Chapter Twelve

Two Years Ago

Hawkridge Manor

The Weston's Annual House party

"Lord Campbell." Struggling to keep her quiet thrill of delight at seeing Lachlan contained, Brynne swept the voluminous skirts of her gown out to the side in an elegant curtsy as he approached.

The house party commenced tomorrow, which meant tonight was the grand ball when everyone turned out in their best and were given one last opportunity to rub elbows and make connections and lend an ear to all of the relevant gossip currently making the rounds before they descended upon London for the Season.

For the last three weeks Brynne had rested on pins and needles as she waited like some sort of forlorn lover for Lachlan to appear. With every day that passed and he did not arrive, her disappointment grew, creating a cloud of melancholy that followed after her wherever she went, like mists rolling out across the moor.

She'd not seen him for nearly a year, and even then only in passing. Another chance meeting in the park, but she had been in the company of a suitor whose name she no longer remembered and Lachlan had been escorting a bright-eyed woman with glossy black hair whose brogue had mimicked his own.

How jealous Brynne was!

Lachlan, too, if the murderous glare he'd cast upon Lord- Only-Talked-About-Trout-Fishing was any indication.

They'd exchanged a few words. Hardly more than a sentence. And then he was gone, taking the woman–Miss Allison Adair, a name Brynne was not soon to forget–along with him.

She'd been furious.

Sad, as well.

Lachlan hadn't made her any promises after their kiss by the stream. Nor had she asked him to. Because they both knew, without needing to put it into words, that they couldn't be together. That their worlds were simply too different. But that hadn't lessened the hurt of seeing him with someone else. Of realizing that he would soon go on to marry, and raise a family, and their encounters–however brief and spread out they were now–might eventually stop altogether.

Then the first letter arrived. And the second. And the third. For the remainder of the Season, she and Lachlan had corresponded on a weekly basis, pouring out all the thoughts and musings and dreams onto parchment that Society prevented them from sharing in public.

She told Lachlan that she was gathering the courage to ask her father if she could spend the next six months training at the école des Beaux-Arts in Paris, one of the finest art academies in the entire world.

He'd shared with her that he was attempting to rebuild his great-great-grandfather's distillery, and had even gone so far as to line up a meeting with an important investor, which was why he'd come to London…and why he'd been spending so much of his time in Scotland.

Even after he returned to Glenavon–investor's money in hand–the letters kept coming. When all was said and done, Brynne had all but worn a trench in the middle of the drive from running out every day to greet the post rider.

And now he was here.

Six feet of tall, rugged Scot standing close enough for her to reach out and touch.

When her fingers tingled, she discreetly reached behind her back and gave herself a hard pinch.

"Lady Geiringer." Politely referring to the brunette standing to her left side with whom she'd been idly conversing before she caught sight of Lachlan, she set about making proper introductions. It was either fall back upon her manners, or fall forward into Lachlan's arms. And as tempting as that was, she couldn't even begin to imagine the scene and the scandal it would cause. "This is…an old family friend, Lord Lachlan Campbell of Glenavon. Lord Campbell, may I introduce you to Lady Geiringer. We attended Cheltenham Ladies' College together."

Lachlan, magnificent in a black tailcoat that outlined the broad set of his shoulders and a satin vest in emerald green that brought out the gold in his eyes, slanted her an amused glance. "I was under the impression that all of yer schoolmates were self-absorbed harpies more concerned with finding a wealthy husband than learning anything of substance."

"That was exceptionally rude," Brynne chided gently as Lady Geiringer gave a huff and walked away. Although she couldn't deny his statement held merit. For while they maintained the appearance of civility, it wasn't so long ago that Brynne had sat in the library at Cheltenham Ladies' College, hiding her red face in the pages of a book, while Lady Geiringer and her gaggle of…well, harpies was as good a word as any…snickered and sneered and pointed from the doorway.

"Social misfit" was the term they'd used to describe the awkward, shyly withdrawn daughter of the Marquess of Dorchester. Among other, less kind monikers. Brynne had tried to fit in. But while Weston had met some of his best mates while away at academy, including Lachlan, she found herself floundering in a pool of more worldly, more experienced girls who hadn't spent the better part of their young lives sequestered away in the country.

It was all water under the bridge at this point. If nothing else, her time at Cheltenham Ladies' College had taught her the value of appearance. How apt High Society was to turn an icy shoulder if you didn't meet their expectations…and what it felt like to be left out in the cold while everyone else celebrated in the warmth.

As that terrible sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach as her peers laughed at her behind her back wasn't a feeling she cared to replicate ever again, Brynne had taken great pains to mold herself into someone who was never left out of anything.

Instead of being awkward and shy, she was renowned for her elegance and charm. Instead of being an easy target for mockery and malice, she was considered to be one of the ton's premiere hostesses. Women wanted to be her. Men wanted to marry her. And if she constantly worried about falling off the tightrope of perfunctory perfection that she'd made for herself, it was a small price to pay for the adoration and acceptance heaped upon her.

The two things her father's money could not purchase…and he was incapable of giving freely.

"She is not going to talk to me for the rest of the evening," Brynne predicted as she watched Lady Geiringer weave her way through the crowd, disgruntled steam all but pouring out of her ears.

"Aye." Candlelight gleamed in Lachlan's hair as he leaned closer, turning the barely tamed mane from auburn to a burnished copper that her hands itched to sink into. "But it worked, didna it?"

"What…what were you hoping to achieve?" She gasped as he angled his body to shield her from prying eyes while he ran the tip of his finger up the length of her arm, lingering on the inside of her elbow where her pulse fluttered with the speed of a butterfly's wing. "And where have you been? I expected you weeks ago."

