The arbitrary cruelty of fate bludgeoned her airless.
What earthly reason could there be for her to love and be loved by two men when none of them would have what they wanted?
Once the tears started, her heart seemed an endless geyser of grief and love. She stifled her sobs in her pillow.
The air was socold and clean it hurt to pull it into his lungs. The gleam of the watch in his palm echoed the perfect circle of the moon above. Isaiah stamped his feet to ward off the chill.
Midnight was ten minutes away.
Suddenly he jerked backward, heart in his throat. Holy Mother of—the tree was on fire!
No. Christ.
It was lamplight. His hands were shaking, sending the beam of the lantern he was clutching dancing so fitfully over the leaves it looked like flames.
He was almost delirious from excruciatingly heightened awareness. He felt simultaneously like a madman and saner than he’d ever been.
He willed Isolde to emerge from the dark, pitching his senses for the sound of her footfall. For the huff of her breath. For the glow of her lamp.
He would take her into his arms. He would soothe her, and whisper, “Everything will be all right, forever. Thank you for coming. I love you.”
He imagined the sweet heat of her mouth when he kissed her again. The soft shape of her tucked into his side in the dark of the carriage as they hurtled through the dark toward Scotland. Toward forever.
By this time tomorrow, he would have made love to her in a coaching inn.
Desire lanced him so violently his breath seized and every muscle tensed.
The uproar when he was discovered missing would be nothing compared to the uproar when he returned from Scotland with a wife. It seemed not to matter. Inside his turmoil was a core of calm certainty, within which pulsed a tiny, dark exultation.
Jacob Eversea would have to live with knowing that Isolde would be sharing a bed with Isaiah Redmond for the rest of her life.
One of the horses whickered what sounded like a soft question:why are we here?
What would it do if he whickered back? He half-smiled.
Absently, he rested a soothing hand on its neck.
“Soon,” he promised it. “She’ll be here soon.”
He knew his message had been delivered to Isolde, because the footman—who went on horseback—told him he’d given it to the red-headed kitchen boy, and he’d waited at the kitchen door for the boy to return for the half crown Isaiah had donated to the cause. Isaiah had deliberately withheld the color of Dougal’s hair so he could test the footman’s honesty when he returned forhisshilling reward.
And so Isaiah waited. His bruised face stung in the cold.
The minutes bore on.
And on.
He postponed looking for as long as he could. But when he next glanced at his watch, it was a quarter past midnight.
And just like that, his beloved watch became his enemy. Because with every second it ticked off, the truth sank into him like the chill night air.
Until it supplanted hope entirely.
Until he knew definitively.
She wasn't coming.
For a few blessed moments, he felt nothing. Erased. Empty as if he’d never existed. Beyond panic, or terror, or anger or hope.
