When he didn’t make a move to undress, his friend stepped forward and started the process.
“Hey, hey!” Malcolm called out. “Cease!”
“Then do it yourself or I swear I will strip you to your bare arse and throw ye in the tub myself,” Gunn warned.
Malcolm had no doubt he could. His friend was huge. Broad as a barn. He owned an inn and a pub, and he himself saw to it that no trouble ever broke out.
“Fine. Get out,” he grumbled, tugging off his shirt.
“We’ll wait for ye in your study.”
And that’s where they were once he’d finished bathing and dressing in a clean set of clothes. He did feel better, but he wasn’t about to admit it to his friends.
“Well, well, well,” Alexander quipped, sniffing the air. “Look who no longer appears to be on the verge of death and no longer reeks like a distillery.”
“Have ye cleared your head?” Finlay asked.
His head pounded as if it were being constantly struck by a rock, but his thoughts were clear. He nodded.
“So, what’s your plan? Are ye going to stay here feeling sorry for yourself or are ye going to go to your lady?”
His friends were right. Could Lizzie blame him? Possibly. But he would never ken unless he confronted her. Could she turn him away and tell him that she never wanted to lay eyes upon him again?
She could. And it would shatter his already broken heart, but at least he would ken the truth. Her true feelings.
He wouldn’t be left wondering if he’d missed the opportunity to spend the rest of his life with the woman of his dreams.
“I need my horse,” he announced.
“Atta boy,” Alexander pounded him on his back. “We kenned ye’d come around.”
“And he’s saddled up and waiting for ye,” Finlay said with a smile.
“Go get her, brother. It will all work out in the end.” Gunn smacked him on the back.
“Thank ye,” Malcolm said quietly, heading toward the door. “If ye hadn’t pushed me, I’d still be drowning my sorrows. I may still once I talk to Lizzie. But at least I will ken for certain the reason why.”
With that, he slipped out the door, his friends hooting and hollering as they cheered him on. Their loud yells made his head hurt even more, but he didn’t care. As always, his friends had come through for him. Giving him the push that he kenned he needed to take but hadn’t dared.
He only hoped and prayed he wasn’t too late.
And that Lizzie wouldn’t turn him away.
*
“I need tosee him, Mary,” Lizzie groaned as she lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. The same thing she’d done almost every day since Malcolm had left.
He had taken over her mind, her thoughts. Every waking moment she thought about him. Every sleeping moment she dreamed about him.
“Miss,” Lizzie warned, “your parents willna allow it. Not after the last time that started this whole mess in the first place.”
“Do ye think he loves me?” she asked, changing the subject. She didn’t ken why she asked Mary the question. She already kenned the answer, but it was as if she were searching for validation from someone other than herself. She certainly couldn’t go to her parents and ask such a question.
Mary looked at her, sympathy shining in her eyes. “I cannot speak for the earl, Miss. But he seemed verra taken with ye before,” she paused searching for the right words, “before e’erything came to light.
Relations between them had been filled with tension after she’d found out the truth about Angus. She couldn’t believe they’d lied to her all this time. She felt like a fool. And she was still angry with them. It would have been so much easier if they’d told her what really happened surrounding his death.
Their lies forced Malcolm to leave. Above all else, that was what really angered her.
