“I’ll ask her as many times as I have to.”
“And still, she’ll say no.” Sinclair drained his own cup and let it hang from his fingertips. “A man should ken when he hasn’t a prayer of winning the woman he wants.”
“Why should I give up?” He drank the ale, but though it quenched his thirst, it did nothing to allay the bitterness. “She just needs convincing, that’s all.” He shrugged, as if it were naught to worry over. But Sinclair came closer, his face serious in the moonlight.
“I shouldna be sayin’ this to you. But you’ve been a friend, ye ken? There’s a reason why she says no.” He let out a slow breath, as if choosing his words carefully. Glancing down at his empty cup, he cursed and then muttered that he was wanting another drink.
Paul waited, but the longer time passed, the more Sinclair hesitated. “There’s not someone else, is there?” He didn’t want to think that Juliette had given her heart to another. It seemed impossible, given the way she’d accepted his casual touches in the past day. But shehadavoided him, especially after he’d returned from Edinburgh.
He stared hard at Sinclair, not wanting to hear the reasons. And yet, he needed to understand her reluctance.
“It’s no’ someone else. It’s because she was hurt, Fraser.”
Hurt? Every tendon within him tightened with a fear he could not name. A coldness descended over him, for he suspected he would not want to hear any of this.
And yet, he needed to know. “What do you mean,hurt?”
The man said nothing for a time, staring out over the water. “It was over a year ago, in autumn. You were still in Edinburgh.” He kept his words neutral, but with every pause, Paul’s uneasiness grew. “I came out looking for my brother Jonah, who’d been fishing. When I found him, Jonah told me he’d heard a woman crying.” Sinclair stared hard at him. “I followed him to the grove of trees over the rise of hills toward Ben Nevis. It’s on the earl’s land, north of Eiloch Hill.”
The pieces of Sinclair’s story started to form together, and Paul made no move to interrupt.
“When I found Miss Andrews, I thought she’d been lost or twisted an ankle,” Sinclair said. “She was sitting on the ground, sobbing. Her hair was undone, and her bodice all torn up. When she saw me, she begged me no’ to tell.” The man’s face turned violently angry, as if remembering what he’d seen.
Ice froze up the rivers of blood within him, and in his mind, Paul saw a vision of Juliette, frightened and alone. Her hair fallen around her shoulders, a wrenching terror on her face.
Her words came back to haunt him:If it’s a wife and children you want, you should look elsewhere.
He replayed the sadness on her face when he’d spoken to her hours earlier. She’d claimed that she couldn’t give him the life he wanted… that she didn’t want to marry any man. His mind tried to put together another reason, anything else that could have happened.
But he knew. In his gut, he knew that Juliette would never have gone off on her own. Someone had taken her to an isolated place. Someone she’d trusted… or perhaps she’d been forced there against her will.
And that someone had hurt her.
The force of his rage, that someone would dare to harm the woman he loved, reverberated within him like a violent storm. “Who did this?” he demanded. If the man wasn’t already dead, Paul had no qualms about murdering him for what he’d done. When Sinclair didn’t answer, he repeated the question, grabbing the man by his shirt, letting the violence stream through him. “For God’s sake,who?”
Sinclair’s face turned grim. “She wouldna say. But I took her to your mother’s house.”
“My mother knew?” Though he’d seen Bridget a time or two, not a word had she spoken of Juliette.
The darkness simmering within him threatened to erupt into a violent temper. For he hadn’t been there to rescue Juliette. She’d been unprotected… and Paul blamed himself for that. It was as if an invisible hand had reached inside and ripped him apart from the inside. Fury mingled with a drowning guilt and the need to make amends, to help her heal.
“Bridget took care of her before I brought her home,” Sinclair admitted. “Your mother… helped fix her dress so that no one would know.” His friend shot him a warning look. “Lady Lanfordshire knows naught of this, nor her other daughters. If you say one word, I’ll be denying it with my last breath.”
Though Paul nodded absently, his mind was reeling. “You should have told me sooner.” It seemed impossible that this could have happened to the girl he loved. That anyone would have harmed her. She had suffered from this and told no one. Not even her own family. And though his instincts wanted to rage at Sinclair for never telling him of it, he knew the man had kept the secret he’d been given.
“You told me this, so I would no’ push her too hard,” he said dully.
“Aye. She doesna trust men. And you can understand why she’s refusing to wed.” Cain crossed his arms over his chest. “I won’t be speaking of this again. I only told you because you should understand why she will no’ let any man close to her. If it’s Juliette you want, then you’ll have to be patient.”
Patience was the last thing on Paul’s mind. He wanted vengeance against the man who had done this to her. Just imagining her terror numbed him from deep inside. She’d been alone, suffering through an attack that never should have happened.
“I escorted her to London a few days later,” Sinclair continued. “She stayed with her aunt for a long time. I think she was avoiding Ballaloch.”
And now that she’d returned, Juliette seemed eager to leave. It was possible that her attacker was still here.
Paul let out a slow breath, wondering what he should do now. He couldn’t allow her to know that Sinclair had told him. But now, her reluctance made sense. Her innocence had been stolen from her. More than likely, he’d frightened her when he’d tried to hold her in the stable.
“I need time to think,” he said to Sinclair at last. “But you’ve my thanks for telling me of this. I willna let on that I ken.”
