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He couldn’t permit it.

Loyalty and devotion to another couldn’t be dismissed so summarily.

“I understand.” She presented her profile, but not before he saw the sheen of tears in her now pewter-gray eyes. “What ye had with Delphine was special. A once in a lifetime emotion. She was yer soulmate.”

“Branwen.” He touched her upper arm, but she jerked away as if burned by a blazing hot blade.

Only moments before, she’d cuddled into him, and now she sat rigid and radiating mortification and pain.

“Lass, I feel somethin powerful for ye. No’ what I felt for my wife, but ’tis deep and abidin’. I canna say for certain if ’tis love, even though I ken that is what ye wish me to tell ye. I ken ye’d have honesty between us.”

“Why propose then?”

Because I need ye. I dinna understand it.

She cocked her head, looking quite adorably like an inquisitive bird.

“Did ye think I’d jump at the chance to save my reputation? Or is it to escape Keane’s wrath, for we both ken he’ll be livid with ye. Or do ye simply want my body, and yer too honorable to satiate yer lust without exchangin’ vows first?” She skimmed a scornful gaze over him. “Nae likely the latter when ye know the madam of a whorehouse on a given name basis.”

Anger tempered each snapped word, and he didn’t blame her—couldn’t summon a morsel of offense.

However, waiting to ask her to be his wife wouldn’t have changed the facts.

A sigh filled with a torrent of regret and resignation whooshed from Bryston as he pushed away from her and maneuvered to the other side of the carriage once more. “Forgive me for speakin’ out of turn. I had nae right to ask ye.”

She didn’t respond but huddled further into her corner. “When do I return home?”

Well, he had his answer.

Why, then, did it feel like he’d been keelhauled? Flogged with a cat o’ nine tails?

“As soon as I ken for certain that Le Sauvage isna a threat to ye, lass.”

Possibly, she was safer with Keane at Trentwick now. Especially now that the spy who’d infiltrated the castle had rejoined Le Sauvage.

She folded her arms and elevated an eyebrow. “Och, then it seems to me, the wisest thing to do if ye want the cur captured and prosecuted for Delphine’s death is to let him think we are married. Willna he come after me to get to ye? Then ye can be done with the scunner, once and for all, and I can go home.”

Nae lass, I dinna want to lose ye.

Too late,his heart cried, mourning the loss already.