The Samurai That I Loved

第47章

Eliza paced in her ruffled, violet dress from one side of her bedroom to the other while her temper flared in outrage. Although she had been distraught after the emotional encounter with "Yoru," every ounce of that grief had slowly formed into a deep, indignant anger licking its forked tongue inside her entire being.

He truly had had the audacity to follow her to her private parlor after insulting her at her own dinner table! Then the bloody man had gone even further by slandering her with an onslaught of bitter venom without even so much as letting her speak and defend herself. His flurry of perfectly spoken English had also shocked her speechless, but that was beside the point. He had judged her cruelly and without any regard to how utterly awful her life had irrecoverably become.

And the worst part of all...He had swiped her beloved rose pouch right off her very neck while doing so. She hadn't even realized until she had gone to bed later that night and discovered it missing from her person.

"Heinous cad." She grumbled, walking past her four-poster, canopied bed for the tenth time. After spending an entire week fixated on that fateful night, she was dreading seeing him again, yet at the same time... desperately needed to. She told herself it was simply because she had every right to say her piece and speak her mind, and also to get her treasured rose pouch back.

Nothing more than that...

And to her immense satisfaction, riddled with displeasure and nervousness like spastic butterflies taking flight inside her stomach, he had just arrived downstairs with his companion for her....bloody twenty and ninth birthday.

Although she was more than well aware that she shouldn't be hiding away like a goose hiding from a chef's platter, she simply couldn't bring herself to face him along with all the many others in attendance for the auspicious occasion. Which in all honestly, was simply another way for her husband to flaunt his wealth and talk business with his peers. It had nothing to do with her in the least.

All the other guests were outside on the back terrace and lawns. While many languished in the green grass beneath silken-lace parasols, enjoying afternoon tea, others were playing a game of croquet just ahead.

Eliza paced towards her window and stared down at the back lawns with a grim set line drawn in her lips. Placing a pale, freckled hand onto the glass, she took notice of Yoru and Hopkins walking out from the house and towards her husband surrounded by other gentlemen on the back terrace.

Her blue eyes blinked back the frustrating burn of tears beneath her red, sweeping lashes while she scowled down at his elegantly-trimmed, emerald green coat and black collar, his tall, sinewy frame, and the polished black boots that hugged his muscled legs so well.

She narrowed her eyes, fixated on the way the wind seemed to kiss his ebony, shining hair with tussled waves. He had worn it down today, and the effect was... beautiful. There was no other word she could use to describe him.

Damn him.

Ten years had passed, and yet he appeared as if he had not aged one single day! It was exasperating.

Suddenly, almost as if she had silently beckoned him, he turned halfway around and looked directly up into her window. Their eyes met and she gasped, reaching out and curling her fingers around the window curtain before drawing it closed quickly.
The beat of her heart drummed rapidly inside her chest and her bosom rose and fell with every breath she took.

She knew it was time to finally face the man who was her true one and only love.

Clasping her skirts in her right hand, she turned away from the window and made her way out of the safe comfort that was her bedchamber. Halting once inside the hallway, she took a glance at her reflection in a hanging, gaudy mirror next to a row of ancestral portraits.