Thom couldn’t believe it. For five years he’d been waiting for this day. For five years he’d faithfully waited for a woman who still had no idea how he felt. Could she really be that blind? How could she not see what was right in front of her?
He released her, frustration teeming through every muscle and vein of his body. He didn’t trust himself to keep touching her and not pull her into his arms and show her exactly what he meant. Would that shock her? What would Lady Elizabeth Douglas think if her childhood friend took her in his arms and showed her a man’s desire?
Instead he told her. “Jamie saw how I felt about you and realized what was happening between us.”
She tilted her head questioningly. “What was happening between us? We were friends. The very dearest of friends. Like we’d always been.”
Friends. She had no idea how deeply she’d just twisted her dagger.
“Is that really all it was to you?” he demanded. “Did you feel nothing else for me? Did you not imagine a future between us?”
Those big, beautiful eyes stared at him with confusion and incomprehension. When something finally sparked in her eyes, he felt the first flicker of hope. Hope that was doused the very next moment.
“You mean those games we used to pretend when we were children?” She smiled, as if the memory was a fond one. “Of course, marriage between us is impossible...” Her voice drifted off. She gasped, her eyes filling with horror as understanding finally dawned. Her hand covered her mouth. “Oh God, Thommy, you didn’t thinkyouandIcouldreally... It was a game. I was only a girl, I didn’t know any better.”
He flinched, as if the words were a whip upon his heart, shredding it apart.Didn’t know any better. He knew she spoke unthinkingly and wasn’t trying to hurt him, but that’s what made it worse. The fact that there could be nothing between them was so obvious, he was the only one stupid enough not to see it. Caring for him in that way had never occurred to her because it was out of the realm of possibility.Hewas out of the realm of possibility.
The feelings—thefriendship—between them did not change what anyone who was not a child or a lovesick fool would know: the blacksmith’s son was so far beneath the Lord of Douglas’s daughter as to be unworthy of consideration.
But of course hehadthought. That was the problem. For five years he’d thought the tender looks, the heartfelt smiles, and all those hours of talking meant something. He’d thought the connection between them—the feeling as if she was the other part of his soul—was too powerful to deny. He’d thought that because he was the first one she ran to, that because no one understood him better than she did, it would always be that way. He’d thought what they had was so special it defied normal rules and boundaries like birth and station. He’d thought she saw beyond all that and sawhimfor who he was.
And never had he felt like such a fool. His father had tried to stop him. Why hadn’t he listened?
Thom’s fists clenched at his sides as he fought the maelstrom of emotion lashing around inside him. But it was too hot, his pain too raw. It filled his chest with a savage heat, wrapping around his throat and squeezing higher. He cursed the pressure building behind his eyes. Cursed the weakness of emotion that a man should be able to control. Elizabeth Douglas had seen him cry once in his life. That was more than enough.
He had to go. He couldn’t stand here another moment, looking at her, wanting her, and knowing he could never have her.
It seemed he’d been looking up since the first day he’d seen her; it was time to look ahead.
Thom turned away, trying to hide the humiliation, hurt, and heartbreak that permeated every corner of his soul.
“Thommy, wait! Oh God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please don’t leave like this.”
He didn’t turn around. Grabbing his bag, he slung it over his shoulder and slid over the closest section of the parapet wall. He heard her voice above him as he climbed down, but not once did he look up.
He had his answer, and now he knew what he had to do.
It took a week longer than he intended, but a fortnight after Thom scaled the tower wall of Park Castle, he was putting the final coat of oil on his new sword.
He was about to slip it into the scabbard when Johnny stopped him. “Can I see it one more time?”
Thom’s mouth curved up on one side as he handed the gleaming blade to his brother. The lad was unusually strong like Thom and their father, and despite its weight, he lifted it easily with one hand to admire it in the beam of sunlight streaming through the small open shutter.
It was Shrove Sunday, and the brothers had returned to their cottage after mass for Thom to finish packing. Their father said he had to attend to some business at the castle.
“She’s a beauty,” Johnny said, taking his eyes off the long blade long enough to glance up at him. “It’s the finest work I’ve ever seen you do. Da was right. You could make swords for kings.”
Thom laughed for what felt like the first time in weeks before rumpling his brother’s shaggy, too-long hair. “I hardly think a king would be content with such a plain hilt of horn without a jewel or bit of gilding to be seen, but ’twill serve for a simple soldier.”
“Not for long,” Johnny replied with all the fierceness of a boy who had looked up to his older brother for fourteen years. “I know you will work your way up in the ranks quickly. It might have been faster if you’d kept enough of the coin to buy a decent horse.”
Thom made a face. Though he’d never trained seriously with a sword, it was riding that might prove the biggest barrier to his goal. He wanted to be a knight, and as had been pointed out to him all those years ago by the Douglases, knights needed to ride. “Aye, well, you know how I feel about horses.”
Johnny grinned—his older brother’s problems with horses (even when shoeing) was a source of great amusement to him—but then sobered. “Da is grateful, Thommy. Even if he doesn’t show it.”
Thom nodded. “I know.”
But his father was like him: stubborn and proud. He’d thought that Thom realizing he didn’t have a future with Lady Elizabeth would keep him here; he didn’t realize it would send him away.
