“You’re free to do what you want,” she said. “As am I.” Thing was, though, she wasn’t. Her father still held that soft spot for a fellow soldier and understood things Elise could not. “You’ll go with him,” her father said, plain as that. “He’s earned your loyalty.” And maybe that was true, though Elise so desperately wanted her own loyalty to earn. Her father had taken away her chance to make her own choice. To remain with her sisters, who, in time, would find husbands of their own. What else could she do?
