“Ye think I took Innes as my wife to make you jealous?”
“I ken that’s what you did,” she claimed, her voice sharpening. “Dinnae play so innocent now. Ye never so much as cast a look in her direction before I rejected ye. It’s revenge. And ye’re cruel to play the girl in such a way. She doesnae ken any better.”
Innes was glad that neither of them could see her in that moment, because she was sure she would not have been able to keep the tears from falling from her eyes. Isobel spoke the truth, as cruel as it was, and the sooner she accepted it, the better.
“Aye,” Lachlan replied, after a long pause. “Aye, I might have taken her as my wife as revenge. But that’s no’ how I see her now.”
Isobel stared at him, confused. “Dinnae tell me you care for the lassie.”
Lachlan shook his head. “More than care for her.”
Isobel jerked back in surprise. “Ye love her?" she exclaimed, hardly seeming to care now if anyone else heard her. “Lachlan, do you hear yerself? You cannae love a girl like that, she’s-she’s nothing.”
“Never speak of my wife that way,” he warned her.
Innes’ head was spinning as she tried to keep up with the revelation.
Helovedher?
He really loved her?
He had not come here to tell Isobel that he wished to be with her but because he intended to scare her off from ever trying something like this again?
“Ye’re mad, Lachlan,” she told him, her words as sharp as a thistle. “And ye’ll regret ever choosing that creature over me.”
She whipped her cloak around and stormed back towards the inn. Her face was flushed with humiliation, and, mercifully, she seemed too distracted to pay attention to anything that was happening in the bushes beside her.
Innes’ mind was a tangle. Shock, hurt, and the knowledge that all of this had started because he had seen her as little more than a pawn. But now? Now things were different. She wasn’t sure if she could forgive what he had done before, but maybe now, if his feelings were real, she could see her way to?—
She slipped slightly, her foot crushing a twig beneath her and sending a loud snap through the air. Lachlan looked around at once, and, squinting into the darkness, he closed the distance between them.
“Gods above, Innes,” he muttered, stooping down to pull her to her feet. “What on earth are ye doing here? Did ye follow me?”
She hesitated. Could she admit that she had invaded his privacy the way she had? She was sure he would not have forgiven her such an affront. The only way to manage that, though, was by being honest with him.
“I… I did,” she admitted. “I read the note that Isobel sent to you, and I ken I shouldn’t have. But when I heard ye were getting yer horse to come down here, I thought… I thought…”
He peered down at her, genuine confusion on his face. “Ye thought that I would come here to be with Isobel again?” he asked.
She nodded. She hated herself for letting such thoughts worm their way into her head, but she could not trust that she would have been his first choice if he had been able to decide for himself.
“Do ye no’ trust me, Innes?” he demanded, cupping her face in his hand and pulling her towards him.
It was like he was trying to look into her soul, to sup up some deep part of her that would help him understand why she seemed to have such little faith in him.
“It’s not ye I dinnae trust, Lachlan,” she admitted, meeting his gaze steadily. “It’s… it’s myself.”
Her breath was unsteady as she tried to find the words.
“I ken that things have not always been simple between us,” she confessed. “And I doubt that they ever will be. But love makes me do mad things, Lachlan. You of all people should know that.”
“Ye love me?”
She could not tell whether he was more shocked or glad. His eyes were dark, hard to read in this light, so all she had to go on were her instincts. She nodded.
“Aye, Lachlan,” she murmured. “I heard you talking to Isobel, and I… I love you too.”
He kissed her then, the kind of kiss that knocked the air from her lungs and made her feel that everything else tonight must have been a dream. She drew herself close to him, letting her body find his, letting her breath mingle with his own as they confessed their true feelings to each other for the first time.
