A/N:
I thought this story needed a little more to it than where I ended it. I was having a difficult time leaving these two little lovebirds so brokenhearted at the end of Part 4. For those of you who suggested I stop at Part 4., I wrote another two chapters for them, set 10 years later, so I didn't undo Part 4. I just couldn't leave them suspended in such an unhappy state. I wanted some resolution for them because I think they are indeed soulmates. For those of you who wanted things to be better between Eliza and William, here you go.
I included some story details from the first four parts here in case anyone was picking up the story at Part 5, since it is less angsty than the previous four parts and is about love and forgiveness; this explains some of the redundancies that are designed to help those joining the story mid-stream, so to speak.
Thanks to all those who have taken the time to leave me your thoughts. I appreciate your input. Jeanette - I didn't take the wedge out too early but waited until after the events of Series 1. CW - thank you! Sugar - thanks for all your thoughtful comments; they're pretty honest with each other in these last 2 chapters. Good things do come to those who wait!
Part 5. William and Eliza: Love and Forgiveness
She and William had argued, and this time, it felt deeper and more difficult to resolve than the little spats they had been known to have. Those little spats, fueled by their desire for one another, the fire burning in their eyes as they faced off against each other, had only made them yearn for each other more. For them, those little spats were like foreplay. Even with the space of 10 years apart between them, she and William had never lost the spark they had when they were teenagers and she had first fallen in love with him. He had been her first love, her only love, in truth.
She had been in this place once before, where she had fallen out with William after they had kissed as teenagers, and because they had not been able to make amends afterward, it had cost her 10 years without him. She did not want to go down that same path again. She loved him too much to let whatever was happening between them now suffer because she and William could not resolve their differences. They had been inching toward telling each other just how much they loved one another. Though they both knew how deeply they themselves loved the other, they had not yet said the words aloud to each other. And William, though he had uttered the words to Eliza once a long time ago, had not repeated them in the last 10 years to another woman, nor would he, unless to her.
Eliza knew in her heart that she had always loved William, and she hoped that he felt the same way about her. So it bothered her when they had argued about her plans to investigate a case which would take her to a small community just outside of Oxford, where there had recently been several brutal attacks on women by a stalker. William did not want her to go to Oxford by herself and even suggested that Moses accompany her to stay by her side and look out for her while she worked the case. Moses was not able to go with Eliza at the time she planned to leave, and William had asked if she would postpone her trip until Moses could accompany her there.
With her typical stubbornness, Eliza had refused to change her plans, even if it meant her safety being better guaranteed by postponing her trip by one day. She had told William that she could take care of herself and she did not need to be accompanied to Oxford by a man. She also told him that just because they had worked closely together on some cases and gone to dinner several times did not mean he had a say in the decisions she made about her work, including which cases she would take and when she would follow through with them. He had argued that he was concerned about her safety, about her, but Eliza wouldn't hear of delaying her plans.
After listening to her stance, William had grown quiet and turned away from her. They had been in his office at Scotland Yard, and he had started to leaf through the case files on his desk, not seeing anything of what was in front of him. He had not wanted to argue with Eliza, but he was aggravated that she would not even entertain the possibility of waiting to start this case, instead opting to plunge headlong into what might turn out to be a dangerous endeavor. He had known her to be reckless before, and he did not want to lose her or have any harm come to her, not when she had just come back into his life.
Finally, he said quietly, looking up into her eyes, which were puzzled yet still defiant, "Eliza, my preference is for you to wait until Moses can accompany you to Oxford. It is for your own safety that I make this request of you. If you will do as you please without any consideration of my feelings and why I might be asking this of you, then there really isn't anything left to say. I have work to do, cases to which I need to turn my attention. So if we are done, then please close the door on your way out."
Eliza had been shocked by his response. He was so quiet and calm, but it felt like he was holding back the storm that was his temper inside. The last time she had challenged his being too calm, he had knocked an oil lamp off his desk and smashed it to pieces. She did not want a repeat display of his fury, but she also wasn't pleased about being dismissed from his office in this way.
"William, I will give you time to cool down, and then we can discuss this further at a later time. I am leaving now, since as you say, you have work to do, and so do I."
"Whatever you say, Eliza." He did not look up at her while she was leaving, but once his office door closed, he leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and gave an exasperated sigh. Why couldn't she see that he was only concerned about her because he loved her and didn't want any harm to come to her? At some point, he would have to have it out with her again, but right now, he needed some space from her to cool down and gain some perspective. He would not see her tonight; he needed the night to clear his head.
