Lady in Red by Eliza Knight (best classic books of all time TXT) 📕

Her nails dug into her palms, remembering Linden’s words, the pain etched into his forehead. Then poor Sarah, growing up without the benefit of her father. Anger fueled Elizabeth to step forward, her brows furrowed in a frown.

She wanted to grab Terrence. To shake him. To make him confess what he’d done.

“At last, a spark of life,” Terrence goaded. “Don’t hold in the storm I see inside you. I demand you tell me what you mean by your vile words.”

Elizabeth was about to let him have it, but part of her held back, worried because she had somewhere to be. A job to do. Survive or die. That was what her life boiled down to. And the fleeting time she’d spent here, as a lady, that was just a dream, not the reality of her life.

“Ye dinna deserve that much,” she said under her breath, forcing herself to envision Linden and Sarah, even though her ire was starting to seem superficial and forced. God, it was hard to hate him when he seemed so oblivious to what she was saying. When he still showed such emotion in his countenance.

“Elizabeth…” Terrence met her gaze, his eyes stricken.

She couldn’t look away. Couldn’t force herself to turn around. Her belly twisted, and she wished she could run into his arms to tell him that she was sorry for the pain she’d caused him. But doing that would make her untrue to Linden’s memory, her last promise to him. Which was worse?

Blast it all. It was unfair that being untrue to herself seemed crueler when it should be the other way around.

She’d already fulfilled her promise to Linden when she’d made Terrence love her and then left him. Her revenge had already been achieved. But didn’t she deserve a chance at love again?

Elizabeth sucked on the inside of her cheek and glanced at the ground. What did she want? In a perfect world—

That exact thought snapped her out of whatever fantasy she’d been trying to tuck herself into. There was no such thing as perfect. Especially not in her world.

“Ye have to let me go, Terrence. I dinna belong here.” This time she used his given name, hoping that the familiarity would entice him to let her out the door. She wasn’t sure she’d make it there on her own. “If ye loved me at all…allow me to go.”

And he did. Holding up his hands, he backed slowly away. His eyes never left her, dark in their intensity, and her heart skipped a beat. Pain and confusion etched his features, tearing into her heart. Heaven help her—this was awful.

Surprised, it took her several heartbeats to react to his surrender.

“Thank ye,” she choked out, forcing herself to cease thinking about him permitting her go without question—he loved her that much?

Elizabeth was surprised when he didn’t stop her from opening the door. She was surprised when he didn’t pull her back in as she walked through it. Was disappointed that he didn’t. All it would have taken was one more time, and she would have melted, surrendering. She supposed it was best then that he hadn’t. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and she felt nauseous leaving this place—once her home—leaving the man she knew deep down in her heart she loved, though she should hate him for ruining everything.

Just as she entered the foyer, only a few feet from escape, his voice consumed her, stopping her in her tracks.

“Elizabeth, don’t leave like this. Tell me why. I beg of you.”

He deserved to know. And yet there was something inside holding her back. She turned around slowly, her skirts twirling lightly at her ankles. When she raised her eyes to meet his, it was a feat of willpower not to sink to the floor and give in to her buried need to stay—to his plea for the same. Giving in would have been far easier than this.

After he heard the truth, he would let her go. He wouldn’t want her then. Not like he did when she’d walked into his library after two years. Desire had burned in his gaze, and she felt it reciprocated in her own veins.

This was the best way to get him to let her go, even if it hurt like hell.

Maybe the reason she’d fought it was that she hoped he would come after her, that somehow, she could make him part of her life.

But there was Sarah. Elizabeth would never abandon her, and she doubted Terrence would accept another man’s child into his house. A lowly man, as he must believe Linden to have been.

She would tell him the truth, and then she would leave.

“I married young,” Elizabeth started. She glanced to one side, then the other. There were no servants in sight, though she was sure they were listening from somewhere.

Hurt flickered over Terrence’s features at her concealment from him. They, too, had been married in love, and she’d never told him about her other family. Whatever his sentiments, he bottled them up quickly, his face clearing like a slate being wiped clean.

“My husband was an employee of yours.”

4

Terrence’s facial features did not show his reaction, but when he spoke, his voice was low and too controlled. Inside, he felt every muscle fiber tighten. “In my house?”

Elizabeth shook her head, sucked on her lower lip in a way that made him want to rush forward and take her into his arms. To soothe whatever fear that she had in telling him the truth.

“No. He worked for Shaftesbury Luxury Ships. We lived in…the East End.”

At that detail, Terrence’s eye twitched. The East End of London was notorious for its crime and rookeries. Dark London. Was that where she’d been—and survived—the last two years? When she need not have been.

He would have given her the world. And yet, she’d not been his to give anything to, had she?

Married to one of his employees,…Terrence had made an extreme effort to visit his shipping company weekly. Knew his employees well and most