Lachlan grunted. “Tavish and Eara need tae start learning how tae sleep through the night.”
Easy for him to say, as he wasn’t the one constantly being awoken by their cries.
“What theyneedis their mother,” she corrected. “Has there been any word from Lady Heather on when she might return for them? Or your father, for that matter? They’re his children as much as they are hers. I know you only mean to do well by all of your brothers and Eara, but–”
“Canna we discuss this in the morning?” Dipping his head, he took her nipple into his mouth through the thin fabric of her nightdress as his fingers skimmed beneath her hemline and along the inside of her quivering thigh to where her curls were slick with moisture.
“Lachlan…” she groaned, exasperation at his evasiveness warring with the sizzling licks of desire rapidly turning her flesh to flame.
“Aye?” he grinned, lifting his head for the fraction of an instant before he began to kiss his way down her navel and across her hip. As his tongue parted her curls and sipped the nectar within, she abandoned herself to the inevitable thrall of their passion.
Brynne had never partaken in opium, but if she ever did, she imagined it would be like this. A heavy velvet curtain falling around her, drowning out the noise of her doubts, and worries, and frustrations until the only thing left was pure, unadulterated pleasure.
This was what kept her from sinking.
This was what kept her nails dug into a board floating aimlessly amidst the waves.
She wasn’t drowning.
Not yet.
But neither was she swimming.
And if she did dare to let go of that board…would she return to a ship that was on the brink of disappearing, or retreat to the safety of the shore?
When Brynne wokethe next day, the rain had ceased and Lachlan was gone. She was pleasantly surprised by the first–itwasspring in Scotland, when rain was as natural as breathing–but felt an ache of disappointment at the second…followed swiftly by a sharp twinge of guilt.
She didn’t want to be selfish. Which she would be, if she required all of Lachlan’s time to be lavished upon her. But surely she was allowedsomeof it. At least more than she’d been getting, which was an hour of blissful heat in the middle of the night…and a cold bed come morning.
She’d gone to the distillery. Seen the fields for herself. The vastness of them, and the difficulty of the task her husband had chosen to undertake. For that reason, she knew that his inattentiveness wasn’t born of maliciousness, but rather distraction. Which, in some ways, made it worse. In ranking of importance, she was above food–there were times Lachlan hardly remembered to eat–and below barley seeds. But she hadn’t come here to trade one type of loneliness for another. That wasn’t the life promised to her. She and Lachlan were supposed to bepartners. With no half of them greater or more important than the whole.
If she was going to be set aside on a shelf for the sake of convenience, she’d rather it be at Hawkridge Manor where at least the roof didn’t leak and she could put her hands in her pockets without fear of encountering something furry or slimy.
Things needed to change. Thingsweregoing to change, she thought with a renewed sense of determination as she donned a practical cotton dress and sturdy leather shoes capable of withstanding the quagmire of mud that surrounded the castle. Becauseshewas going to change them.
After she changed the twins’ nappies, that is.
Something more thanthe weather had shifted over the past few weeks. Lachlan felt it as keenly as the wind in his hair and the loamy soil beneath his feet. While the air had gradually warmed and the trees had begun to bloom, a noticeable chill had overtaken the castle.
And it was emanating from Brynne.
Admittedly, the first five months of their marriage hadn’t been nearly as easy nor carefree as he’d anticipated. With planting season upon him and the entire fate of the distillery hanging in the balance–if the barley and wheat didn’t take, there’d be no grains to ferment to make whisky–he had practically been living in the small lodge on the other side of the hill. Trudging home at the end of a long day to eat, bathe, and collapse into bed beside a wife that was already sleeping.
Sometimes, he didn’t even make it that far.
Then there was the state of Campbell Castle itself. When it was only him and his brothers, he’d known that the grand old lady was in need of repairs…but seeing the shock in Brynne’s gaze as their carriage had rounded the turn and the full scope of the castle had come into view–leaning towers, cracked windows, entire sections of roof clumsily patched with cheap tin shingles–he’d been forced to open his eyes to the fact that a complete restoration was needed. Which he’d be able to afford…once the distillery turned a profit.
It was a vicious circle. The faster it spun, the further he and Brynne were pushed apart. Sometimes it seemed as if she was all the way back in London…or she waswishingthat she was in London, which was even worse. Not that he blamed her. Why would she want to be here, in the mud and the muck, when she could be sailing about a ballroom without a care in the world?
In his desperate desire to have her, he hadn’t fully stopped to consider what the devil he was going to do with her once he did. The truth…the hard, difficult, unavoidable truth…was that he should have waited. A year, two, even three, and he’d be able to provide her with the life she was accustomed to. The life shedeserved. But he’d run when he should have walked, and there was nothing to be done about it now but to keeping moving.
Well, almost nothing.
“I sent a firmly worded letter tae me dear stepmother,” he informed Brynne as they engaged in a rare walk together through the orchards that wrapped around the edge of the fields where he and a crew of lads from the village had finished planting another seven acres of barley just that morning. “She and me father will be here tae collect the hellions before the week is out, and take them tae Kintore Manor.”
Rather like the state of the castle, he’d vastly underestimated the sheer wildness of his siblings. From Callum to baby Eara and every brother in between, they were no more housebroken than a litter of wolf pups. He’d believed he was doing them a service by letting them roam the grounds without rules or regulations to abide by, both of which he had despised whenhewas a boy, but it was clear they’d benefit from more structure than he was capable of providing them at Campbell Castle.
Brynne stopped short. “You’re sending them away? All of them?”
