She stilled, and even in the dark he saw the glint of knowledge in her eyes. Even so, she would not give in so easily—not that he had expected anything less from her.
“I don’t know what that has to do with me.”
“Dinnae you?”
Her voice went from flat to vibrating with anger in the space of a heartbeat. “No. I don’t.”
He stepped closer to her, bending down until his lips were close to her ear, ignoring the heady scent of lavender, which was amplified by the fresh ocean air. “Did you think I would forget how often you talked about selkies, how you dreamed of one day finding the sealskin your father must have stolen from you so you could return to your true place?”
She physically blanched. But, stubborn woman that she was, she clung to her ignorance like a marooned sailor clinging to a piece of driftwood.
“The foolish musings of a foolish girl,” she spat. “I do not see what that has to do with anything.”
“Dinnae you,” he murmured, dropping his voice to an intimate rumble, “S. L. Keys?”
Chapter 6
How she did not cast up her accounts right then and there she would never know. As it was, her head began to swim, so much so that she took a hasty step back from him, dragging in a deep breath of sea air in the hopes of clearing her senses. But nothing could rid her of the horrible truth staring her in the face, in the form of one overlarge, entirely-too-smug Scotsman.
So that was the trail of bread crumbs she had left, was it? Bitterness and self-contempt had her mouth tasting like iron. The one time she had allowed herself to be remotely whimsical, to pay homage to the devastated girl she had been, and she had inadvertently left the one bit of information that could lead Iain right to her.
Even so, it was a flimsy connection, wasn’t it? Though they were well in the shadows, and he could not possibly see every infinitesimal nuance of her expression, she carefully rearranged her features to hide her fear and anxiety,aiming for disdain instead. “Come now,” she scoffed. “You read a name that sounds somewhat like a mystical creature I used to talk of, and you make a far-fetched connection that it might be me writing some fantastical stories? That is quite the imagination you’ve acquired since last I saw you.”
“Do you honestly believe,” he drawled, “that I would traipse all over England searching for you if I dinnae have more to go on than that? Nae, that was merely the catalyst. Once I started reading through your publications, I began to see parallels that I couldnae ignore. An evil, powerful father as the villain. A servant turned hero. And the two younger sisters that the heroine was trying to save.”
“All quite common in the genre, I assure you,” she dismissed, waving a hand in the air, though inside her stomach was churning. Ah, God, she had put so much of herself into those stories—things she did not want him, or anyone else, becoming suspicious about. Foolish, foolish woman.
“But I am nae done,” he continued imperiously. “The most damning by far were the details that only you and I would have known, the things we shared, the secrets we told one another. Did you think I could have possibly forgotten that old ruin and how we climbed to the verra top, how that stone came loose and we found the skeleton of that bird? Or when you wrote to me of the trunk you found in the attic at Farrow Hall and the mirror you pulled from its interior that had a young girl holding a cat painted on the back?” He raised one eyebrow in a cocky gesture that had her temper boiling. “Should I go on?”
She glared at him, even as she silently considered her options. She could continue to claim ignorance, of course, chalk it all up to coincidence, tell him he was deluded to think she was S. L. Keys, and attempt a nimble dance aboutthe subject until the man did not know his arse from his elbow.
But the plan had not fully formed in her head before she realized she was foolish to think something like that would work. Not with Iain, at any rate. He was not some pliable person with soup for brains who would accept anything she chose to tell him. No, he had always been incredibly stubborn, as well as much smarter than even he realized. He had no doubt spent weeks, perhaps months, tracking her down. He would not accept whatever flimsy excuses she might come up with.
And so, knowing she had been backed into the proverbial corner, fully aware that her strongest defense was an impenetrable offense, she raised her chin and met his gaze.
“Are you expecting a trophy then? I assure you, you shall be waiting a long time for one if you are.”
The silvery light of the moon shimmered in his eyes, showing the appreciation that her seemingly unconcerned comment had garnered. Not that she cared if he admired her refusal to be cowed. Not one bit.
“Nae going to continue denying it then?” he asked.
She shrugged. “What is the point? It will only prolong my time with you, something I aim to make as minimal as possible. Let us get to the point of your presence here, shall we? The sooner we tackle that, the sooner you may leave Synne. Which is paramount to me just now.”
His lips kicked up at one end. “You never were one to mince words, were you?” When she merely glared at him, he nodded, as if he had expected as much. “Nor were you one to speak if silence could do the job just as well. But I have already told you why I have come. I wish for a divorce.”
“Surely you don’t need me to acquire one,” she countered, even as some small part of her mourned. She had gone into their union with her whole heart, certain their love was one for the ages, that they would be together forever.
More the fool, she.
“I’m certain there have been plenty of divorces due to abandonment where the spouse could not be found,” she continued. “Simply go to your local commissary or whatever it is you have to do and see it done.”
“Ah, but if it was that easy dinnae you think I would have done it already, instead of chasing you the width and breadth of England?” He glared at her, as if she had created with willful intent all of the difficulties he had gone through to get here. “Ididgo to the commissary, as a matter of fact. But they refused the divorce, seeing as you had been legally declared dead. I then went to the Court of Sessions, who also refused, due to your supposed death, even with Mrs. Campbell’s letter as proof, stating that the words of a dead woman were mere hearsay. They informed me that if you were truly alive, I must locate you to get the divorce. But you dinnae make it easy on me, lass. After months of searching and failing, it was only by chance that I came upon your stories.” He narrowed his eyes, satisfaction fairly oozing from him. “Oh, and you may want to search for another publication to print your tales in. They dinnae hesitate to divulge your whereabouts when I flashed enough coin their way.”
Seraphina rather thought that if anger was a physical manifestation, steam would have begun to pour from her ears. She was tempted to rail at him; hadn’t he destroyed her life enough? Did he have to ruin one of the few goodthings she had managed to claim in the years since she had last seen him?
In the end, however, she merely said, “If even the courts believe me to be dead, why fight for a divorce at all? Let me remain dead in their eyes and leave me be.” The last came out in close to a pleading tone, despite her attempts to remain cool and collected. Drat the man for dredging up emotions she would keep buried—and a helplessness she had not felt in too many long years.
Fighting to regain control of her composure, she continued. “You can go on as a widower and live your life, and I can remain Miss Athwart of Synne and live mine. It is a simple solution, and one that would have saved you the effort of spending months searching for me.”