Hours passed since they had parted, and Eliza returned home after closing her office for the day. She felt uneasy about the way things had been left with William, but they had made no plans to spend the evening together. Prior to their argument in his office, she had thought they might have supper together, but William had become distant and sent her away. She did not like feeling as if she did not know where things stood between them, especially as they had been growing closer. She hoped that he would come to her house that evening so they could talk and clear up their disagreement. She certainly did not want to go to bed that night with hard feelings still simmering between them.
She had heard nothing from him though, and she was becoming more and more unsettled. There had been a time when she was 16, when she had waited for days only to hear nothing from him, and it had driven her nearly mad with despair and anger. She had no patience now for sitting and waiting for him to come to her. She decided that she would seek him out, even if that meant going to William's home. Before she left her house, she went to her bedroom and pulled a notebook off her night table to bring with her.
She went first to Scotland Yard to see if William was still in his office. It was now 8:00 p.m. She was told by Alfred, the desk sergeant that Inspector Wellington had left about an hour ago, heading home for the evening rather than to the pub. She asked Alfred for William's home address, then hailed a cab to take her there.
The carriage stopped in front of a small red brick house, with a lit lamplight just at the bottom of the front steps leading up to a small porch. She could see lights on inside the house through the front windows, although the curtains had been drawn closed.
She walked up the path and paused at the bottom of the steps. Would he want to see her? Was she intruding on him at home? She decided that her need to see him outweighed any reservations she had about being there.
She took a deep breath and started up the steps. She knocked on his front door and waited. She heard movement inside and then his thick Scottish brogue ask, "Who is it?" just on the other side of the door.
"William, it's Eliza. I've come to see you because I want to talk with you. May I come in?"
There was a pause, and she thought she heard him sigh heavily before he slid the bolt back on his door, and then pulled the door open.
She wasn't sure what she had expected to see when he opened his front door, but it wasn't what met her eyes. William had clearly not been expecting her to seek him out this evening. His feet were bare and his braces* were hanging from his trousers at the waist. His shirt was open from the neck down, although he was quickly fastening the buttons on the lower part of his shirt, as she stood and watched him. She could see his bare chest in the opening of his shirt, and she had the fleeting thought that William, even in this state of undress, was so remarkably handsome and the sexiest she had ever seen him. She wanted to keep looking at him in admiration and awe, but she began feeling shy and something else to which she couldn't put a name. She forced herself to look away from him, averting her eyes.
"Please come in, Eliza. I wasn't expecting company this evening, but welcome to my home. It's not much, but it's mine. I will apologize in advance for the state of it. I was just finishing my supper." He moved aside to allow her to enter his house, Eliza stepping into what was the front hall. There was a doorway on the right which opened into his drawing room, and to the left was a set of stairs, leading up to what she guessed must be William's bedroom.
What struck Eliza was how warm the colors were in William's house, the walls being a cream color with a hint of yellow in them, the stairs and floors hardwood with throw rugs on them. She also noticed how tidy it was kept. Obviously, it had been important to William to have his home be a refuge from his work at Scotland Yard and the grizzly scenes he saw on a daily basis. His home felt cozy and relaxed, which might explain why he was dressed down, and his hair was ruffled.
William closed and locked the door behind her, then led Eliza down the hallway, past the stairs. They entered his kitchen which had a small breakfast nook, with a bench on one side of a rectangular wooden table and another two chairs opposite. She could see that he had just finished his supper, the table still waiting to be cleared.
"Would you like to sit down? Are you hungry at all? I could make you some eggs. I'm sorry that I don't have more to offer you, but I wasn't expecting you to come here this evening, so I didn't save any steak and kidney pie."
"Thank you, William, but I am not hungry. Could I trouble you for a cup of tea though?" She felt like she was reliving a past experience from 10 years ago, when she had gone to him at his boarding house, and she had asked him for a cup of tea on that day as well. And just as on that fateful day, her words were coming out stilted, and the closeness between them felt like it had been suspended.
"Certainly. Let me just put the kettle on for your tea."
She watched him move around his kitchen easily and realized how incredibly self-sufficient he was, inarguably more so than she was or might ever be in the kitchen. It made her smile when she recalled how he had tried to teach her to boil eggs and how patient he had been with her.
When the water had boiled, William made her a cup of tea and handed it to her. While she was sipping it, she moved to sit down on the bench at the table so she could face him while he continued cleaning up after his meal.
