Because while sitting in Callum’s wee cottage, listening to Isla’s agonized cries and reliving the trauma of Aileen’s death—Malcolm had realized an awful truth—
Love wasn’t quite what he had thought it to be.
Loving Aileen had been a straightforward thing—happiness and sunshine, a blissful sort of simplicity.
But after suffering the heartbreak of her death, Malcolm’s feelings toward love had changed. Instead of hope and felicity, the emotion now elicited a raw desperation.
For him, love equaled fear and loss.
He didn’t know if he could outrun, out-think, or out-maneuver his panicked, uncontrollable reaction to it.
Ochwhat a mess.
And still, his muscles flexed, pulling Viola fractionally closer, helpless against the onslaught ofloveterrorfearthat pummeled him.
“What happened with Ethan?” he murmured against her hair, anything to distract his increasingly morose thoughts, to banish the phantom sense that he had already lost her.
Viola sighed into his chest and tightened her own arms around him, refusing to relinquish her hold. “I wrote a nice long letter to him, intending to leave it at Thistle Muir this morning, but your brother arrived home far too early.”
“Ethan returned this morning? He wasn’t expected until later this afternoon.”
She nodded, face pressed to his sternum. “I know, but there he was on your doorstep, so happy to see me, and I just . . . Malcolm, I panicked. I couldn’t give him the letter—not then, not where he would read it in front of me. Miracle of miracles, someone came to the door needing Ethan. I was granted a reprieve and took it like the coward I am.” She pulled back to look up at him. “But now I have regrets, because Imustinform him of the reality of my affections. I should have been braver.”
This woman and hermuckleheart.
“Hush, lass. As I said yesterday, allow me tae accompany you. Let us get through dinner with Hadley this evening, and I will be at your side tomorrow when ye talk to Ethan.”
But would he be at her side?Shouldhe be, if he didn’t intend to see their budding romance through to its logical conclusion of marriage and children?
Some days, Malcolm felt as if he were clinging to the side of a runaway carriage, knowing that every choice he made—hold on or jump—would result in traumatic injury.
Viola looked up at him then—blue eyes pools of joy, lips pink and so very kissable . . .
Desperate to silence his inner voices, he lifted her higher in his arms, lowered his head, and captured her mouth.
He adored how her body turned boneless against his, her curves flowing perfectly into his hollows. He loved the breathy catch in the back of her throat when he pressed his lips to the underside of her jaw. The hungry slide of her fingers into his hair—
“Well, I had suspected something like this,” a male voice drawled at Malcolm’s back, “but such an amorous display is still rather shocking.”
Malcolm released Viola as if struck. Whirling, he placed his body between her and the unknown threat, an outstretched hand holding her behind him.
The Duke of Kendall stood in the path, a slight sneer on his handsome face. As usual, the man looked like a Bond Street fashion plate—an expensively-cut gray coat over a green-shot silk waistcoat and crisply-pressed trousers.
The duke spared a glance for Viola over Malcolm’s arm and then raked Malcolm himself from head to toe.
“Protecting her?” Kendall asked, expression amused but eyes hard. The difference between the man’s gray hair and unlined youthful face had never been more pronounced. “Bit late for that, isn’t it?”
“Your Grace,” Malcolm said through clenched teeth, “how may I help ye?”
He could practicallyfeelViola’s panic at his back, the rasp of her breathing.
“I had called at the cottage, intending to speak with Miss Brodure about a matter.” Kendall lifted a gloved hand, a sheaf of rolled papers in his fist. “Dr. Brodure sent me in this direction, declaring Miss Brodure to be a ‘great devotee of a restorative afternoon walk.’ Given the display I was just subjected to, I must quibble with Dr. Brodure’s use of the wordrestorative. I’m more inclined towardscandalousorsalaciousmyself.”
Malcolm clenched his jaw.
Kendall appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself.
Damn him.
