She turned from him then, setting the gown down with too much precision, as though careful movement were all that kept her from breaking under the strain of it.
“That is all very prettily said,” she answered, “but I have heard enough of what men dae fer reasons that have naught tae dae with kindness.”
He closed his eyes for the briefest instant. Her words were not wild. They were not unjust. That was the worst of it. They made perfect sense.
When he looked at her again, she had resumed packing, though her hands were unsteady now. He could see that every fold was too sharp and every motion too quick.
Duncan watched her for one helpless second more, then crossed farther into the room, the sight of her gathering her belongings with such determination stirring within him a misery he could scarcely master. The late light touched the loose strands of her hair, the slope of her cheek and the trembling line of her mouth, and he thought, with a force so sudden it left him almost breathless anew, that if she left him now, it would not be only her presence he lost, but the only future he had desired for himself.
“Elaina,” he said again with all the steadiness he could summon, “ye must hear me.”
She did not so much as look at him when she answered. “There is naething left tae say.”
The words were delivered with a composure more dreadful than anger. Had she wept, had she raised her voice, had she reproached him with all the bitterness he knew he deserved, he might have borne it better. But this effort at distance from a woman who, only hours before, had placed her heart so trustingly in his keeping went to him with intolerable force.
Duncan stood very still. He saw, with painful clarity, that argument would only harden her further. Explanation, offered here and now, would sound to her like excuse. She had suffered too much already at the hands of men who explained their necessities while asking her to surrender her freedom to them. If he pressed her now, he might lose even the chance to be heard.
At length he spoke with more restraint than ease. “Then I will ask only one thing of ye before ye go.”
Her hands paused over the open case, though she did not turn.
He took a breath. “One last favor.”
That made her look at him, though wariness rather than softness met his gaze. “A favor?”
“Aye.” His voice had lowered, and with it came a gravity she could not mistake. “There is something of great importance that I wish tae show ye. I only ask that ye meet me at the observatory before dinner, and hear me out.”
She said nothing. The quiet in the chamber deepened. From somewhere beyond the window came the faint cry of rooks settling in the trees, and the late light, now beginning to turn from gold to amber, lay across the floor in long quiet bands. Duncan felt, with miserable distinctness, how much depended upon her answer.
He went on, more softly now. “I will nae keep ye by force. I would sooner die than dae that.” The words came from him with a plainness that admitted no ornament. “Come tae me there, listen tae what I have tae say, and afterwards, if ye still wish tae leave, ye shall be free tae go, and nay one will stop ye.”
A flicker passed across her face at that, though whether it was surprise, disbelief, or pain, he could not tell.
He wished, in that moment, to go to her, to take her hands, to beg, to kneel if such humiliation would help him, but he knew instinctively that any greater display would ruin him entirely in her eyes. She had to choose of her own will, or not at all.
“Before dinner,” he repeated quietly. “That is all I ask.”
For a moment she only looked at him, with her heart hidden once more behind pride and injury. At last, she inclined her head, though without promise in her manner.
“I shall consider it,” she told him.
It was not an encouragement, yet neither was it refusal.
Duncan bowed his head slightly, as though she had granted him far more than he had any right to expect. “That is enough.”
He did not trust himself to remain longer. If he stayed, he might say too much, or worse, not enough. Therefore, he withdrew, though every instinct in him rebelled against leaving her amidst the visible preparations for her departure.
When he reached the door, he paused with his hand upon the latch and looked back once. She had already turned away from him.
The sight of it followed him out like a wound.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Elaina went to the observatory because she had given her word, and because some part of her, which was foolish and wounded, still too tender where Duncan was concerned, could not bear to leave without hearing what he wished to say.
Yet she climbed the narrow stairs with a heavy heart and the fixed determination that, once this meeting was done, she would go. When she stepped into the observatory, the sky beyond the tall arched windows was steeped in a deep and burning orange, and the last light of the sun was already spilling over the hills and catching the old stone in a glow at once golden and melancholy.
Duncan was already there.
