“And what if you’re wrong?”
“I’m nae wrong. I know the lad. He’s been lacking really close friends in his life, and now he’s found one, he’s loath tae risk losing her. He’s thinking marriage will keep her always by his side, and sae it will, but he’ll nae be happy wi‘ it in the end. And he’ll be finding that oout as soon as he tries tae bed her, and finds he’d rather be playing a bluidy game o’ whist wi‘ her instead.”
Neville couldn’t help it, he burst out laughing. “I swear, Archibald, the way you think sometimes boggles the mind. Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that what might have begun as friendship could have progressed to something much deeper? Not all love occurs immediately, you know. Occasionally it simply grows on you.”
Archie snorted. “Love, aye, but lust is either there or it isna, and he doesna lust after this lass. Now, what hope is there for a marriage that doesna start wi‘ good, healthy lust, eh? E’en the kind o’ love that grows on ye at least begins wi‘ lust. Wi’oout it, there’s nothing tae work wi’, nothing tae get any feelings at all started, you ken?”
Neville rolled his eyes. “I think when Ophelia Reid branded Duncan a barbarian, she would have been right on the mark if she’d named you instead. Feelings can change, Archibald. Friends can become lovers. Enemies can become friends and vice versa. If everything was writ in black and white as you seem to see it, this would be a very dull world indeed.”
Chapter Fifty-two
He might not have been allowed to see her. Duncan realized that after he arrived at Cottage by the Bow and Sabrina’s aunt Alice, who let him in, gave him a disapproving look because of the late hour. But tsking and mumbling that he wasn’t to stay long and should have come in the morning, she still took him through the dining room to a pair of French doors that led to a small garden and pointed him in that direction.
He found Sabrina there, bundled in her winter coat, sitting on a stone bench in a pool of moonlight. That was the only light available, since that side of the house was dark, but it was ample once his eyes adjusted to it. The garden was nearly barren of greenery at that time of year, but was probably quite pretty in summer.
He didn’t wonder why she chose to sit there in the midst of winter. He knew by now that she simply preferred to be outdoors, no matter the time of year, and apparently no matter the time of day.
“Are you no‘ cold, lass?” he asked as soon as he reached her.
She had glanced his way when he stepped outside, watched him as he walked toward her, all without a change in her expression. No curiosity about why he was there, no surprise, almost as if she’d been expecting him, despite the lateness of the hour.
“No, not a’tall,” she said simply.
“I’m thinking you’ll like the Highlands,” he remarked nonchalantly.
“Why do you think so?”
“Because most visitors, e’en Scots Lowlanders, dinna take the time tae really look at what’s around them in the high country, but you, you wouldna be rushing tae get back indoors where ‘tis warm, now would you?”
She smiled. “Probably not, but that can be said of many people and in most any place, even here. Look,” she added, pointing up. “A winter moon is a thing of beauty, no matter what country it appears in, but rarely does anyone stop to marvel at it.”
He chuckled. “Point taken, but I marvel that it ever appears in your cloudy English skies.”
“Do you still hate it here?”
“Nae,” he assured her. “There are some things English I’ve come tae love.”
Sabrina smiled to herself, but then she didn’t read any hidden meaning in that statement, was just glad that he was no longer so averse to his new home. She had left Summers Glade today with a lightened heart. It had nothing to do with herself, had everything to do with him. She was simply happy for him, that he had escaped a marriage he would have hated.
She didn’t move over when he sat down too close to her on the bench. She was comfortable with him because of their friendship. It was only when she began thinking of him as other than a friend that she got disturbed by his closeness. But those kinds of thoughts had been put to rest after her talk with Archibald, and for her own peace of mind, were going to stay buried.
He still had to get married. He would probably be going to London now to accomplish that. She rather thought that was why he was here, to tell her he would be leaving for a time. She was going to miss him, terribly, but she had to get used to seeing him only infrequently now. When he came back, he’d have a new wife . . .
