Chapter Eleven

Brynne didn't know for how long she rode. When she finally made her way back to the stables, the sun was barely a glimmer in the sky and Lachlan was nowhere to be seen.

He did not make an appearance at dinner, or the next morning at breakfast.

By luncheon, she was tempted to think he'd left Hawkridge Manor altogether. Until she went to the gazebo, paint box in hand, and discovered him lounging over the railing, looking roguishly appealing in a white linen shirt and waistcoat, sans cravat, exposing the golden line of his throat and a hint of the auburn hair that dusted his muscular chest.

Ignoring the hitch of her own breath, she planted her heel in the grass and turned right back around. But before she'd gone more than two steps he called to her, and even though she hated herself for it, she was as helpless to resist the allure of that velvet brogue now as she'd been when they first met.

"Ye are as pretty as a daisy this morning. As bonny a lass as I've ever seen."

Ignoring his flattery, she placed her art supplies on a bench. "What do you want?"

"Tae have a civil discussion without ye running off tae England or galloping away on a horse." He sat down on the top step of the gazebo and patted the open space beside him. When her mouth flattened, he rolled his eyes. "We've shared a home and a bed. Surely we can sit next tae each other on a stair. I willna bite." His dimple flashed as he grinned. "Not tae hard, that is."

Wicked Scot, she thought with an uncomfortable surge of familiar affection.

"I'll be fine over here," she said primly, sweeping her skirts to the side as she sat next to her painting box which contained everything from turmeric powder to mix the deep hue of a sunset to brushes specifically carved to fit her hands and tipped with horsehair from her beloved pony, Peach, who had passed five years ago but whose spirit she felt whenever she worked on a canvas.

Peach had been a present from Weston.

The powders and pigments she used to mix her paints she'd bought herself.

And the set of brushes…the set of brushes was an engagement gift from Lachlan.

Or maybe they were a wedding present.

Things had happened with such unprecedented quickness, there'd hardly been a line distinguishing her from a fiancée to a bride. And then, just as fast, an estranged wife.

She'd worn so many crowns in such a short period time.

Was it any wonder that none had fit as she hoped they would?

"You should know that I've already sent word to my solicitor," she began. "I'll be traveling to London to meet with him in person at the end of the week."

Leaning forward, Lachlan balanced his chin on the heel of his hand. "And what is it ye're paying him for?"

"To find a rapid and relatively painless way to dissolve our marriage."

"We canna get a divorce," he said, almost smugly. "I've already had my solicitor look intae it, and we meet none of the standards."

"No, but we can apply to the courts for judicial separation."

As his smirk swiftly changed to a scowl, he sprang to his feet and began to pace while Brynne looked on, using every facial muscle she possessed to keep her expression from revealing the tumultuous waves of emotion that were crashing inside of her.

She knew, of course, that they'd have to eventually have this conversation.

She just hadn't expected it to be this soon…or in person. Where she could see the impact it had on him and feel the weight of it on her own shoulders. Pushing her down below the water where the past and the present were impossibly entwined. Down where she couldn't see the light. Down where she couldn't draw a full breath.

"What the devil does that mean?" he demanded. "Judicial separation. Sounds like a bluidy disease."

"Essentially, it is what we have been doing. But–but we'd be making it permanent." When her heart rate started to accelerate and her throat tightened, she reminded herself to breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth. When that didn't work–when it only made it worse–she staggered to her feet and turned blindly towards the house. "I…I need to lie down."

Lachlan's countenance darkened. "The hell ye do. We're going tae have this out, Bry. Right bluidy here and right bluidy now. No more excuses. No more running. We've both things we need tae say, and we're going tae say them."

"You–you don't understand," she gasped as spots danced in front of her eyes and the earth tilted beneath her feet. "I…I…"

" Brynne! " Lachlan's shout of alarm echoed in her ears as if from a great distance.

With a graceful spin, she started to slide bonelessly to the ground and would have collapsed in a heap of satin and crinoline if her husband hadn't been there to catch her, his strong arms sliding around her ribcage to support her against the hard, flat plane of his chest.

"Easy, little songbird," he murmured in her ear. "I've got ye."

