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Which was worse?

To love someone and let them go because they couldn’t ever love you? Or to try to make a life with them, knowing their heart would always belong to someone else?

Yer gettin’ ahead of yerself Branwen Tara Patience Glanville. He’s made nae declaration, and neither has he spoken of a future together, let alone marriage.

She inhaled another lengthy, cleansing breath.

One thing at a time.

First things first: De La Beche. Le Sauvage. Then she and Bryston.

Tap. Tap-tap-tap. Tap.

Bryston knocked again.

“Comin’,” she called as she hurried across the scratched but clean wood floor to unlock the door.

He’d insisted it remain locked whenever she was in the chamber.

After opening the door, she stood aside for him to enter. He gave her one of his cocky grins as he took in her gown and hair. When he looked at her like that, smoldering interest in his eyes, she couldn’t help but believe he cared for her.

“Lass, ye are a vision. Ye put God’s glorious sunrises and sunsets to shame, ye do.” He winked and puffed out his chest in an exaggerated manner. “I shall be the envy of every man in France.” He shook his head, that blond mane of his brushing his shoulders. “Nae all of Europe.” He spread his arms wide. “The world.”

She wrinkled her nose at his obvious silly antics to put her at ease as she closed the door behind him. “Ye’d say that to anythin’ I wore as long as it wasna that creased and stained travesty I wore for over a week straight.”

In truth, she was heartily sick of that gown herself.

“Nae, ye ken that isna true.” His expression turned somber, and that light shone in his deep brown eyes that sent her pulse capering and the rest of her heating like a kettle simmering over an open fire. “Ye could wear rags, lass, and I’d think ye utterly exquisite.”

A flush of pleasure made her cheeks prickle with warmth. She grinned and hands on her hips, tossed her head. “That’s because my namesake was the daughter of the mythical King Llyr. Did ye ken she’s the Welsh goddess of love and beauty?”

“Och, ye dinna say?” He eyed her speculatively, a merry twinkle in his eyes. “Love and beauty? Disna seem fair to the other goddesses that ye should have two.”

This flirting with him was fun, neither of them daring to say yet what simmered in their hearts.

Please, God and all the divine powers. Dinna let me be mistaken about his feelin’s for me.

Bryston glanced around her chamber, taking in the neatly made bed, her other garments hanging from pegs on the wall, and the open window to let the fresh air in.

“Are ye ready?” he asked.

He wore a fine woolen dark blue jacket and matching waistcoat today. The same clothing he’d worn at the Earl of Montieth’s ball, if she weren’t mistaken. Though undeniably striking in the fancy attire, she preferred the ship’s captain in his usual long, leather doublet. That was the Bryston McPherson she’d come to know and love these past several days.

Her breath stuttered to a halt, and she dropped her focus to his boots lest he see the shocked realization that surely shone in her eyes.

She loved him.

How could that be true?

Shouldn’t it take weeks, even months, to fall in love?

Nae, Marjorie and Keane had fallen in love almost at first sight. In fact, she could count on two hands a number of Keane’s Highlander friends who’d lost their hearts to worthy women in a very short amount of time.

Once given, the heart of a Scot was faithful, loyal, and enduring.

“Branwen?” He gave her a quizzical look as she raised her eyes to his, afraid he’d see the truth reflected there.

“Aye, just let me collect my cloak,” she said, fashioning a benign smile.