“Are your aunts watching us from one of the windows?” he asked her suddenly.
“Quite possibly.”
“I dinna care, I’m still going tae kiss you.”
It was too unexpected. And so swiftly was she gathered in his embrace and his lips were covering hers that there was no time for a single thought before it was happening. He was kissing her, thoroughly, deeply. And the second the surprise left her, she realized she didn’t want to think, or analyze, or do anything other than revel in the joy of being in his arms once again.
It was so selfish of her. It was giving him the wrong impression. But she just couldn’t help herself. It was going to be the very last time she could touch him, taste him, dream for a few moments that he could be hers. She was going to have to insist that it never happen again. She’d stay friends with him, but not if he kept thrusting temptation at her. And he probably didn’t even mean to. This was probably just his way of sharing his relief with her, but—good God, did Highlanders really kiss their friends this way?
She had her answer in the next moment when he leaned back to gaze into her eyes and said simply, “Brina, lass, will you marry me?”
For the longest while she just stared at him, every one of her fanciful hopes realized in those few words of his. She had to savor the joy for a few moments more, to hold back reality and the pain, the pain that was going to rip her to shreds as soon as she answered him. But since she knew what her answer would be, what it had to be, the joy didn’t last long for her. She tried to retain it, but her emotions just wouldn’t cooperate, and if she didn’t get it over with quickly, she was going to start crying all over him.
She ought to explain, but in the end all she could get out was, “No.”
He wasn’t expecting that answer. His expression said as much, the surprise, the hurt he quickly masked, the stiffness that came next. But he wouldn’t leave it at that, either. He asked her, “Why not?”
It was incredible, how many difficult things she’d had to do where this man was concerned, and this was probably the worst, to try and hold back her own anguish long enough to make him understand. “You’re my friend, Duncan, the closest I’ve ever had, actually, and I have a great care for you as my friend. But to try and make more of what we feel than that would be a mistake.”
She should have said more, she really should have, but the words were starting to choke her. She stood up, turned her back toward him, before he sensed what she was really feeling. The moon helped, going away, leaving the garden in dark shadows. If he could see her face just then, he would know that she hadn’t meant a word of that. The tears, pouring down her cheeks now, unable to wait any longer, would tell him plain enough.
And with the pain was a rage, too, toward his grandfather. She hated Archibald just then, for warning her, for preparing her for this. Why couldn’t he have left her ignorant? Would it really have been so bad for her to marry Duncan? She would have loved him enough for the both of them. She could have made him a good wife.
But she was deceiving herself. Marriage needed more than just one side of it doing all the loving. They would have just lived together, as friends. That wasn’t a marriage. And eventually she would have come to resent it, too, that he didn’t really love her as she wanted to be loved.
She tried to dry her eyes before she faced him again, without him noticing that was what she was doing. She thought she succeeded. It didn’t matter. He’d silently gone.
Chapter Fifty-three
Duncan didn’t head straight home, when he knew his grandfathers would both pounce on him to hear if he was engaged again or not. He had no desire to discuss it. He went to the inn in Oxbow instead, or more exactly, to the tavern side of it, and bribing the innkeeper to stay open when the man tried to send him home, got quite thoroughly soused.
He did manage to find his way home eventually, though he fell off his horse twice, at least he was pretty sure it was twice, and might have stayed put on the cold ground if the animal didn’t repeatedly blow some very fetid hot air in his face. He suspected it might have been his own breath coming back at him, but that was neither here nor there, when he wasn’t in good enough condition to tell the difference.
Nor had he managed to avoid his grandfathers. They both still pounced on him the moment he stumbled through the front door. Mr. Jacobs had had sense enough to go to bed, but Neville and Archie, despite it being the middle of the night now, had both waited up for him.
Not together, though. Archie came out of the drawing room to help Duncan off the floor, where he managed somehow to land again. Neville was at the top of the stairs asking if he should fetch a footman to carry Duncan to bed.
