“Of course.” She stood on a smile. “I shall see myself out.”
Several hours later, Viola arrived early to the swing along the lane, swaying back and forth on it as she waited for Malcolm to arrive.
Her initial relief at having avoided a confrontation with Ethan had faded. After all, the conversation still loomed before her. She had only delayed the inevitable.
As usual, Beowoof arrived a few minutes before his master, yipping in excitement and nudging at her skirts. Tugging off her bonnet and gloves, Viola buried her face in the dog’s fur, the simplicity of his affection soothing the jagged edge of her nerves.
“How did things go, lass?” Malcolm’s voice had her lifting her head.
And there he was.
Her Malcolm.
Shoulders wide, arms folded, eyes attentive.
Concerned for her even though he himself appeared careworn and tired.
I want to keep him forever.
The thought had her rushing off the swing and into his arms before she consciously understood she was moving.
Malcolm caught Violato him, her slight frame molding to his. Bloody hell but he liked this woman far more than was sane.
Thoughlikedwas perhaps too tame a word to describe his emotions for her. She inspired a heady mix of peace and exhilaration and burning adoration that felt too much like love.
Love.
His heart quaked at the thought.
The events of the past few hours had rattled him to his core.
One of his field hands had interrupted his meeting with Sir Rafe and Hadley, whispering in his ear that Callum’s Isla was struggling in childbirth.
Malcolm understood only too well how dangerous bringing a babe into the world could be. Despite the ease of Isla’s other births, this one had all gone sideways.
Giving Hadley and Sir Rafe his excuses, Malcolm had raced to sit with an ashen Callum, watching his friend tremble and flinch with each of Isla’s screams. She labored in agony—the babe stuck within her, or so Callum relayed from the midwife.
The memory of Aileen’s passing had hovered in the room. Isla’s cries echoed in Malcolm’s own memories until he feared he would crawl out of his skin.
Grief was utterly relentless.
He could go along just fine for weeks and months and then something would happen—a smell, a sound, an off-hand comment—and he would be propelled right back to that terrible afternoon five years past. To the tiny, blue bundle in Leah’s arms, to the horrific silence that followed Aileen’s screams. To the moment where his world had utterly disintegrated.
Sitting with Callum had required more courage than Malcolm knew he possessed.
Thankfully, two of Callum’s brothers arrived with the doctor in tow. Malcolm had been able to ask them to send word of Isla’s condition and stride out the door with dignity intact, instead of racing from the house like a demented, grief-stricken creature—greiting, howling, breathless.
But now . . . holding Viola . . .
The terror of facing such loss again set his hands to trembling and a panicked vise squeezing his chest.
Malcolm finally, fully acknowledged the stark truth—
He struggled to see a road forward for Viola and himself.
All paths ended in some way or another, whether with the Duke’s schemes, her father’s ambition, or Malcolm’s own fears for her health and writing career.
There was no escape for him.
