“Just leave me alone.”
She reached to touch him.
Ewan wanted that touch so badly that for a moment, he couldn’t move.
He waited for it. Desperate. Needful.
But he had no right to that either.
He moved away from her.
“Ewan, please speak to me. Don’t push me away.”
Though it ruptured his heart, Ewan ignored her plea. He had to.
If he didn’t...
He brushed past Ryan roughly, and went to tend private matters in the forest.
Nora watched Ewan leave and felt a profound urge to follow after him and beat him with a branch until he shaped up and talked to her.
“He loves you.”
She blinked at Ryan’s voice. “What did you say?”
“He loves you, doesn’t he?”
“What makes you think that?”
Ryan sighed. “The expression on his face when he looks at you and the hatred in his eyes when he walked past me just now. I half expected him to throttle me.”
Nora gazed at the forest where Ewan had vanished. How she wished she could see inside his heart for a minute to find out how he felt about anything. “I know not what he feels. I only know he is a stubborn, aggravating man.”
“A stubborn, aggravating man that you’re in love with as well.”
She frowned at Ryan.
“Don’t bother lying, Nora,” he said gently. “I’ve known you every day of your life. There’s something about you that brightens whenever he’s near you.”
She scoffed at the very idea. “There is not.”
“Aye, but there is. You fair glow with it.” A muscle worked in Ryan’s jaw. “You never glow around me unless it’s your face turning red because you’re angry.”
“Then will you forget our betrothal?”
Ryan’s face hardened and when he met her gaze, the steely, determined look made her heart ache.
“I can’t, Nora. I’m in debt too deeply. Some of these men will kill me if I don’t pay what I owe. I’m sorry.”
She looked away as her heart broke a little more. “So am I, Ryan. So am I.”
It took them three days to make it to Lochlan’s keep. Ewan didn’t speak to her at all, even though Nora did everything she could to engage him in conversation.
He wouldn’t even look at her.
He acted as if she didn’t exist at all.
“Nay,” Catarina had said when she had told the gypsy of her feelings. “He acts as if the sight of you is more than he can bear. He knows Ryan has a claim on you and it’s tearing him apart.”