“I can bluidy well heft the lad m’self,” Archie blustered indignantly.
“Then do it,” Neville called down.
Duncan, who would have much preferred to just sleep there on the floor in the hall, had a vague suspicion that Archie really was going to try to carry him up the stairs, stubborn Scot that he was, and no doubt break his back doing so. Which was why he drew on the last bit of steam in him and got up those stairs himself, pausing only long enough to raise a lopsided eyebrow at Neville, who was standing there in his bed robe holding a lamp aloft.
For the lifted eyebrow, he got back a very English sounding snort, which started him laughing. He hadn’t known that snorts could be differentiated by language, and found the knowledge quite amusing.
“Now tell me,” Neville was heard behind him as he careened down the upper hall in what he hoped was the direction of his bedroom. “Since you know him so well, is he foxed this time from celebrating or drowning his sorrows?”
“Shhh,” Archie hissed back. “Dinna be reminding him o‘ what he’s tried tae forget in drink.”
“Not celebrating then.” Neville sighed.
Duncan, wondering why they thought drink had any effect at all upon hearing, propped himself up against the nearest wall and said, “She wouldna have me, flatly refused tae marry me. Yet she returns my kisses as if she’d drag me tae her bed if she could. I dinna understand, Archie,” he complained, but then he glanced accusingly at Neville, asking him, “Is that some English peculiarity in your lasses here?”
“That they might want to drag you off to bed? Or that they still won’t marry you after they get you there?”
“Aye, that.”
Duncan suspected the old man wanted to laugh, but he managed to keep a straight face when he replied, “I wouldn’t know. Honestly haven’t had that many women who want to drag me off to their bed.”
Archie was less restrained, he did laugh—at Neville. “Now, why am I no‘ surprised?”
Which got Archie a glare, another snort, and nearly lost them the lamp, since Neville marched off with it. But he did come back with it after a moment, set it on the nearest hall table, and stiffly said, “For the lad, so he doesn’t break his neck. And we’ll discuss in the morning what sounds like a misunderstanding.”
The last was said with yet another glare in Archie’s direction, which instead of further amusing the old Scot, caused him to wince this time.
Duncan didn’t notice, demanded, “What misunderstanding?”
“The one you just complained about not understanding,” Neville replied.
That, of course, was much too cryptic for Duncan’s whisky-soaked brain to try to grasp, so he didn’t try. Instead he stumbled the last few feet to what looked like his bedroom, and pushing his way in, managed to do his falling this time on a soft bed. He’d worry tomorrow about whether it was his room. As long as no one was shouting at him to get out, his mind took the opportunity to stop functioning.
Waking the next afternoon—he managed to sleep that long—Duncan was treated to the reminiscent scene of finding someone sitting beside his bed again, waiting for him to awake. It was Archie this time, and although he was pretending to be asleep as well, Duncan knew better. The irony wasn’t lost on him, despite the wicked hammers pounding on his head. Both times had been after he’d drowned himself in drink.
Archie, cracking one eye at him, said pretty much the same thought. “Ye sloshed yerself when ye got engaged but didna want tae, now ye’ve done it again when ye did want tae, but couldna. Is the after pain worth it, lad, when the forgetting is only temporary?”
“Nae, no‘ worth it at all. And you’ll be regretting sitting there all night just tae ask me that, when your auld bones creak now for a week.”
“Let me worry aboot m’auld bones,” Archie replied as he sat up and stretched. That they both heard a few creaks as he did so caused him to softly chuckle.
Duncan rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed himself. He did so carefully, but it still didn’t help. Obviously he hadn’t slept quite long enough to get all the liquor out of his system yet. Next time he thought that drink would be the answer to his problems, he decided he’d just ask someone to shoot him instead.
Archie, watching him, said uncomfortably, “This should probably wait until yer feeling better, but m’conscience says otherwise.”
“If you mun scream at me, do it in a whisper,” Duncan replied.
Archie winced. “Any screaming gets done will probably be coming from ye.”