He guided her into the gazebo and placed her in the shade, then flagged down a maid and, within minutes, a glass of cool lemonade was pressed into her trembling hands.

A few moments in the blessed quiet, a few sips of tart lemonade, and her vision began to clear, the awful pounding began to subside, the slippery taste of copper in the back of her mouth began to recede. As her internal balance was reasserted and the world righted itself, she saw that Lachlan was kneeling beside her, his hand on her knee and a line of worry etched between those thick warrior brows.

"Thank you," she said, managing a grateful, albeit weak smile.

"What happened? Are ye ill?" For an instant–just an instant–his gaze slipped to her belly and his face paled. "Are ye…?"

"No. No. I haven't…since we separated…that is to say…"

"I'm glad tae hear it. The idea of someone else touching ye…I wouldna be able tae bear it." His grip on her leg intensified, fingers curling possessively around her thigh. "Ye're me wife, Bry. No other man has a right tae ye but me, and I'd meet any who tried with pistols at dawn."

For some husbands–for most–such a statement would have been hyperbole. She found it hard to imagine any of her brother's friends being bothered enough by their wife's indiscretions to put down their cigar, let alone put their lives as risk. But then Lachlan had as much in common with those foppish dandies as a wild wolf did with a lazy house cat.

It was one of the reasons she'd fallen in love with him. Which also made it the cruelest of all ironies, for it was also one of the reasons she'd left.

"Have you…?" She wet her lips. Averted her gaze as a lump the size of a small boulder formed in her throat. A lump that had nothing to do with anxious mannerisms and everything to do with acknowledging the door she had left open behind her when she'd fled Campbell Castle. A door that she'd given up any right in knowing what was on the other side of it. Still, she had to ask. "With a mistress, or–or a paramour?"

"Nay," he said solemnly.

"You–you haven't?" She hadn't thought about it very much. Hadn't allowed herself to think about it. But there was no part of her that had expected Lachlan to remain celibate these past eighteen months.

Hoped, yes. She'd hoped. In the way that little girls hoped to be princesses and little boys hoped to battle dragons. But he was a passionate man with a healthy appetite for carnal delights...and she hadn't expected him to forsake pleasures of the flesh to remain faithful to the woman who had left him.

As she recalled–in detail–some of those delights, her cheeks pinkened. "Not even with–"

"Nay," he interceded. "I'd never do that tae ye, Bry. Then or now. When I took my vows, I meant them. Every word. I know what ye think ye saw that day–"

"It's not what I think I saw. It's what I saw."

"I wish I'd known that Allison was saying things in yer ear leading up tae that moment, or that she was far more conniving than I'd ever thought her capable of being. But that doesna change the fact that when I went tae sleep that night, I was the only one in the bed. I wanted ye there with me. I never once asked for Allison. Never encouraged her. Never wanted tae wake up beside her as I did." Placing his hand on Brynne's other knee, he crouched between her legs, her handsome Scot, and met her gaze unflinchingly. "She was a part of my past, it's true. I willna deny it. I never have. But ye , Bry. Ye have always been my future."

Brynne had heard all this before. But she had never been able to listen past the roaring in her ears.

No, that wasn't right.

She hadn't wanted to listen.

Because in listening, she'd have to admit that finding her husband in bed with another woman wasn't why she had left.

It'd just given her the excuse she'd already been searching for.

"I am sorry," she whispered. Of its own accord, her arm reached out, and Lachlan closed his eyes as he pressed his rough cheek into her smooth palm. "I saw…I saw what I wanted to see, and used it as a reason to break what was already breaking. But you did not deserve to be blamed for something you never did. And for that, I apologize."

It was the most honest she had been in a long time.

With Lachlan…and more importantly, with herself.

"I love ye, Bry." His eyes opened, and the light in them was fierce. "I love ye, and I want us tae be together. Tae hell with the solicitors and the courts and the bluidy Judas scepter."

"Judicial separation."

"Aye, that." He grabbed a fistful of her skirts, knuckles pressing into the tender inside of her thighs. "Dinna ye remember how it was between us?"

Yes, she remembered.

She remembered it all.