As he’d never seen her twisting her hands so anxiously before, it took him a moment to realize that she wasn’t angry anymore but upset. “I don’t feel like that anymore, all right? Don’t you see? I don’t want… I can’t…”
She stopped, tears filling her eyes.
Niall stilled. Suddenly he did see. The burning ache in his chest was only outweighed by the stabbing in his gut.
If Colin Campbell or any of those bastards were standing before him right now, he’d tear them apart with his bare hands. Limb by bloody limb.
“You don’t want me anymore?”
Just saying the words hurt. It hurt in a way he’d never imagined. In his chest. In his heart. In his soul. She’d cut him apart and left him in pieces.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Niall.”
And before he could stop her, she turned and fled across thebarmkintoward the castle.
He didn’t go after her. He slid to the ground and put his head in his hands, stunned by the unexpected blow and wondering at the unimaginable hell that she must have gone through to make her lose something that had been such a vital part of her. Her passion. Her passionfor him.
Jesus.
For the first time in his life, Niall wondered if there was a hurdle in front of him that might be too high to jump over.
* * *
He believed her now.
One look at Niall’s devastated face and Annie knew he understood the truth. She didn’t want him anymore. She didn’t any man after what those horrible men had done to her.
But if she thought she would get some kind of satisfaction from hurting him like that—hurting him in the same way he’d hurt her—she was wrong. Apparently, she was less coldhearted than she thought. Hurting him hadn’t made her feel any better; it made her feel worse.
A lot worse.
She’d just wanted him to understand that she meant what she said about it being over. Now he did.
If only she could stop picturing his face. She might as well have taken a sword and cut him off at the knees. The effect would have been the same. His face had drained. The brash confidence and warrior’s arrogance of a man who had always been admired by men and women alike was stripped away. He’d looked shattered. Destroyed. As if she’d just knocked down the very foundation that he’d been standing on.
It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? For him to leave her alone, to move on the way that she had.
Then why did she feel so… awful? Almost ill. As if her stomach had been tied in thousands of knots and was being pulled in multiple directions.
She half expected to see him ride out of the castle gate and never look back. If she looked out the window in her tower room more than a few—dozen—times that day, that was why.
She wondered if she might have missed his departure when he didn’t appear for the midday meal, but when her brother caught her staring at the place that Niall usually occupied at the table among her brother’s guardsmen, he not very casually mentioned that Niall had gone to town on an errand.
The nearest town, Balquhidder, was about seven miles away, so she assumed he wouldn’t be gone long. She refrained from asking why, although her curiosity was killing her.
Patrick clearly suspected her interest, but his infuriating smile suggested that he’d make her ask before telling her.
She gritted her teeth.Brothers!
She tried the usual things to keep herself busy—reading a book, working in the garden, helping with baby Iain—but her mind kept drifting back to that morning.
Something was niggling at her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what. Somehow—probably not by mistake—she found herself sitting next to Alys while the baby napped in the antechamber of Lizzie and Patrick’s solar. Her sister by marriage was in the kitchens going over the weekly menu with the cook.
They sat in silence for a while before Alys ventured, “Is something troubling you, lass? You seem distracted.”
The maidservant’s knowing gaze shot to the embroidery Annie was supposed to be working on that sat untouched in her lap.
Annie flushed and nodded.