"William, why are you being so quiet? Obviously, there is something on your mind that you are holding back."
He came over to the table and sat in the chair across from her, lifting his unsettled green eyes to hers.
"Eliza, I have asked you not to go to Oxford on your own because I am worried about your safety. I don't think you need to be taking unnecessary risks when it comes to your work. I cannot leave London to accompany you on this case because the new superintendent has asked me to meet with him over the next 2 days to go over crime statistics for the division and to discuss resources available to us to police the neighboring areas."
"William, I haven't asked you to accompany me to Oxford. It's important that I honor my commitments to those who have retained my services. I can't not follow through."
"Yes, I know, but couldn't you postpone it by just one day, so that Moses could go with you? I would feel better knowing that he was there to look out for you, especially with this lunatic on the loose in that community."
"William, I have taken other cases out of town and gone without you or another escort. You know that I don't like being dependent on others when I am working."
"Yes, I know, but Eliza..." William looked down at his hands resting on the table. He then folded his arms across his chest, and Eliza knew he was pulling himself back in. It seemed like he wasn't ready to finish what he had been about to say, and she wondered why.
"What is it, William?" She set her tea cup down on the table and rose to come around it to him, but he got up out of his chair and moved away, going to stand by the sink. He leaned back against it and folded his arms across his chest again. To Eliza, it wasn't entirely clear whether he was trying to hold himself in or keep her out. Either way, William was trying to make himself impenetrable.
"William, you're starting to scare me. Please, whatever it is, just tell me."
He turned then to face her, so much uncertainty in his eyes. "Eliza, I'm...," and his voice dropped out of him. Why was it so hard for him to say the words to her again? He knew why, and it felt like a huge risk to him to take the box down, dust it off and open it again - for her. But she had called him a gambler once, so perhaps he could say it again, with a different outcome this time.
Rubbing his beard with both hands along the sides of his jaw, he began again, "Eliza, I'm in love with you and have been for quite some time. I have been in love with you since we were teenagers and I kissed you that day when Skip was killed in the street. Since we have been spending more time together lately, my feelings for you have only grown stronger. I'm worried about you, and I don't want any harm to befall you. I know that you want to be independent, but I don't want you taking unnecessary risks, and your going by yourself to Oxford seems like an unnecessary risk to me."
There was silence between them after William had told her he was in love with her. She knew that she was still in love in him and that her love for him had never waned, even when they had been apart during those 10 years, even when she had learned of his reputation with other women. But she hadn't expected to hear that he had been in love with her ever since they were teenagers. Surely this was not true. She had always thought that he did not return her love. Much of what had happened between them after their first kiss had pivoted on her feeling that her love for him was unrequited. Had William felt the same way, that she did not return his love for her?
"William, what do you mean when you say you've been in love with me since we were teenagers?"
He replied, "Eliza, I don't know how I could be any more clear about my feelings for you from what I've just told you. But if you need me to say it again, I will. I am in love with you and have been for the last 11 years."
She went to him and put her hand on his cheek, gently rubbing her thumb across his beard. She wanted to hold him, but she was afraid of doing more than just caressing his cheek. He took her hand from his face and kissed the center of her palm, then the inside of her wrist over her pulse point. The soft touch of his lips against her palm and then her wrist made her heart race and awoke something deep within her, as she felt a warmth begin to spread inside her.
When he lifted his head from kissing her wrist, he looked into her eyes, questioning what her feelings for him were and whether she would tell him how she felt.
"William, I..." She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the wave of sensation his touch had stirred in her. She was struggling to dislodge the words in her heart that she knew he longed to hear. She wanted to say the words to him, but for her, it was too frightening to open the box she had closed when they had broken apart after they kissed.
He sensed her reluctance to speak, and hurt, he turned away from her to resume the washing up at the sink. As he turned away, Eliza reached for his arm, but she felt him almost recoil from her touch, which upset her even more.
"William...look at me. Please look at me." She waited for him to raise his eyes to hers. When he finally did, she could see such deep hurt and longing in them and noticed how the green in his eyes had changed to an almost grey color. It was the same color they had been after she slapped his face following their first kiss. It was breaking her heart that she had caused him this much anguish.
She licked her lips nervously, then tried again, "William, please come sit with me at the table for a moment. There's something I want to share with you, something I should have given you a long time ago. Please?" She extended her hand to him and waited for him to take it.
