“If you will not leave of your own accord, then I shall have you thrown out.”
He snorted at that. “Ye and what army?”
“Why are youdoingthis?” she exclaimed, her slender shoulders heaving in visible frustration. “Everything was fine. We were fine. You didn’t have to come here. Stirring up old waters best left alone.”
“Ye call hiding away in a house that ye hate fine?” he asked.
“I am nothiding,” she scoffed. “Two days ago this house was filled with over two dozen people and if not for you, I’d already be on my way to London.”
“Ye can be standing in the middle of the room with a hundred people surrounding ye and be hiding, Bry. This isna the life ye wanted. Hosting house parties for yer brother, keeping yer gorgeous paintings tae yerself, pretending tae be the perfectionist that everyone expects ye tae be.”
“There’s nothing wrong with any of that!”
“There’s nothing right, either. Not for ye.” Couldn’t she see? Couldn’t she see that she’d flown right back into that gilded cage that they’d made for her when she was a girl? Except this time, she was the one who had closed the door. “Ye wanted more for yer life, Bry. Ye wanted tae travel, and see the world, and experience all it had tae offer.”
She pressed her lips together. “I can do that yet.”
No, he thought silently.Ye canna, love. Not without someone there tae break ye free.
“Once Weston is married,” she went on, “I have every intention of traveling. Not that it is any concern of yours.”
“And will ye continue tae live here? In this place that ye have always despised?” As he hated the white-walled mansion every bit as much as Brynne did, Lachlan’s gaze frosted over when he took a sharp glance around the room.
After his initial two-week tenure here, he’d returned the following summer as a temporary ward of the Earl of Dorchester. His father had recently married–again–and not wanting to overwhelm his young bride with a gaggle of rambunctious boys, had sent as many of them away as he could.
Lachlan was glad–even secretly overjoyed–to return to Hawkridge Manor. He’d thought of Brynne often, and couldn’t wait to see her again. But by the time he’d gotten there, she had already departed for Cheltenham Ladies’ College.
He had felt her absence keenly. And after the first month of being stuck in that frigid, Godforsaken tomb of an estate, he was already counting down the hours to when he’d be able to return to Campbell Castle.
It may have been in a state of perpetual disrepair with crack in the walls and spiders hanging from the ceiling and a wild pack of hounds gamboling through the halls at all hours of the day and night, but on its coldest day his childhood home was warmer than Hawkridge.
When he’d returned to the manor as an adult, he was surprised to find it exactly as it had been when he was a boy, despite having transferred to Weston’s management. Then, it was well-known that Brynne’s brother was just as emotionless as her father. And those who didn’t know his Bry as he did swept her with the same brush.
On more than one occasion, he’d heard her described as an ice queen. Beautiful, reserved, and utterly untouchable. But he knew better. He knew there was warmth there. Warmth, and humor, and an almost insatiable curiosity for life and all the wonders it contained.
Which was why he couldn’t stand seeing her here. Trapped in the very same place that had robbed her of a child’s unique freedom and inquisitiveness and joy.
She was a grown woman now.
He knew that better than anyone.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t still trapped.
Trapped by a society that benefited from her lack of independence.
Trapped by a series of outdated rules designed to suppress women and elevate men.
Trapped by a family that had neverquiteunderstood her.
Not even her own brother.
But Lachlan had. Lachlandid.Often better than he understood himself. He and Brynne…they were two stars in the same constellation. Two parts that helped to comprise the whole. And when one of them dimmed, they both lost their light.
“Ye need a home, Bry. Someplace tae put down yer roots. Someplace tae return to after yer travels. Someplace tae raise yer children.” He walked towards her then. He didn’t direct his legs; they moved of their own accord. He half-expected her to run, and he wouldn’t have blamed her if she did. But his Bry was stronger than that. She may have been as slim as a willow, but there was steel there.
Steel and softness.
Independence and uncertainty.
