Tristan pressed the fingers from his uninjured hand to his brow bone, eyes shut tight. “I swear you’re only asking this because I am injured and weak and you rightly understand that I cannot saynoto you.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Very well, I will agree to support your continued courtship with Mr. Penn-Leith.”
Allie lunged to hug him.
He placed a staying hand on her shoulder. “But one thing first. Do not think that I will immediately abandon my political goals and become some paragon of domesticity. I still intend to see our family name restored. Not because our ghastly father desired it, but because I want to forever remove the stain of his cruelty from our name. I wish my own star to shine so brightly that others forget our father ever existed.”
“Oh, Tristan. You say the most delightful things,” Allie laughed, sitting back once more. “You know I will assist you however I can in obliterating the memory of our father’s existence.”
“I probably should have led with that explanation months ago.”
“True! Had I known you wished me to marry Charswood to spite our sire, I very well might have agreed to it.” She patted his chest. “Maybe next time.”
They stared at one another, the clock on the hearth ticking.
“I cannot believe you are forcing me to accept Ethan Penn-Leith, of all people, as a brother-in-law,” Tristan moaned. “It just feels so . . . so . . .”
“Wonderful? Exciting?”
“Hah! I was going to say cliché. Of course, the immensely famous Highland Poet would marry the beautiful, wealthy daughter of a duke. The man is a living fairy tale.”
“Ah. You called mebeautiful.”
Tristan gave her arm a playful punch.
“Ow. Now who’s being mean?”
He chuckled, low and warm.
Allie smiled at the sound as she scooted off the bed. “I’ll leave you to get some sleep.”
“I love you, Allie,” he murmured.
Her heart skipped and danced to hear those words on his lips.
“I love you, too, Tristan.” She bent down and kissed his forehead. “Now, I’m off to bed. After all, I have a Scottish poet to woo tomorrow.” She wiggled her eyebrows at him. “I cannot wait to return and regale you with every last detail.”
The delightful noise of his long-suffering groan followed her from the room.
25
Ethan stared out the window of his uncle’s carriage. The landscape crawled by, a patchwork of green and brown fields giving way to pine forest, the purple hills of the Cairngorms rising in the distance. The dusty road and lush scenery were reminiscent of that highway inSüdtirolnearly a year past.
Each mile traveled from Fettermill and Allie felt like another nail in Ethan’s coffin.
He had left a letter for her to be delivered to Muirford House. In it, he had pleaded for her patience. To give him a week to extricate himself from his uncle’s clutches and return to her.
Last night, exhausted after nearly two days of no sleep, he had been unable to think clearly, to formulate a plan. It had been all he could do to pitch headlong into bed.
But now, as he journeyed north with his uncle, it felt the veriest madness. How could he leave Allie? How could he abandon her with an injured brother and her future in limbo? No—theirfuture in limbo.
Agitation buzzed through Ethan’s veins, a swarm of wasps desperate to escape.
His knee bounced. And then his whole leg.
He should have stayed.
He shouldn’t be here.
They had only been on the road for an hour. It would be a simple matter to order the carriage to a halt. He could walk back to Muirford House before luncheon.