After a moment's hesitation, William took her hand and allowed himself to be led over to the table, Eliza steering him to sit beside her on the bench. She reached into her handbag and drew out the worn notebook. From between the pages, she pulled out a folded piece of wrinkled writing paper. William could see his name written on the backside of it in Eliza's practiced hand. She handed it to him and asked him, "Will you read it? Please? I need you to understand what I should have told you many years ago."
He unfolded the note slowly, his heart beating faster as he smoothed it out on the table. The note had clearly been crumpled up at one time, then flattened out and folded again, then carefully placed in her notebook.
The date at the top of the page was from 10 years ago, and if he recalled correctly, it was about one week after their falling out. His hands started to tremble, and his heart was in his throat as he read:
"Dear William -
It has been several days since Skip was killed by the carriage and you and I were in the back garden together.
I am not certain where to begin with what I need to say to you. My mind feels muddled, and my heart weighs so heavily inside me. I am heartbroken over the loss of Skip, of course, but I feel as if part of me has been set adrift with the loss of you as well. It has been difficult for me to not see you like we did before that day's events, and I have ached for you to come to the house so that we might talk, make amends and be friends again. I know that what I said to you was cruel, only made worse by my slapping your face. I cannot tell you how much I regret having said and done those things to you. I was wrong to have treated you so poorly. I apologize and ask for your forgiveness. Please do not be angry with me.
What I have realized since that day when you and I kissed in the garden is - I think I am in love with you, William. I love you, not as my older "brother", but as my parents loved each other. I don't know how else to tell you what I am feeling. You and I have always been honest with each other. It is one of the things I have cherished most about having you as my closest friend.
Since the time of our kiss, I have come to understand that I mistook your gesture for something more than you merely comforting me in my moment of grief and that you do not return my love in the same way. I am sorry for both misunderstanding your intentions and for my childish behavior towards you when you ended our kiss and pulled away. I would like to be able to say that the trauma of losing Skip made me say and do things that were not in character for me, that grief overcame my good sense, but I think that is just an excuse. I hope that you will understand and forgive me.
I cannot lose you, William.
All my love,
Eliza"
William reread the note Eliza had written to him 10 years ago, and then again. When he had finished, he folded it carefully and set it on the table between them. His mind was in a complete whirl. He was incredulous, unable to come to grips with what Eliza had told him in her letter.
He raised his eyes to hers and asked simply, "Is this true? Were you in love with me then?"
"Yes," she whispered, her eyes searching his to gauge his reaction to this written profession of her love for him.
"For God's sake, Eliza! Why did you never give me this note?" he asked her, his Scottish brogue becoming thicker, as his emotions began to roll and pitch within him. Eliza Scarlet had loved him when they kissed all those years ago, and she had tried to apologize for her part in what had happened between them. But why had she never told him? And why, if she loved him, had she refused to talk with him and instead walked away from him at his boarding house 10 years ago?
"Because I thought you did not love me. Not as I loved you. I thought that your kissing me that day was only because you were comforting me and felt sorry for me. I didn't want your pity. I wanted your love, and when you broke our kiss and stepped away from me, I thought it was because you realized that you had made a mistake in kissing me, that you had let your comforting go too far and that you did not want me."
"Eliza, kissing you the way I did that day is not the way men kiss women when they are comforting them. Could you not feel how my heart was beating for you when I was holding you in my arms? Could you not taste my love for you in my kisses? Could you not tell how crushing it was for me to have to let you go? I stopped kissing you because I did not want to betray your father's trust in me, not because I wanted to and not because I didn't love you. How could you not have known how much I loved you then?"
Stung by his words, as if she was a child being reprimanded, she stood up from the table and moved away from him. Perhaps giving him this note had been an ill-conceived idea after all. She turned to him, as she stood leaning against the wall, and replied, "Because, William, I was 16 years old, and I didn't know anything about love, especially romantic love like my parents had shared. I did not have a mother to ask about these things as I was growing up." He could hear the despair in her voice and immediately regretted that he had not been kinder with his words to her.
He stood up from the table and went to her. He pulled her gently into his arms and gazing into her troubled eyes, he said, "Eliza, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you just now and certainly not when we were teenagers. I would be lying though if I didn't tell you that I'm upset, not with you, but that so much time has been lost between us. Ten years of our lives, when we might have been together and happy - sparring with each other, but happy. We can't get back that time, but we can start right now never being apart again. I love you. I have always loved you, Eliza, and I always will love you." He touched her face with his hand, his thumb running over her cheek, down to her lips, where it traced the outline of her top lip.
