Both Douglas and Jo had been eyeing Thom uncertainly ever since he’d walked into the building, as if expecting him to do something rash. Jo’s gaze he couldn’t meet—the pity would be too much to bear—but Douglas’s... Douglas’s he met full on. Thom had had years of holding his tongue and perfecting stony indifference, and he used it now to pretend none of this mattered. To pretend that every minute he was forced to stand here didn’t feel like his skin was being flayed off and nails were being driven deeper and deeper into his bones.
He’d lost her. He’d fought for her, and it hadn’t made a damned bit of difference.
But their fears were for naught. Thom wasn’t going to do anything rash. He wasn’t going to do a damned thing but sit here and watch.
He’d done everything he could last night.
As hurt and angry as Thom had been after his middle-of-the-night confrontation with Elizabeth, there stillhad been a part of him that didn’t think she’d actually go through with it. A part that thought she would wake up and suddenly realize that she loved him enough to stand down her demons and jump, trusting that he would always catch her. That she could put her faith in him. That no matter how low his birth or the rank that separated them, he would do whatever it took to give her a good life and make her happy.
But standing there, hearing her say the vows that would bind her to another man, seeing her hold out her hand for him to slip on the betrothal ring, Thom knew he was as much a deluded fool as Lady Marjorie had called him. Worse, a deludednaivefool.
He’d thought that once she realized she loved him, everything else would fall into place. He’d thought love would be enough. That it would make up for a few castles, fine jewels, and low birth.
But he’d been wrong. Very wrong. With each damning word, with each torturous moment of this farce that passed, she was showing him exactly what was important to her.
And it wasn’t him.
He held out a flicker of hope until the last minute. But when Randolph lowered his head and touched his lips to hers in yet the second kiss Thom had been forced to witness, a kiss that sealed the bargain between them, it was the final betrayal—the final act that cut her out of his heart forever.
Hewouldhave given her everything. Maybe it was easy to say when he didn’t have the stake she did, but it didn’t make it any less true.
But it hadn’t been enough.
The flicker was extinguished for the last time. Inside he went cold, dark, and empty. There was nothing left of the love he’d once felt for her. She was no longer his; she belonged to another man.
He couldn’t even hate her. He understood why she’d done what she did. To just about everyone in this room, she had made the right decision. Choosing him was the “wrong” one. But it didn’t make it any easier to bear.
He thought she would love him enough to defy society’s dictates and her brother’s wishes. He thought she would give up the promise of great wealth for a more modest future. He thought she would fight for him as he would have for her. He thought that the strong, spirited girl he’d fallen in love with would face the demons of her past, not hide from them.
But maybe he’d asked for too much. Maybe it had been unrealistic—naive—to expect that she’d give everything up when all he had to offer her was himself. He wasn’t even a knight yet.
But in the ashes of what remained of his heart, a sense of finality emerged. To hell with her. If she didn’t love him enough to fight for him, if she couldn’t see that the worth of a man did not lie in bags of gold, castles, or titles, it was her loss.
MacKay and Sutherland tried to make him leave, but he refused. He would do this, damn it. All of it. So when the Guard finally filed before the high table during the long meal to wish the happy couple congratulations, Thom was among them.
He didn’t flinch, didn’t steel himself, and didn’t avoid meeting her gaze. He bowed before her, and with all sincerity wished her happiness. “I hope you find everything you ever wanted.”
She gazed up at him, pale and stricken, obviously not knowing what to say or do. Finally she stuttered, “Th-th-thank you.”
He would have moved on and left it at that if he hadn’t glanced down and seen the thin edge of brass under her sleeve.
His muscles went so rigid they might have turned to ice. For one maddening heartbeat he wanted to reach down, rip it off her wrist, and throw it into the damned fire behind them.
She must have sensed the danger, because she inhaled a gasp and wrapped her hand around her wrist.
But she needn’t have been alarmed. As quickly as the flash of rage had appeared, it fled. His expression was perfectly impassive as he looked her in the eye and said, “I think you should probably remove that now.”
Before she could respond, MacKay had shuffled him forward.
As soon as they were out of earshot, the big Highlander slapped his hand on Thom’s back and said grimly, “I think that’s enough of a flogging for tonight. It’s time to find that help.”
Help turned out to be amber liquid that burned like fire as it went down his throat. For the first time in his life Thom drank himself to oblivion. MacKay and Sutherland—and maybe a few others (his recollections were hazy)—got him good and drunk.
But he did remember one thing. It had been some kind of contest—the Guardsmen were always challenging each other over something. Thom recalled looking up from his flagon ofuisge beathato see a blade flying over his head. It stuck in the waddle-and-daub wall of the alehouse the men had taken him to. Another dagger had followed... and another. Apparently they were trying to strike a mark and playing a game of who could get closer. But that wasn’t what mattered, for an idea had penetrated the drunken haze.
MacKay was right. The drink did help—at least until Thom woke up. But by then, he knew what he had to do.
23
