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Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed the last chapter. Hope you enjoy this one! :)
Chapter Eight

Don’t make this harder than it already is.

What had she meant by that? William’s mind had replayed her words over a hundred times since their conversation and he still couldn’t make any sense of it.

There’s nothing you can do.

He ached with the knowledge that there was something wrong—she had all but confirmed that—but he couldn’t do a thing to help her. Not if he didn’t know what had happened.

It was frustrating, but what could he do? He had tried talking to her, and she had pushed him away. She wouldn’t take any of the notes he left for her. He couldn’t ask Sister Maclay or the matron without rousing their suspicion over his motives.

There was nothing.

William often felt Daniel’s eyes on him, quietly disapproving and perhaps also a little sympathetic. William didn’t want the sympathy; he wanted to find out what was wrong with Elizabeth.

He knew that it was turning into something of an obsession. He thought of her constantly—he could barely sleep for thinking of her. He hadn’t written a poem in weeks, though the words tumbled through his mind.

He could think of nothing but Elizabeth and he was making himself sick with worry. Two weeks ago, Nurse Maclay had said his condition was improving, but he felt weaker than ever.

It had to end.

***

The nurses had finally ruled that walking out in the gardens would do the patients more harm than good. They were still allowed to spend some time out on the verandas, and late-afternoon on a Tuesday in mid-November found William doing just that.

His roommates were inside sleeping, and he had found his mind consumed again with thoughts of Elizabeth. Annoyed with himself—she had clearly put him out of her mind, why couldn’t he do the same?—he pushed open the veranda doors and stepped outside.

It was cold. There was a harsh chill in the air that made William wish he’d put on his coat, and the railings were sparkling with frost. He gripped the edge of a railing, the ice piercing through his skin and turning it red. He didn’t mind; it was a distraction from his thoughts.

A sudden blur of white from down in the garden caught his attention, and he gasped when he saw that it was Elizabeth dressed only in her shift, her hair loose and flowing down her back. As he watched, she swiped at her cheeks and he knew then that she was crying.

She weaved through the paths of the garden, heading dangerously close towards the edge of the cliff, and William’s heart leapt into his mouth. He tried to call out to her, but the words were stuck in his throat and, besides, she wouldn’t hear them anyway, now little more than a white smudge on the landscape.

A rush of relief flooded through him when she turned at the last moment and started the descent of the steps that led to the beach, only for panic to fill him seconds later. It was so cold; she would freeze! Why was she out wearing nothing but her shift in the first place? Why was she crying?

Without thought, he hurried back into the room and tore his coat and scarf from the stand by the door. He took only a minute to check that no doctors or nurses were in the corridor before he all but ran to the nearest exit.

It seemed to take hours, though only a few minutes had passed, but he eventually came to the top of the steps to the beach. He paid no mind to the way his heart pounded, or to how his pulse raced. The breaths he drew were laboured, and he coughed as he made his way down the stairs.

He didn’t care. His only thoughts: find Elizabeth; help Elizabeth.

William came to the bottom of the stairs and stepped onto the sand. The beach looked bleak and desolate, the waves crashing angrily on the shore, rocks and stones dashed haphazardly all around. He didn’t immediately see Elizabeth, but a flash of her white shift soon caught his eye from where several large, seaweed-covered rocks almost hid her from view.

He hurried over, shrugging out of his coat ready to drape around her shoulders. She had her arms around herself, and he could see goose flesh on her skin. She didn’t look up when he put the coat around her, or when he wound his scarf around her neck. It was only when he crouched down, took her hands between his own, and tried to rub some warmth back into them that she raised her head and met his eyes.

“I’m sorry, William. I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, shh.” He stood up and moved to sit on the rock next to her when she shuffled over slightly to make room. “Tell me what the matter is. Please.”

“You’ll hate me,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’ve been so horrible to you in the last few weeks, and with what I have to tell you… how could you not hate me?”

“Never,” he said and took her hands in his again. “I could never hate you, you hear?”

She laughed, quick and short. “Perhaps you’ll change your mind.”

“Elizabeth, tell me… how can I help if you don’t tell me?”

“I thought if I ignored you it would make it less painful… make it hurt less when I had to go. But I’ve just made it worse, haven’t I?”

“You’re not making any sense. Go? Are you leaving? Is that it? Is that what you’ve been so afraid to tell me?”

She nodded. “Do you remember when I first went to see my parents a few weeks ago? I left you a shell.”

“Of course I remember.” He smiled and patted his trouser pocket. “I treasure that shell.”

“That weekend, my parents had just returned from the mainland. They’d been to Southampton—my father had business there. They… they brought someone back with them. A man.”

William’s blood ran cold when he realised what she would say next.

Elizabeth turned away to stare out to sea before she continued. “He’s a business associate of my father’s and a widower. He was looking for a new wife.” She raised anguished eyes to William. “He’s wealthy, and my family isn’t well off. My father said I was ‘of marriageable age and reasonably pretty’ and so they settled it. I am to be wed this Saturday to Mr. Ethan Rayne and I shall have to suffer all that that entails. So, you see, you can’t help me. No one can.”

