she kept her back to him and cried softly. He was too angry to sympathize and make this easier on her. She didn’t trust him to work everything out.

A long time ago, he would have doubted his own abilities, but no more. He knew now that his father had believed in him. God’s Blood, he’d even worded the contract so that John could inherit the chance to marry Elizabeth. His anger faded away as he felt a surge of grief for his dead family, whom he’d never properly mourned.

He didn’t bother trying to persuade Elizabeth. He knew her too well—she would not change her mind. She thought she was doing the right thing, and who was he to tell her that she did not have the right to choose?

He was the man who loved her.

He would not give up on their betrothal, but if he told her that, she would only worry more. There was an army waiting to liberate her, and he would do his best to make sure that few people were hurt.

He stood over the bed, watching as she curled into a ball of misery. Her crying had stopped, but she quivered with each breath, as if it hurt to live. He gently touched her arm, and she flinched away from him. Distancing herself again, as if she were trying to make things easier on him. She sat up, wiping the last tears from her face, her expression at last stony and impassive.

She wanted him to hate her, so that he would go on with his life.

But she loved him; he knew it, although she would not admit it to him, and maybe not to herself. But in trying to save him, she was only proving her devotion.

“Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

She finally met his gaze, and with a stubborn lift of her chin, she said, “Good-bye.”

As Elizabeth watched John walk across the room, she found herself shaking. It began as little tremors, but turned into shudders of pain as he closed the door behind him.

Though her throat was tight from suppressing her tears, she would not cry again. It was time to grow up, to understand that responsibility and duty were what mattered. She could think of no other way to protect her people—to protect John—except by marrying Bannaster. Putting it off would serve no purpose.

But she felt as fragile as glass, ready to shatter if anyone touched her. John’s last caress had almost sent her over the edge. She wanted to beg him to take her with him, but in the end, her resolve had held, and she could have some pride in that.

She knew she loved him; this was a real, adult love, not the girlhood fantasy she’d always imagined she’d wanted. It had to be real, because giving it up hurt like someone had plunged a sword into her heart. Not telling him of her love hurt the worst of all.

She washed herself with cold water, then dressed with deliberate care, wishing she could wear one of her own gowns. She had to look her best.

Because she knew what had to be done.

Twenty-Four

Getting out of the castle proved far easier than getting in. The sun was setting; servants were returning home to their villages. People streamed out, and soldiers didn’t bother to search them.

John wore his cloak and hunched his shoulders, walking slower rather than quickly. Soon enough he was out in the open countryside, where it was easy to fade into a copse of trees and away from the villagers.

He found his horse waiting for him in Rachel’s paddock, and he quietly saddled it and left. As true night was descending, he reached the military encampment. Many fires dotted the meadow. On the outskirts he gave the call of a skylark, and Ogden and Parker appeared on either side of him.