That got Duncan’s undivided attention. “Conscience, eh? Verra well, what’s bothering you?”
“That yer taking the lass’s rejection sae hard.”
Duncan raised a brow, but that hurt. He tried a scowl instead, but that hurt, too. He finally just put his head back in his hands and mumbled, “Was I tae rejoice that she doesna love me in the way I love her?”
“Yer sure then, that ye love her that way?”
“Would I have asked her tae wed me if I still saw her just as a friend?”
“Aye, I was afraid ye’d do just that, just tae get the marrying o’er wi‘.” Archie sighed. “But then the last word I had from ye on the matter was yer assurance that she was only a friend tae ye.”
“And so she was—then. The irony is, ‘twas your own insistence that men and women canna be true friends that started me looking at her differently. And I found I liked what I saw, verra much so. In fact, I had the devil’s own time, after that, keeping m’hands off o’ her.”
Archie closed his eyes with another sigh. “Then I hae some apologizing tae do. I’m afraid I may hae influenced her rejection o‘ ye.”
“Dinna be absurd,” Duncan scoffed. “You canna change how she feels.”
“Nae, but from the talk I had wi‘ her, I may hae convinced her tae no’ admit how she really feels.”
Duncan went very still as he stared at his grandfather. “What talk?”
“I thought I was doing the right thing—”
“What talk?”
“Last week, when I saw her in Oxbow. I warned her that ye might be coming tae her for marriage, if ye could get oout o‘ marrying the Reid lass, but that it’d be for the wrong reasons if ye did.”
“Bedamned, you told her I felt nothing more’n friendship for her?”
Archie cringed, though Duncan’s tone wasn’t as harsh as it sounded. “Aye, but then I was sure that is all it was, when ye had assured me o‘ just that, and I didna want tae see the tae o’ ye making a serious mistake in thinking ye could base a marriage on it.”
Duncan’s scowl suddenly turned into a grin when he realized, “Do you ken this means she really loves me?”
“Aye, that is a possibility.”
“More’n that. I’m realizing what
a fool I was no‘ tae listen tae my heart, when I know she has more’n a tepid care for me. I let a few words o’ denial destroy my common sense last night.”
“I’ll talk tae her, lad,” Archie said gruffly. “And tell her my mistake.”
“Nae.” Duncan shook his head with a smile. “She needs convincing that I really love her, and if I canna do that m’self, then I dinna deserve her.”
“Ye can forgive me then, for interfering?”
“Dinna fash yourself, Archie, I know you meant well. But for this devil damned headaching that’s going tae keep me from going tae her right this minute, aye, you can wallow in guilt a bit longer for your part in that.”
Archibald snorted and headed for the door. “If I’m going tae do any undignified wallowing, then ye might as well suffer the full brunt o‘ yer own foolishness,” he said, and slammed the door shut soundly, knowing full well he’d be leaving some serious groaning behind him, which he did.
Chapter Fifty-four
She couldn’t get to sleep, of course. Sabrina hadn’t thought she would, any more than she’d been able to last night. It was odd how a broken heart did that to you, made sure you fretted and analyzed and went through every imaginable “what if,” and in the end, still stayed broken, when if the heart would just have a bit of pity, the pain could be ignored for a brief time in sleep.
She tried reading this time, though, and had brought to bed a book that had put her to sleep numerous times before. It didn’t work. Had she really thought it would? When deep down she knew that she was probably going to lose even her friendship with Duncan now? How could what they had shared ever be the same, after all, when he had foolishly tried to make more of it, without having the real feelings that were necessary to make more of it?
He was deceiving himself, and in the process, had nearly deceived her as well, but only because she wanted to believe that he could love her. She did know better, and somehow had lost sight of the simple facts, that she wasn’t a great catch, wasn’t the type of woman who could turn men’s heads, didn’t possess the kind of beauty that could attract someone as handsome as Duncan was. She had tossed aside her common sense because of a few kisses and ...