She pictured him so, lying in his own blood, arms flung wide, hair spread around his head, all the wicked light flown from his eyes. Her poor, abused heart stuttered again in her chest. No, not that—anything but that.
Because she loved him. Heaven help her! Even though she knew she should despise him, and despite all his cruelty, she loved him still.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Mistress Avrie agreed to come and see you,” Aggie announced grandly. She shed her shawl and tried to smooth her hair, disordered by the wind. Bright flags of color flew in her cheeks, and her eyes shone with victory. “I managed to steal a word with her in the end. You would have been so proud of me.”
“I am proud of you,” Jeannie said even as her stomach roiled beneath another wave of emotion. For the past two nights she had not slept nor, in truth, taken more than a sip or two of tea—not since Finnan walked out of her life. Foolish woman that she was, she kept listening for him to return. Despite all her lectures to herself, she kept hoping he would change his mind, reconsider—realize he had genuine feelings for her after all.
Was this how Geordie had felt? She had to push that thought away from her, she could not handle it on top of the bitter suspicion that, no, Finnan would not return: his work with her was done.
Wicked highlander that he was.
She should have known better from the first, known he was not for her. But he had woven his trap so well, and she had tumbled right in.
Now she tried to focus on the matter at hand. Perhaps she could still help him, or rather help ease the dire situation in the glen, even if he did not deserve it.
“When will Mistress Avrie come?”
“She could not say. She is kept close, watched often. She said she must wait until her husband is away. But I believe she will come. She was near in tears when I mentioned her brother.”
“Yes?”
“I had only a few stolen minutes with her, mind, there in the parlor where she sat alone. But she said she has feared for him being hunted like an animal, and she seemed ever so grateful we are helping him.”
“Come, Aggie, and tell me all about how you accomplished this miracle.”
Aggie sat with her on the bench like the friend she had in truth become. “I did not think I would manage it at first. When I visit Dorcas and Marie we always sit in the kitchen, you understand. Indeed, I never even knew Mistress Avrie was there all this while. But then at the end, and just when I despaired, Dorcas mentioned her—you know, in that sly way she has.”
“What did she say?”
Aggie’s enthusiasm dropped a notch. “That the Dowager’s grandsons were getting very close to snaring their quarry, and she could not imagine what his sister might say when they slew him. It seems they almost had him the other night and wounded him full sore. But that does not seem right, does it, mistress? For were he hurt, he would surely come here for you to tend.”
Jeannie’s gaze dropped to her hands. “He will not come here again.”
“Why ever not? The two of you did quarrel. I knew it!”
Jeannie twisted her hands into a tortured tangle. “It seems Laird MacAllister’s feelings were never in earnest. He only wanted to repay me for what he considers my ill treatment of Geordie, in Dumfries.”
“Oh, sweet mercy!” Aggie reached out and covered Jeannie’s hands with her own. “Never say it is so. That beast! And yet still you seek to aid him? He could not be more wrong about you, and I would love to give him a right earful. I will, if I get the chance. Does he have any idea how things were in Dumfries, how hard our backs were to the wall? You would not be the first woman to wed a man she did not love in order to save herself. And Master Geordie—he did not seem to mind.”
“He did mind, though. He wrote Finnan letters complaining of me.”
“Whilst in his cups, no doubt,” Aggie denounced indignantly. “It is what some men do when drunk, go crying like babes. At least you were honest with him. Would it have been better for you to lie to him about your feelings?”
“I no longer know, Aggie. My feelings are all burnt away.” Almost all, save for the relentless, sickening ache. “You must understand, though, I cannot stand by and see him killed.”
“Yes, well, I could cheerfully see him so, for what he’s done to you. I will be cursed if I want to help him now.”
Jeannie raised her gaze to her friend’s. “Tell me of his sister.”
“Well, as I say, Dorcas mentioned her, wondered what she would do when her husband or his brother hauled her brother in and spilled his blood all over the stones of the courtyard at Avrie House. I made like I was curious to see her—was she aught like that devil everyone hunted—and Marie said she was about to take the woman her tea in the parlor, if I wanted to have a wee peek.
“And so it proved. I stood behind the door when Marie carried in the tray. She is very like him to look at,” Aggie added judiciously. “You could not mistake them for aught but kin.”
“No.”
“And I made an excuse to leave soon after, but I did not go by my usual way. Instead I crept round through the garden to where those doors of their sitting room open out. I told myself, were she still there in that room, then it was meant to be. She was.”
