Until she opened the door, threw herself upon his chest, and dragged his lips down to hers with greedy hunger.
Until she promised to remain hiswife.
But then . . . this had always been Jamie’s way, had it not? Slammed doors and biting words?
He had forgotten this.
That his Jamie could be difficult to love.
That she kept emotion in until it came spilling out in a ferocity that could shake him to his core.
His wife had changed . . . but, somehow, she was utterly the same.
He took a step back, his shoulders hitting the wall opposite her door. He slid down the stones until he was sitting, wrists resting on his knees.
Simon Fitzpatrick.
Simon the curate.
Simon the Sassenach, more like it.
Blech.
How could she think to marry another? And an Englishman, no less?
She was Kieran’s wife, dammit!!
But . . .
What if she never remembered?
They were handfasted, yes, but if she didn’t remember, then . . .
Were they even married?
The law would sayNo, just as his friends had asserted. In Scotland, both parties had to acknowledge the marriage in order for the handfasting to be legal.
Kieran’s heart begged to differ.
But a marriage required two people.
And it appeared that right now . . . she was moving on from him.
She had turned away from their past and embraced the vista of a vastly altered future.
One in which he was barely a speck on the fast-fading horizon at her back.
11
Eilidh sat for hours on her bed, staring out the window, sightlessly watching the sun creep across the sky.
She had written a letter to Simon, which now sat atop the small desk in the corner, folded and addressed and ready to be posted. She hadn’t gone into any detail about her current predicament. Just a vague discussion of the weather and the kindness of Lady Kildrum and Mr. Campbell.
Nothing more. No mention of the Gillespies leaving her. Nothing about the investigation ofThe Minerva.
She couldn’t bring herself to write it out on paper, to vividly relive the horror of the past few days.
Besides, Simon was the worrying sort. The man would work himself into a state of agitation over the accusations against her, and Eilidh did not want to cause him undue alarm, particularly when she anticipated it would all come to naught.
