As brooding in the corner of the ballroom wasn’t behavior fitting of a hostess, she went outside, using a door that circumvented the terrace and instead brought her out to the side lawn where she went through a grove of silver birch trees before reaching a path made from thin slabs of hand cut granite set on white pebbles.
When she and Weston were children, they’d often come here, to what they called the Stone Garden. So-named for the statue of their mother that resided in the center, it was a maze of stepping stones and boxwoods and hedges that towered far above her head.
The manor loomed in her wake, a beacon in the night that was visible for miles around. But in the stone garden, shadows prowled and darkness reigned. What did it say about her, Brynne wondered, that she felt more comfortable out here, alone, than surrounded by three dozen of her closest friends?
In the dim and the dark, she didn’t have to wear a smile as if it were a glittering necklace. Something to be shown off and admired, even as the stones remained hard to the touch. She didn’t have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. Unfortunately, the problem with that was she’d spent all of her life being molded by other people into whattheywanted her to be that she didn’t have a clear picture in her head of who she was.
Was she a future duchess, set to preside over thetonas an example for aspiring debutantes of what could happen if you minded your manners, followed all of the rules, and never challenged the status quo? Her perfect reputation maintained, but her heart left barren.
Was she a runaway bride who eloped to Scotland, leaving everything and everyone behind, because she’d made a vow a decade earlier over barley sticks and strawberry drops? Her name besmirched, but her heart content.
Or was she someone else entirely? Someone she’d yet to have the opportunity to meet.
An owl cried out as she stepped nimbly from one granite slab to the next, its eerie call causing the hairs at the nape of her neck to lift. Raising her skirts past her knees to keep the fabric from tearing on a rose bush’s sharp thorns, she went straight to the middle of the labyrinth where a bench sat in a swath of moonlight beside the marble statue of her mother.
People who had known the late Marchioness of Dorchester often remarked that Brynne, with her blonde hair and hazel eyes, was her living image. An observation that helped and hurt all at the same time, for it was something that she would have liked to have seen for herself. Instead, she was forced to rely upon this statue, and the painting above the mantel in the library, and the recollections of others.
They said that children needed their mother the most, and that was unequivocally true. But to Brynne’s way of thinking, a mother was not something you outgrew as you got older, like a shoe or a dress. No, a mother was meant to be there far past childhood. To mentor, and nurture, and lend a listening ear in times of trouble.
They also said you couldn’t miss what you never had, but she believed that to be falsehood as well. For as she sat on the bench and gazed up at the face of the woman who had brought her into the world before leaving it far too soon, Brynne felt the ache of loss as keenly as if she’d known her mother for her entire life. And she wished, desperately, that she had the ability to heed her counsel.
The crack of a stick, the scrape of a boot heel on stone, and Brynne knew she was no longer alone. Letting her skirts fall to her ankles, she rose from the bench and fixed her gaze on a large shadow moving straight towards her with a lithe, prowling grace.
“I knew you’d come.”
Chapter Thirteen
If Brynne hadbeen beautiful in the ballroom, she was stunning in the night. With moonlight in her hair and mist pooling at her feet, she really did resemble a fairy princess. And while he was more dragon than prince, Lachlan still intended to make her his bride.
He wanted her–hadwanted her, all these years past–with a fierceness that occasionally set him back onto his heels. The breadth of it, and the enormity, was unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. Which was fitting, as Brynne was unlike anyone he’d ever met before.
While their interactions had been painfully brief and stuttered, the impact of them was no less than if he would have spent every day in her company. Of this, he was certain.
Killed off long ago for their pelts and threat to livestock, wolves hadn’t roamed the Highlands for centuries. But when they did, it was rumored that the wild creatures–savage to both man and beast–mated for life. Some met their partner early, others later. But when a male chose his female, they said there was nothing that could separate them aside from eternal slumber. Even then, the one left behind never took another mate for as long as it lived. Such was the strength of their allegiance. Their dedication. Their devotion.
Brynne was Lachlan’s she-wolf.
And he’d loved her since he was sixteen.
That was not to say he hadn’t let his head be turned by a pretty face or two in the nearly ten years between then and now. He was a Scot, not a saint. But no matter who he’d used to sate his physical urges, his thoughts had never strayed far from a girl with golden hair and an angel’s face.
Finally, the day had arrived to claim the prize he’d waited almost a decade for. A prize he’d done his best to earn by sinking countless hours, money, and resources into a business venture that he hoped would give Brynne the life and the material possessions she was accustomed to. That she deserved. For the loneliness she’d endured. For the way she’d been dressed up and pranced about as if she were a show pony on display. For the pain she was hiding behind a vacant smile that no one ever seemed to notice except for him.
“I knew you’d come,” she said simply as she rose from the bench in a waterfall of pale blue satin. Her hair was swept off her temple in a crown of curls adorned with sapphire combs. A loose tendril had escaped and dangled on her shoulder, drawing attention to the creamy sea of flesh revealed above the daringly low cut of her bodice. The gown fit her long-limbed frame to perfection, with nary a stitch that needed to be taken or given. While other women at the ball sought to bring attention to themselves with ornate bows and oversized bustles, this dress, while somewhat plain in design, allowed Brynne’s natural beauty to take center stage. And oh, how she glowed.
His abdominal muscles clenching as desire rippled across his skin like the cool waft of a breeze on a hot summer day, he stopped and looked at the statue of a woman standing upon a marble pedestal who bore a striking resemblance to the one standing beside it.
“Yer mother?” he asked.
“Yes. My father had this built in her honor.” Brynne’s fingertips glided across the edge of the pedestal. “I like to come here when I’ve something important to think about. It’s foolish, but there’s a part of me that believes she can hear me when I sit next to her statue.”
“Not foolish,” he said. “There’s a cliff not far from Campbell Castle where the waves wash shells upon the shore. I go there tae gather the shells for the wee ones, and every time I set foot on that beach, I swear I feel the warmth of me mum’s smile on the back of me neck. She passed after birthing me, as yers did.”
Brynne’s lips parted. “You never told me that. I’m sorry, Lachlan. I…I assumed she was alive. I should have asked.”
He rolled her sympathy away with a shrug. “It’s not a pleasant thing tae have in common.”
“No, it’s not. But I am still sorry. Will you…will you sit with me?” She gestured at the bench. “We can speak freely here.”