She had heard somewhere that touch has a memory**. Now standing in William's kitchen, his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her close to him, his thumb slowly tracing her top lip, she felt a shiver run down her spine, as she realized that this was the exact way he had touched her on the day he had first kissed her. Her lips remembered this soft, sensual touch, and she yearned for him to follow the touch of his thumb with that of his lips.
She saw him look down at her lips, as he gently continued stroking them with his thumb, then up into her eyes. She saw that the green color had returned to his eyes, then watched as they grew darker with desire. She thought he was going to kiss her, as he had all those years ago, but he did not.
Instead, he brought his face close to hers, their foreheads pressed together, their noses touching, rubbing against each other lightly. She could feel his beard rub against her chin and then her cheek, as he gently let his cheek rest against hers. She could hear his breathing, which seemed to be getting more ragged, and the catch in it, as she slipped her arms around his neck and pressed herself closer to him. Her hand ran through his dark hair, her fingers seeking the curls that she knew fell behind his ears. She felt his face moving against hers and waited to feel his lips brush against hers, but they did not, despite the hum she felt vibrating between them. The tension between them was thick, and for her, it was a kind of agony for him to be so close to her, where she could smell his scent and feel his warmth but not have him kiss her, as he had done once before.
Why was William not kissing her? Did he want her to kiss him first? Was he waiting for her to actually say the words to him, that she loved him? Then she realized why William had not pressed his lips to hers, even though his breathing, his closeness to her and the darkness of his eyes all told her how much he wanted just that. He was waiting for her. Waiting for her to tell him that she wanted him to kiss her.
Clinging to him more tightly than she ever had before, her eyes closed, her cheek pressed against his beard, she whispered in his ear, "I love you, William. I always have, and I always will. Please? Will you kiss me?"
As soon as her words were out, she felt his lips against hers in a rush, bruising hers with the force of his longing for her. And then almost as quickly his kiss softened, and she knew that he had pulled himself back and reined in his desire for her so that his kisses were gentler. She returned his kisses, as her lips remembered how to move with his and how they fit together perfectly. Her lips savored his, and she thought how they felt warmer and tasted sweeter than when they were young. She felt him shudder as she dragged her teeth along his lower lip, then slid her tongue into his mouth, searching for his, letting out little gasps and whimpers when his tongue teased hers. She had missed these kisses. She had missed these lips moving against her own. She had missed him for such a long time, and now he was here with her, holding her close, kissing her deeply and loving her. She didn't want this moment to end.
William did not want this moment to end either. He didn't want to open his eyes. He just wanted to feel her mouth on his, her hands in his hair, her cheek and chin rubbing against his beard. He was afraid that if he opened his eyes, everything would stop, and he didn't want to stop. He had waited 10 years for these kisses and to hold her again.
He pressed her back up against the kitchen wall and leaned into her, kissing her neck, finding the soft curve where he could lick her pulse point and tease her by tracing warm kisses down and back up her neck to her ear, where he gently bit her earlobe and heard her gasp and let out a small moan.
He felt her slip her hand inside his shirt and slowly run her fingers along the smooth skin of his chest. She tucked her head under his chin, then buried her face in his chest, as if she was becoming shy with him the more intimate their caresses became. He kissed the top of her head, then whispered, "I love you, Eliza."
She looked up into his eyes, her hand still resting against his chest close to his heart. She gently reached up and ran her fingers through his beard, as she replied, "I love you too, William. I'm sorry that I hurt you all those years ago. I'm sorry that I didn't stay with you that day to sort things out between us as you had asked. And I'm sorry that I didn't listen to you but instead let Sylvie get into my head. I should have taken you at your word. I was wrong, William. Please forgive me."
"If you will forgive me too. I'm sorry for hurting you, Eliza, and for not behaving as I should have the day we kissed. We both made mistakes when we were younger, but the important thing now is that we are here together, and we love each other - which is no small feat." He smiled at her, then kissed her forehead. Pulling back to look into her eyes, he asked, 'Will you come with me? There's something I would like to show you."
She nodded and gave her hand to him, as he drew her out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and turned to her. "It's upstairs. Shall we?"
End Notes:
*Braces in the UK are the equivalent of men's suspenders in the US.
**Touch has a memory - is a quote from the movie, Bright Star; John Keats says it to Fanny Brawne, on their last night together.