Page 117 of A Literary Liaison
A gentle knock at the street entrance startled her from her thoughts. Frowning, she made her way downstairs, wondering whowould call at such a late hour. Opening the door revealed Edgar standing in the lamplight, his breath visible in the cool night air, a bouquet of winter blooms in one hand and a leather-bound book in the other.
“Your Grace,” Elisha said, surprise evident in her voice. “What brings you here at this hour?”
Edgar’s eyes, usually so confident, now held a hint of uncertainty. “Miss von Linde, I hope I’m not intruding. Might I have a moment of your time? There are things that must be said, and I find I cannot wait until morning.”
Elisha hesitated, acutely aware of the impropriety of receiving a gentleman caller alone at such an hour. Yet something in his expression—vulnerable, almost pleading—made her step aside. “Please, come in from the cold.”
Instead of leading him to the more intimate setting of her private quarters, Elisha guided him to her office, now shadowy and cold in the absence of fire. She lit several lanterns, their warm glow pushing back the darkness, and positioned her chair facing the settee where she gestured for Edgar to sit.
Without taking the seat, Edgar offered the bouquet with hands that trembled slightly. “These are for you,” he said, still holding the carefully arranged assortment of white hellebores, deep red winter roses, and sprigs of holly—a composition both festive and elegant.
“They’re beautiful,” Elisha murmured, accepting the flowers, careful not to touch his hands. “Though I confess surprise at finding such blooms in winter.”
“I may have imposed upon my gardener’s considerable skills,” Edgar admitted with a ghost of his usual humor. “But beautiful things require effort, particularly in the darkest seasons.”
Elisha brought the bouquet closer to her face to avoid his gaze, inhaling their delicate fragrance. Edgar was watching her with an intensity that seemed to burn her skin. Without warning, he reachedtoward her, but Elisha stepped back sharply.
“Elisha,” he breathed, his voice breaking on her name. His face crumpled at her rejection, confusion and anguish warring in his eyes as his hand fell uselessly to his side.
“God, how I’ve missed you. Every day, every moment—”
“Why?” The word escaped her throat as barely more than a whisper as she clutched the flowers to her chest like armor against the pain that still lived there. “Why did you stay away? All these months without a word, without even a letter. I thought…” She couldn’t finish the sentence, couldn’t voice the fear that he had simply grown tired of her.
Edgar’s throat worked as he struggled to find words. “There were threats,” he began, his voice hoarse. “But that’s not—that’s not what matters. What matters is that I’ve been dying without you. Every morning, I woke wanting nothing more than to come to you, to explain everything, to hold you again.”
She watched him run both hands through his hair, the gesture betraying months of sleepless nights. “Steven Thornton discovered my identity as Mr. Steele. He knew about my involvement with the Pioneers, the funding I’d been providing to their cause. He gave me an ultimatum—end our relationship permanently, never contact you again, or he would expose everything to the authorities.”
Elisha felt her eyes widen in shock, her grip instinctively tightening on the book.
“But do you know what tormented me most?” Edgar’s voice cracked with emotion. “It wasn’t the threat of the gallows. It was the thought that you believed I had chosen to leave you. Every night I lay awake knowing you were suffering, thinking I had abandoned you without cause.”
His eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I couldn’t risk involving you. If Thornton suspected you knew anything, if he thought you were complicit… But Christ, Elisha, the agony of staying away from you nearly killed me. I wrote you dozens of letters I could never send. I stood outside your building in the rain just to see your shadow in the window.”
“You could have told me,” she whispered, though even as the words left her lips, she understood the impossible position he had faced.
“I wanted to,” he said desperately. “Every fiber of my being screamed to run to you, to confess everything, to beg you to wait for me. But I couldn’t risk your safety.”
Elisha watched the raw pain play across his features as he continued. “I spent months working to neutralize his threats—gathering evidence of his illegal activities, building a case that would destroy him if he moved against me. But every day without you felt like dying slowly.”
Her analytical mind began piecing together the implications, but her heart was focused on the naked anguish in his voice, the way his hands shook as he spoke of missing her.
“I feared by the time I was free to come to you, it would be too late,” he whispered. “That you would have moved on, found someone worthy of your love—someone who wouldn’t put you through such hell.”
Elisha stood in contemplative silence, understanding dawning alongside a complex mix of emotions. The anger she had nursed began to shift, not disappearing but evolving as she saw the sacrifice he had made, the torment he had endured. But her heart still bore deep scars from those silent months.
“I see,” she said finally, but she made no move to close the distance between them.
Confusion flickered across Edgar’s face as he searched her expression desperately. Then understanding dawned.
“I never intended to deceive you,” Edgar said, his voice low and earnest. “What began as a simple response grew into something Icould never have anticipated. Our correspondence touched something deep within me, revealing parts of myself I had kept hidden, sharing pieces of my soul I had never shown anyone. And when you began to open your heart to me, our letters became something sacred. I was terrified that if you learned my true identity, I would lose this precious connection we had built, or that the wager would be unfair given my advantage as a duke.”
He paused, his gaze meeting hers with a passion that spoke volumes. “The thought that I may have betrayed your trust fills me with shame. I understand completely if you cannot forgive me, but I dare to hope you might give me the chance to earn back your regard.”
Elisha stood in contemplative silence, her fingers tracing the soft petal of a rose. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft and trembling. “The letters I wrote to Mr. Steele came from my heart. I thought they were going to a dear friend. To discover the recipient was not who I believed… it feels like betrayal. And yet I cannot find anger in learning that my confidant has been the man I love all along, and that the man I love now stands before me as my dearest friend.”
Edgar reached for the nearest wall and leaned against it as if his legs had weakened. They remained silent for a while until he looked up at her motionless form. “Then why do you still pull away? If you’re not angry with me and understand why I had to leave—”
“Because understanding doesn’t erase the pain,” she said, her voice steady but fragile. “And because…” Her breath caught as months of suppressed agony rose to the surface. “When you wrote to me as Mr. Steele about Lucia, when you told me her name was one that ‘echoes in the chambers of your heart with each beat’—I knew then that I was reading about a love so profound it had shaped your very soul.”
