He turned his back on the cursed castle, on everyone person who had ever lived there and left without a single look back.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
For the next few days days, Hope stayed in her room, unwilling to venture down to the rooms below. She had nearly confronted Belle the day Graham left, but she had felt too humiliated to face the woman who had all but tried to sell her in marriage. Instead, she had sequestered herself in her bedchamber. Grace and Una had to inquire if she was eating or sleeping, but Faith didn’t come and Hope wondered if Faith was feeling sorry or smug for having been right from the beginning.
Hope certainly felt like a fool for not believing her. What an idiot she had been. She was far too willing to believe in people, especially men she fancied and it blinded her to their faults.
Graham had been right. She trusted people too much.
How she hated his arrogance, the sureness with which he spoke. His possessiveness both irked and aroused her and she was sure that he would bully his way back into her life. Instead, he had disappeared, breaking her heart even further. Although she had asked him to leave, she hadn’t believed that he truly would, and it felt like a fresh betrayal.
Now, locked away in her room with the curtains draw, she could remember every touch, every kiss from his mouth. She could no longer be sure any of them had been sincere… but that didn’t change how they affected her. She hated herself for longing for him, for wanting his despite everything he had done.
This wasn’t how life was supposed to go. Hope had long believed that marriage would be a pleasant enough event. One where she and her husband would be cordial and respectful to one another while not sharing too much of themselves. She’d had years of fantasies of being Jacob’s wife and never in herwildest dreams had she ever believed that there would be a great amount of passion between them.
But Hope’s entire world had changed the moment she met Graham.
Ever since their first kiss, Hope had felt a part of her awaken, as if she had been half asleep her entire life. Graham had made her feel things that she had never conceived of and the end result was that she had grown and changed since first coming to Scotland. Hope would never shrink herself to fit into another person’s world again.
No. Hope would know happiness. Loud and wild and beautiful happiness. That was what she demanded from life, and she would never let anyone else deter her from it.
Not even Graham.
A soft knock sounded at the door and Hope barely lifted her head. The morning sun fought through the cracks in the drapes from the windows, creating sharp lines of light across the dark room.
Someone pushed the door open, coming into the room a few steps before turning around.
“Come on,” she heard Grace whispered.
Hope could see Faith enter the room behind Grace, who came up to the side of the bed.
“Good morning,” she said softly. Hope didn’t move, and instead looked up at her, upside down as she laid on her back. “How are you feeling today?”
“How should I feel?”
“I don’t know,” Grace said, sitting on the bed next to her. “Well rested perhaps?”
Hope snorted and rolled to her stomach before pressing herself up to a seated position. Faith stood several feet away,hands behind her back. Her face was drawn and her mouth pressed into a thin line. Hope wondered why she seemed so nervous.
“Come to tell me I was wrong?” Hope asked, her hands coming together in her lap. She began to pick her thumbnail. “That I should have believed you? Well, you needn’t bother. I’m already aware.”
Faith’s head snapped up and she came forward, reaching for her sister’s hand.
“No, Hope. I… I wanted to tell you how sorry I am.”
“Sorry?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to be right. Well,” she paused, looking sheepish. “That’s not completely true. I do like being correct, but I didn’t know how you felt about Mr. McKinnon, not truly. I thought you fancied him as much as you used to fancy Pennington.”
“But I didn’t just fancy Pennington. I loved him,” she said.
But Faith just shook her head.
“No, you were fond of Pennington, but I don’t think you ever truly loved him because deep down, you knew he was never worthy of it. He represented a way for us to carry on, but when he discarded you, you didn’t suffer any true heartache. Only a worry that Grace and I would have no one to care for us.”
Looking back, Hope could see that she had cared more for her sisters’ wellbeing than for Jacob’s dismissal. Perhaps Faith was right and she had never loved Jacob at all. She knew what she felt for Graham was worlds apart in comparison, but that only made her situation so much worse.
How could love be so painful? Perhaps it would be smarter to marry someone who couldn’t hurt her so much.
