The Elopement Read Online Free PDF Page B

each for time to think. Her lover had given her that knowing smile—oh, such arrogance, but he had made love to her until she was dizzy, until she felt as if she had no edges, as if she were simply melting into his body and together they melted into the world, and she thought, How can I live without this?
    Michael Bayley had only nodded, and she’d seen the flash of pain in his eyes and realized that he was afraid she would refuse him, and that it would devastate him if she did. That surprised her, the depth of his feeling, though truly she had known it, hadn’t she? She had seen it in a hundred little ways, a thousand of his tiny kindnesses, and she thought, How can I live without this?
    She was certain she could not decide between them. But she felt too that she was drowning in fear over who she was and what she would be, and with a rather fatal lunge at self-preservation, she gasped for breath and chose.
    The last months had been full of wedding plans. Churches and invitations, a huge dinner planned, gowns and flowers and rings. She had been in such a flurry she had hardly seen him. “I think it’s rather usual, don’t you, for a bride to be too busy to see her groom?”he’d said, laughing a little cynically.
    At the Stephensons’ autumn party, she had watched him at the edge of the room, listening and judging as she talked with the other women about wedding plans—“It’s only a few days away; how excited you must be!”—and she had agreed that, yes, she was excited, and he had lifted his eyebrow at her as if to belie it, as if to mock her hypocrisy, the big wedding, the trappings of a society she claimed only to disdain. At his look all thoughts of plans and decorations and the gown waiting in her armoire, so carefully designed, had suddenly risen like some overwhelming tide within her, and when she had left the room to get some air, he’d waylaid her and whispered, “I’ve let you do all this, but I know it’s not really what you want. Come and marry me. We need no witness but God.”
    It had felt as if she’d waited months for him to say those words. He convinced her as he always did, with a look in his eyes and a touch that thrilled, and when the entertainment had started, she slipped away with him, caught by his caprice.
    And so here they were in his carriage now—the same one in which she’d given herself to him a year ago, and it seemed as if her own ghost sat beside her, between them, as the carriage hit every pothole in the road.
    He said, “Say you love me.”
    “I love you,” she said.
    “Say it again.”
    She reached up, tangling her fingers in his curls. “How often must I say it?”
    “Until I believe you.”
    “How can you not? I left with you, didn’t I? I’ve left all the plans behind, just as you wanted from the start.”
    His mouth quirked in a smile. “That means nothing. I saw your face—you could hardly stand to sit there and listen to them. ‘What shall you have? Roses or lilies? A quartet or a pianist? You know, I think a quartet is quite the thing. Sarah Waterstone had it at her wedding, and it was divine.’ ”
    As always, his gift for mockery made her laugh. “It wasn’t so bad as that. And it was interesting to hear Maureen Edgemont talk about her wedding tour. They went to Rome. And Venice.”
    “You don’t like Maureen Edgemont. You told me her simpering drove you nearly to distraction. And besides, Rome and Venice are ordinary. Everyone goes to those places.”
    She felt stupidly provincial. “Oh yes, I suppose. Still . . . I should like to see them someday.”
    “And have your hands done in marble? Or perhaps I shall have a bust made, looking very regal, of course. We can put it in our salon.” His tone was derisive, dismissive. She knew how much he hated those things. How much he hated to be like everyone else. She felt a little sadness spring up within her, and she tried not to dwell on it. She wondered if perhaps she could teach him to be a bit