“You are not enough, Lachlan.” It was a testament to the depth of her own agony that she didn’t flinch when she saw the raw, vulnerable quiver of pain in his gaze.
Coverlet on the floor.
Sheets tossed carelessly over naked bodies.
Touching. Nuzzling. Kissing.
Her chin lifted a notch. Above it, her gaze was as frigid as the Arctic. “You will never be enough. And if you ever loved me at all, you will let me go.”
He did lether go. For six miserable months he threw himself into his work at the distillery, doing more in a single day than three men could in two. From sunrise to sunset, he dug posts for fencing and hung barbed wire (a particularly nasty American invention intended to keep out even the strongest of boars) until his palms were blistered and his fingers were bleeding.
Then when the workers headed for the pub, sweaty and stinking and ready to quench their thirst with a pint, he went to the castle and tackled another sort of job altogether.
It shamed him that he’d asked Brynne to live in this place. Having run feral through the halls since before he could remember, he was accustomed to the crumbling walls and the holes in the ceiling and the cobwebs in the corners. Hell, he couldn’t even see them anymore. Not until he made himself look at the dark, dingy rooms through the eyes of his wife. And felt a deep, burning embarrassment for having brought her here. For asking her to leave everyone and everything she knew behind, and then taking her to a place where rainwater was collected in buckets. On theinsideof the house.
He ought to consider himself fortunate that she hadn’t turned on her heel and fled back to London the first time she saw her new home. But she’d fought through it for as long as she was capable. Until she came up against a wall that, in her mind, was too hard to knock down and too high to climb. What other choice did she havebutto walk away?
After the initial wave of hurt and fury had subsided, he was able to understand that. To see it through her perspective. To acknowledge why she’d given up the fight.
And to realize that he never would.
Brynne had been strong for as long as she could. While he’d chased his own dreams at the sake of her comfort, she’d done her best to make a life for them here. A home for them here out of peeling plaster and scurrying mice and screaming children. Until it became too much. Until she had to lay down her proverbial sword. A sword that he’d since picked up, because now it was his turn. His turn to fight for both of them.
He’d given it six months and a stone of his own weight. Probably a pint of his own blood as well, if he counted all the times he’d accidentally sliced his flesh open on that damned wire. But now he was ready to reclaim what was his. To take back what he had lost and take control of what might be. Whatwouldbe, when he and Brynne were back together where they belonged.
If not for the bloody pigs and all that had followed after, they might be there already.
He arrived at Hawkridge Manor on the first night of yet another annual house party. His world may have stopped when Brynne left, but it was apparent that this world–this world of glamour and wealth and prestige–kept spinning no matter what…with Brynne at its center, once again playing her role as the perfect daughter, perfect hostess, perfect lady.
He’d dressed for the occasion in formal attire, even though his invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. Tricky, those Highland roads. No telling when a mail coach was going to turn left instead of right and find itself halfway back to Glasgow before the driver was any the wiser. Might as well dump the letters and start again at that point. Which was as reasonable an excuse as any to explain why he hadn’t received a fancy beige envelope with the Earl of Hawkridge’s wax seal.
Except when he tried to enter through the foyer and join the rest of the guests in the dining room where they were enjoying a seven-course meal, he was stopped by a portly fellow holding a paper list. A list, apparently, that Lachlan was not on.
“I am sorry, my lord, your name is not here,” said the servant. A footman, by the look of him. “If a name is not here, I am not allowed to admit them.”
“Give me that,” he growled, snatching the list.
The servant immediately paled and took a step back.
It wasn’t until Lachlan read to the bottom that he realized why.
Underneath a long row of names, neatly scrawled in Brynne’s own handwriting, was a simple, damning instruction.
Should he arrive, Lord Lachlan Campbell is not permitted inside under any circumstances.
She’d known, he thought with a surge of annoyance and sliver of grudging admiration. She’d known that he’d come for her. That there wasn’t a bloody thing on heaven and earth that would keep him away. And she had planned accordingly.
How sweet of the wee lass to believe that she’d succeed.
“Are ye tae stop me then?” he asked the footman whom he towered over by at least seven inches.
To his credit, the servant did not move from the doorway. “If I have to, my lord.” Then he lowered his voice. “Please don’t make me have to.”
“I’ll go without a quarrel,” said Lachlan, holding up his hands.
The servant smiled with relief. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Aye.” With that, he walked out the way he’d come in…but he had no intention of leaving. Instead, he waited, lurking in the bushes like some sort of besotted Romeo for Juliet to make her appearance. Excluding the part where they died at the end.
