“Was it though? At least when Kendall confronted you not two hours past, you could honestly tell him that you didn’t know what I had been doing. His judgment fell on me, not you.” Viola closed her eyes, licking away the tears that trickled down to her mouth.
“Bah! That’s splitting hairs. I assure you Kendall did not see it in that light. Worse, I looked like an old, doddering fool. Is that your opinion of me?”
“Of course not!”
“The duke made it exquisitely clear that he now doubts my suitability for appointment as a bishop.”
“Kendall is just as manipulative as his fath—”
“He is a realist, daughter! As am I!” Her father whirled to pin her with his blue gaze, eyes the same bluebell blue as her own. “This ismyhard truth, Viola. I love you. I have gladly postponed my dreams and career for your health. It was a sacrifice I happily made. But I had assumed that you felt a similar devotion to myself.”
“I do, Papa! I do!”
“And yet, in this moment, I do not believe you.”
Viola flinched as if struck. Tears blurred the room into amorphous splotches of color.
“Papa,” she began. “Idolove you.”
“Daughter, I don’t doubt that you believe that, but your actions speak otherwise. You have betrayed my trust in the most terribly public way.” Dr. Brodure turned for the door, eyes anguished and too bright. “And in the end, our actions reveal the true intent of our hearts more than words ever could.”
Viola feared her own heart would crack in two.
“Papa, please.”
“I need some time on my own to think.” He pressed two fingers to his forehead. “Please give my apologies to Lord and Lady Hadley tonight. Tell them I am feeling unwell and am unable to attend their dinner.”
Her father left the room, closing the door with a quietsnick.
Viola collapsed onto the sofa before the fire and poured her woes into the obliging wool of a soft cushion.
Hours later andMalcolm’s thoughts were still afankle.
Damnation.
Aileen had never turned him inside out like this. Their relationship had been so effortlessly linear, graduating from friends to sweethearts to marriage in a gentle ascending line.
Granted, if he were being honest, he and Viola had followed a similar arc though in a fraction of the time.
And perhaps that was part of the problem.
They had moved from strangers to lovers in such quick succession that the velocity of their affections inevitably crashed into the unyielding wall of his grief and fear, of the external pressures of family and vocation.
All Malcolm could do, at the moment, was attempt to pick himself up out of the wreckage.
He still had yet to receive word from Callum regarding Isla and her babe. All anyone could do at the moment was wait.
And now, he faced an interminable evening at Muirford House, permitting Kendall to heap wee abuses on himself and watching an oblivious Ethan court Viola. Leah and Fox had sent their regrets, as Leah had a wee chill.
Thank goodness Hadley and Sir Rafe and their wives would still be in attendance. Hopefully, they would act as ballast to keep the dinner party from floundering. Though given Kendall’s mood, the duke might decide that Sir Rafe, as his older half-brother, would also be an acceptable whipping boy.
Wishing to put his best foot forward, Malcolm had decided to forgo wearing his usual great kilt. Instead, he donned a well-cut suit of superfine wool that Leah had insisted he purchase on a rare trip to Edinburgh.
He was brushing the tight-fitting evening jacket when Ethan burst into his room, sheets of foolscap clutched in his fist.
“Malcolm, what would be a good metaphor for love?”
“Pardon?” Malcolm turned toward Ethan, eyebrows lifting.
