“Wait,” Lachlan began, his brow furrowing as he set himself up on his elbow and looked down at his mistress. “What–”
“Howcouldyou?” The words wrenched themselves from Brynne’s broken heart. From her verysoul. With an agonized cry, she spun on her heel and bolted out of the lodge. Picking up her skirts, she ran blindly, forgoing the marked path to plunge into long grass that slapped at her arms and legs. Somewhere behind her, she heard Lachlan calling her name, but she ignored him in her mad dash to escape what she’d seen. Never mind that it was already burned into her memory, never to be forgotten.
Without warning, the grass gave way to the sheer edge of a cliff. Below the rocky embankment, waves crashed against the shore and gulls flew amidst the surf, dodging in and out of the salty spray in a feat of aerial acrobatics.
Brynne’s feet went out from under her as she slid to a stop. Her breaths uneven and jagged, her pulse pounding in her ears, she collapsed to the ground. Would have laid right there with her face pressed to the cool soil had Lachlan not appeared behind her.
He scooped her up as if she weighed no more than a bag of goose down, and carried her away from the cliff to a series of gray boulders covered in moss and seemingly carved from the earth itself.
“Let go of me,” she demanded, clawing at his hands as if his arms were a steel trap and she were a wild animal hellbent on escape. “Don’ttouchme.”
He released her and stepped back with his hands raised, palms facing outwards. A strong wind whipped across the valley, sending his hair, unbound, across his face. He shoved it out of his eyes. Eyes that were as dark and haunted as she’d ever seen them.
“Bry, ye have tae listen–”
“I don’thaveto do anything,” she interrupted. Having reached the bottom of her despair, she was strangely…numb. A ship that had made it to the middle of a hurricane to bob listlessly amidst the waves. Not feeling. Not doing. Just floating in place while it waited for the next surge.
“Ye dinna see what ye thought ye did.”
“I saw you naked in bed with your mistress.” Her head tilted. “Was that not you?”
He gritted his teeth. “Aye, that was me. But Allison isna me mistress!”
“She was before,” Brynne pointed out matter-of-factly.
“Ye know that I ended things between us long before ye and I were married.”
“It didn’t appear as if things wereendedwhen you had your leg on her–”
“I realize what it looked like.” He pressed the heels of his hands to his temple. Squeezed. “I do. But I dinna know how or when she climbed intae bed with me. I swear it.”
“It is partially my fault, I suppose,” she mused, not bothering to give his pitiful excuse so much as a sliver of consideration. Ice had begun to seep into her veins. She welcomed the coldness of it; a frosty balm to soothe the burn of Lachlan’s betrayal. “You asked for my loyalty, but you never promised your own. I made an assumption that I shouldn’t have, and now I have to pay the price for my naiveté.”
Unbidden, she thought of the Dowager Countess of Crowley and what her chaperone had said on the night that Lachlan proposed.
“…at least you will have followed your heart. I shall pray that will be a comfort, when nothing else is.”
Yes, Brynne had followed her heart.
But there was no comfort to be found here.
“I am leaving,” she said evenly. “Today, if I can arrange transportation. Tomorrow at the latest.”
Some women might have stayed. To meekly abide by their husband’s command, regardless of the wrongs he’d committed. Or to fight for his affection like a stray cat begging for scraps. She would do neither. Her pride–and the bloody, shattered thing beating feebly inside of her chest–refused to allow it.
Lachlan stared blankly at her, as if she had announced that she’d decided to turn into a unicorn. “Ye canna justleave.”
“What possible reason do I have to stay?” she scoffed. “The children are gone, the castle is falling apart, and I am wed to an adulterer. An adulterer who is more loyal to these fields of–ofdirtthan he is to his own wife. You’re not married to me, Lachlan. You’re married to the damned distillery. There is nothing for me here.”
“I’mhere,” Lachlan said softly. His eyes, those gold-flecked orbs that she’d first fallen in love with under a sky filled with stars, pleaded with her to stay. He even held out his hand, fingertips stretched towards hers.
For a moment, she almost relented.
For a moment, she almost forgave the unforgivable.
And that frightened her so much, that she did the only thing she could think of.
She tried to hurt him as much as he had hurt her.
