Andrew laughed heartily at that. “Why, of course there is!” he admitted. “I would be lying if I said otherwise. But honestly, Cora, I think things have worked out well. You are a lovely, kind, and intelligent woman, and you will make a far better wife than Loraine. I must admit that I exercised very poor judgment with her, and I had a very lucky escape. So what do you say?”
Cora took a deep breath, feeling as though a trap was closing on her and there was no way out. “Yes, Andrew,” she answered in a dull voice. “Yes, I accept.”
“Thank you, Cora!” He lifted up her hands and kissed them. “You have made me a very happy man, and I promise that I will dedicate my life to making you the happiest woman alive!” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly and eagerly, but with no tenderness or finesse at all. Cora felt as though she had just kissed a wet fish; however, she told herself sternly to become accustomed to it. This would be her life from now on.
“The wedding will take place in two days,” Andrew announced happily.
“Why so quickly?” Cora asked, frowning.
“Why wait?” he asked, grinning.
Clyde was devastated. Nothing, apart from the death of his mother, had ever prepared him for the almost physical pain he was feeling now. He longed for Cora. He ached for her, and he knew that nothing would soothe him until she was back in his arms again. Reliving the moment that Cora’s horse had almost ridden him down over and over in his mind, he wished he had stepped into its path and let it kill him. He told himself that he was wallowing in self-pity but could not help wondering if Cora felt as bad as he did, because he was going through a living hell. The sight of Loraine sickened him, and he was making plans to send her back to her father under guard as soon as the weather improved.
As if to suit Clyde’s mood, it had begun to rain heavily that morning, turning the roads and meadows to quagmires, and making the journey to Loraine’s castle impossible. A carriage would surely become stuck in the clingy mud, and a journey on horseback by a lady like Loraine was unthinkable. So for the moment, he would have to endure her loathsome company for as long as was necessary before he could send her away. He prayed for sunshine.
Clyde thought of taking all his meals in his bedroom so that he would not have to endure Loraine’s face at mealtimes, but that would mean avoiding Minetta too, and he had no wish to do that. Besides, he thought mutinously, why should he allow the woman to dictate to him where he spent time in his own castle?
He had used all his time the next day hunting for Cora with ten of his most trusted guards, but after an exhaustive search that lasted from sunrise to sunset, he gave up for the night. He had asked every tenant farmer within a five-mile radius around Castle Kenmuir if they had seen Cora or heard word of her, but no one had. Without much hope, he even tried her own castle of Inchrigg, but as soon as he saw the drunken louts lounging at the gates, he knew that Cora would never have gone near it, let alone set foot in it.
Loraine came to hug him as soon as Clyde came to eat his dinner that evening. He had eaten hardly anything since the night before, and now he was ravenous, but as soon as he saw her advancing towards him, he held up his hands in a gesture of warning. “Do not touch me, Loraine,” he growled. “Do not touch me ever again.”
Loraine gasped. “Do not jest like that, Clyde!” she snapped. “It is not funny.”
“It was not meant to be, Loraine,” Clyde said murderously. “Because of you, the woman that I love has left. She has run away from the safety of Rosnablane into God knows what kind of danger, and it is all because of you. Because of you, she thought we were kissing—”
“But we were!” Loraine protested.
“No,youwere kissingme!” Clyde’s voice was almost a snarl. “You caused my love to leave me, and I do not even know if she is dead or alive! She saw us and assumed the worst, but this is my fault. I should have seen as soon as I met you what a vain, selfish, shallow creature you are. I was blinded by your beauty and your body. I did not fall in love with you. I fell in lust.”
“You took my virginity,” she pointed out. “But I had to beg you to do it. That could not have been lust.”
“I wanted to wait,” Clyde replied, “but in the end, I gave in to your charms becauseI was weak. But now I see why you did what you did. It was to keep me under obligation to you, because you could tell anyone who asked that I had ruined you for any other man. You could even say I raped you. You are a fiend, Loraine, and when you leave my home, you will never set foot in it again. I curse you. Now get out of my sight!”
I curse you.He was wishing death upon her, one of the vilest and vicious things one human being could wish on another. Loraine stumbled backward, but she was unable to take her eyes off Clyde’s blazing, hate-filled glare. At that moment, standing scant feet away from her with his feet planted wide apart on the stone flags and his arms akimbo, he seemed to loom as large as a colossus. Loraine gave a little squeal and ran away as fast as her legs would carry her.
“Thank God for that!” Minetta sighed as Loraine disappeared. “Did you really mean those words you said, Clyde? Some of them were hateful.”
“I meanteveryword,” Clyde growled. He drank a full glass of ale and poured himself another. “I cannot imagine why I ever thought I loved her, Minetta.”
“I could never imagine why either, Clyde,” Minetta remarked. “She was always cruel to the servants, and patronizing to me. She spent entirely too much time looking into the mirror too. You are well rid of her.”
Clyde nodded, staring into the fire. When he spoke, his voice was dreamy. “When I saw Cora for the first time, I was still besotted with Loraine, as you know. What you do not know is that our betrothal at that time was a sham. I needed to make Loraine jealous, and she needed a protector. The idea was to stay betrothed ’til Loraine came back to me, then break it off and I would marry Loraine. However, during the time we were together, we would introduce her to as many young men as possible so that she would find a husband afterwards. After a while, it became clear to me that Loraine was not coming back to me, so we made the betrothal real. I think I loved her even then, before Loraine returned to spoil everything, but I could never admit it to myself, and now it may be too late. She may be dead.”
Minetta looked at her brother’s downcast face, and said softly, “I do not believe that. You would know it in your heart. I think she is in a crofter’s cottage somewhere—”
“I have asked everyone I could reach,” he protested. “I had ten men with me. How could we have missed her?”
Minetta shrugged. “You cannot have searched every square inch, Clyde,” she pointed out.
“And she cannot have dissolved into thin air,” Clyde sighed. “I have to find her, Minetta. Even if, God forbid, I should only find her body, at least I would know one way or the other.”
“Do not say that!” Minetta slapped the flat of her hand on the table, her green eyes flashing with anger. “Neversay that! She may not be wed to you yet, but she is our family, my sister—if not by blood, then by the ties of friendship. I will come with you to look for her tomorrow even if the mud comes up to my horse’s knees. Do not forbid me, Brother, because I will defy you!”
“Such loyalty.” Clyde looked at the fierce little woman beside him; he smiled and nodded. “You may come with us, Minetta, but if I deem it too dangerous, you will turn back.”
“Of course, Clyde,” she lied.
17
