She suspected excising the markings from his flesh would be far easier than excising his friends from his memories. She knew how difficult this was for him. She could see it in his increasingly darkening expression with every mile they passed. He was resolved, and in many ways just as stubborn as Robbie. She just prayed Sir Alex didn’t come to regret what he was about to do. There would be no going back. For either of them.
He shook his head. “I’ve made my decision. I’ve had enough of the secret warfare and pirate raids. God knows I’ve tried, but I no longer have the stomach for it. Half the time I felt like I was fighting against my own side anyway. Maybe this way it will do some good.”
“What do you mean?” How could him turning against his friends do them any good?
“Maybe I can help end this war by working from the other direction. Instead of fighting against the English, I can fight from within—through reason and negotiation.”
It was a lofty goal and hard for Rosalin to argue against, as she was leaving for similar reasons. But although she could understand Alex’s decision, she knew Robbie and the others would not. Whatever the reasons, Robbie would see Sir Alex’s defection as a personal betrayal. And on top of her leaving, she suspected that it was going to be a bitter blow for him to swallow—whether he would admit it or not.
Why was she still worried about Robbie’s feelings when he’d treated hers with so little regard? Even though she knew that she was doing what was right, it didn’t make the heartbreak any easier. If only her love could be as easily cut from her heart as a tattoo. She would gladly take the temporary physical pain over the ongoing desolation of hopelessness. Wounds from a knife she would recover from. But she knew she would never completely recover from this, and the scars, she feared, would be both lasting and deep.
“Are you sureyouwant to do this?” Sir Alex asked softly.
She wasn’t sure at all. But it had to be done. Rosalin glanced across the black river at the flickering torchlight on the other side. She took a deep breath, feeling the hot swell of emotion tighten in her chest. God, why did it have to hurt so much? She nodded, and without further hesitation, they rode across the bridge.
It was morning when Robbie stormed into the yard of Park Castle. He’d ridden as if the devil were nipping at his heels, unable to quiet the voice inside him.Hurry!
But the moment he glanced up into the tower window, he knew it was too late. His heart sank like a stone in a bottomless well. Darkness crashed down on him. She wasn’t looking down at him from the window. She wasn’t there.
A fear that was confirmed moments later when Joanna Douglas met them in the Hall.
“Where is Rosalin?” he demanded, fear already slashing his voice with a harsh edge.
“Watch it, Boyd,” Douglas said. “I know you are angry, but don’t take it out on my wife.”
But Joanna did not shirk from his anger. “I don’t need you to defend me from overbearing brutes, James. I’m quite used to them and displays of black temper.”
Robbie winced. Had he really thought her too sweet?
She turned back to answer him. “I assume at Berwick Castle by now. She and Sir Alex rode out not long after you left.”
Though part of him had known it, the news still shook him. How could she be gone, damn it? He had to explain. He had to apologize. He had to tell her how wrong he’d been.
You drove her away.
Douglas swore. “And you just let them leave?”
Joanna’s sweet blue eyes turned glacial as her gaze leveled on her husband’s. “I did.”
From her tone, she seemed to daring him to say something more.
Douglas clamped his mouth shut. Apparently, after the mistake they’d narrowly averted, he’d decided to cut his losses with his wife. Joanna had been right. Rosalin and Seton had been right. And they all knew it.
Robbie clenched his fists, the raw emotion lashing around inside him like a whip. Anger. Disbelief. Despair. It needed a place to go, and he struck out against the only other person he could blame besides himself. How could the man who’d been his partner for seven years betray him like this? “I’m going to kill him.”
Joanna lifted a delicate brow. “Sir Alex?” She shook her head. “I fear that might be difficult.”
“What do you mean?”
“He left you something.” She pointed to the small solar off the Hall that Douglas used to conduct estate business. “It’s in there.”
Robbie closed the door behind him as he entered the room, grateful a moment later for the privacy when he opened the plain burlap sack to see the darkened nasal helm and plaid.
He flinched. For the second time in the space of a few minutes, he felt the hard slap of shock. And it stung—bitterly.
Seton had finally done it. He’d left the Guard and defected to the English. Robbie didn’t know why he was surprised. Hadn’t he expected Seton to betray them for years? He was a bloody Englishman. How could Robbie have trusted him, even a little?
Ah hell. Barely before he’d finished the thought, the truth hit him hard. That was exactly what had driven her away. She told him that he would always see her as English—as Clifford’s sister—and never be able to fully trust her. She’d accused him of being blinded by vengeance. She was right. His inability to see the sweet, caring woman who was offering him her heart had made him lose the best thing that had ever happened to him.