William stared at her, his mind racing a thousand miles a minute. He opened and closed his mouth several times, not knowing what to say.

“But William—oh! He’s hateful. I’ve been forced to spend time with him and he’s the most repulsive man I’ve ever met. And so old.” She sniffed and took a deep breath, swallowing back tears. Her voice was a whisper when she next spoke. “I don’t want to marry him.”

“So don’t!” William had stood up and was pacing along the beach, when a sudden, fanciful idea struck him. “Don’t marry him, Elizabeth.” He hurried back to her side and dropped abruptly to his knees in the sand. “Marry me instead.”

Her eyes filled with the tears she had been trying so hard to keep at bay. “I wish I could, William. But it’d be impossible.”

“No!” he said, jumping up and beginning to pace again while ideas formed in his mind. “The wedding isn’t until Saturday, and your family will expect you to be at the hospital working until then, I’m sure.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Until Friday morning, at least. That’s when I’m meant to return home to prepare.”

“Two days, then. Plenty of time to get across to the mainland. We can head to Scotland, to Gretna Green; they don’t question hasty marriages there. It’ll be a long journey, but we can do it. We can!”

“You make it sound so easy,” Elizabeth said. She stood up and caught his wrists in her hands. “You really do. But what if it goes wrong? What if someone catches us before we leave, or on the way? Ethan’s a wealthy man, William. He could make things very unpleasant for you.”

“We’ll be careful. We can go back to the hospital now and leave when everyone’s asleep. It shouldn’t be too difficult to get to Cowes from here; we can catch the first ferry to the mainland tomorrow morning.” His face turned fearful. She’d already said she wished she could, but maybe he was just the lesser of two evils. “That is… if you want to marry me? I don’t want to take you away from one forced marriage and press you into another.”

“If we can make it away...” she replied, slowly, “if we can get to Scotland, then yes, I would like nothing more than to marry you.” She ducked her head, a shy smile creeping onto her face. “I would much rather marry for love than for any other reason.”

William’s breath caught in his throat, and he wondered if he had heard her correctly. He had known there were more-than-friendly feelings on her side too, but to hear her declare them as love sent a bolt of pure happiness through him. “Do you mean that?” he asked breathlessly.

“Yes.” She nodded. “I know it’s sudden, but I do. I’ve fallen in love with you, William.”

He found he couldn’t say anything, too lost in the joy of the moment to respond in kind.

Elizabeth bit her lip. “You’d better say something soon, because I couldn’t bear it if—”

William shook his head, took her face between his palms, and pressed a sudden and unexpected kiss to her lips, interrupting whatever it was she’d been about to say. “I love you too.”

She looked surprised by the kiss, but when he spoke the shock turned to delight, and she pulled him towards her by his shirtsleeves to kiss him again. It was uncertain to begin with, the kiss of two people who’d never experienced such a thing before. Soon, though, it felt more natural and the kiss turned languid and slow, until they were both breathless.

William broke away, feeling a thousand emotions and more course through his body: love, desire, need, happiness… it was almost too much. He wrapped his arms around Elizabeth, loving the way her body moulded to his own. He no longer cared about propriety—not when the woman in his arms was to be his wife.

“I feel like I could fly,” she whispered.

William chuckled. “You’re going to freeze if we’re not careful,” he said, realising how cold she was. “What possessed you to come out here in only your underthings, anyway?”

“Oh, it was silly,” she said and blushed, pulling his coat a little tighter around herself. “I was changing my clothes and one of the other nurses was talking to me, telling me how excited I must be about the wedding. I just… snapped. I couldn’t stand to hear her talk to me as though I were a bride in love, so I ran. I had to get away.”

William nodded. He looked to the sea, surprised to see how far the tide had crept in without them noticing. The sky had darkened, and evening was drawing in, early now that it was so late in the year.

“What are we going to do?” Elizabeth asked. “When we get back to the hospital, I mean. Are we leaving straight away?”

“As soon as we can,” William replied, his mind forming a hasty plan. They’d leave the hospital and walk into the village, where they’d be able to hire a coach to take them to the ferry port. “We’ll gather our things and wait until everyone is asleep. What time does Sister Maclay retire?”

“Late,” Elizabeth replied. “After her evening rounds she eats and then catches up on correspondence. But it won’t matter—there’s a service door near the back of your ward. We can leave through that, and it’ll take us out closer to the road to Steephill. There’s an inn on the outskirts of the village. We should be able to find a carriage.”

“All right.” William nodded. “Daniel and Alasdair usually fall asleep by nine after the last set of rounds. We’ll leave then.”

Hand in hand, they made their way back up the steps. Excitement and nerves bubbled in William’s stomach, and, all the while, he prayed that nothing would go wrong that night, that they’d be able to escape without problem.

He had the unsettling feeling that things wouldn’t go quite to plan.

***


Chapter End Notes:
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