"There was a setback with the distillery. And I sent Lady Geiringer along so that I could have ye all tae meself. I'm a greedy man, Lady Brynne, and I dinna like tae share yer attention." He slowly trailed his knuckles along the rounded edge of her shoulder, and her entire body quivered when his gloveless hand met the exposed skin above the lace-trimmed bodice of her gown. "How is it ye are more beautiful every time I see ye?" he said huskily.

"I…I…" How was it, she wondered dazedly, that some of England's most renowned rogues had tried–and failed–to seduce her with flattery and flirtation, yet all it took was a single touch from Lachlan and her knees turned to jelly?

"Dance with me," he said, his mouth a hairsbreadth from her ear.

"I've promised my next dance to Lord–"

Under the guise of sharing an intimate secret, he nipped her earlobe with his teeth, then soothed the bite with his tongue. "Dance with me."

"All right," she said helplessly, and his eyes held a glint of possessive triumph as he led her to the middle of the ballroom floor where painted wooden tiles had been set up in a large rectangle to accommodate the couples spinning past in a myriad of colorful silks and satin.

Brynne and Lachlan hadn't waltzed together for four years; not since Grotonborough House. But despite all of that time gone by–or perhaps because of it–they moved together in perfect unison, anticipating each other's movements as if they were of the same mind.

When the pointed heel of her shoe caught on the hem of her dress, he was there to steady her before she ever had the chance to stumble. When he would have inadvertently backed into the Earl of Chadwick, she guided him out of the way with the slightest pressure of her fingertips on his bicep.

Either by accident or design–she wasn't sure which–they gradually moved to the center of the room, and beneath a grand chandelier sparkling with the light of a hundred crystals, they spun and twirled through the complicated steps of the Viennese waltz as if they'd wings beneath their feet.

After the dance was over, the entire room, from the main floor to the marble steps to the outdoor terrace, broke into spontaneous applause, and it took Brynne a moment to realize what the object of their praise was.

"They're clapping for you," she said softly.

"No, little bird," he replied as he bowed in front of her and then took her hand to kiss the back of it. "They're clapping for us ."

So they were, and that knowledge brought a pleased bloom of pink to her already flushed cheeks. "Would you care for something to drink?" she asked. At his nod, she nabbed two flutes of champagne off the tray of a servant and then led Lachlan to a quiet corner filled with empty chairs where they would be able to speak in relative privacy while remaining in full view of the other guests.

As she stared into the frothy gold bubbles rising up from the bottom of her glass, it was impossible not to recall the last time they'd shared champagne…and what had followed its consumption.

Her one and only kiss.

Sweet, magical, momentous.

Everything that a girl could ever hope for.

With a man that a woman could only dream about.

"Ten years," said Lachlan.

Lifting her gaze to his, she blinked in confusion. "What?"

"Ten years ago ye made me a promise, Lady Brynne Weston." His eyes glittered, two comets racing across a sky cloaked in ebony. "We Scots take our oaths very seriously, and I've come tae collect me prize."

She didn't have to ask to what promise he was referring to; she still remembered as if it had happened yesterday.

"In ten years, if ye havena married some wealthy bounder, we'll meet back here, at this very spot. And we'll marry each other."

She raised the flute to her lips and took a lingering sip as she attempted to gauge the level of his sobriety over the rim. He certainly looked serious. But surely he was jesting. Having a bit of fun to lighten the mood. "Very amusing, Lord Campbell. Have you any strawberry drops handy?"

While the edges of his mouth softened, his gaze remained solemn. "I thought lime fruit was yer favorite."

"So it is." She waited for a crack to appear in all that somberness. When none did, she finished off her champagne and, although she rarely drank more than a glass at a time, and then strictly on special occasions, desperately wished she had an entire bottle handy. Maybe then she'd be prepared for the discussion it appeared they were about to have.

A discussion that she feared was only going to end in one way.

With hurt feelings…and bruised hearts.

"Lachlan, I…I know what I agreed to. But I was a girl. Hardly more than a child." She gave a laugh that he did not return. "Surely you cannot mean to hold me to an agreement I made when I was fourteen. Besides, it hasn't been a full ten years. Not yet."

"Have ye plans tae marry in the next few months?" he asked.

"No, but–"

"Then it's close enough."

Arrogant Scot she thought with no small amount of affection.

"Why havena ye married?" He arched a russet brow. "I've not spent much time in London, it's true. But I've been there enough tae know that ye're as prized a diamond as ever there was. Yet ye have turned down countless proposals. Tae dukes, and earls, and viscounts. Even tae a prince, if the rumors are tae be believed."

"They are," she said reluctantly. "But he wasn't really a prince. Just in line for the throne."

"Just in line for the throne." Lachlan's second brow rose to join the first as an incredulous smile played across his lips. "Do ye even hear yerself, little bird? Ye could have had a bluidy prince . But ye turned him down. Why?"

"He…he was too old. Nearly five years my senior."

"Nearly one foot in the grave, then." He grasped her wrist. Rubbed his thumb across the bluish green veins that ran like ribbons beneath her skin. "Why, Bry? Why havena ye taken a husband in all these years? Ye have had every opportunity."

"Maybe I am still waiting."

"For what?"

Turning her head to the side, she pinned her gaze on the outdoor terrace where a small collection of gentlemen had gathered to smoke cigars, her brother among them. The embers glowed in the darkness, small circles of orange fire. "How is Miss Adair? You've not mentioned her in your letters."

"Are ye asking me if I am involved with another woman?"

Her eyes cut back to his. "And if I am?"

"Then I'd tell ye that while Allison and I remain friends, we ended our affair months ago. Shortly after I saw ye in the park, in fact."

"Why?"

"Ye already know the answer."

"If I knew the answer, I wouldn't be asking the question."

His mouth curved. "Aye and ye would make a fine interrogator, Lady Brynne Weston."

She tugged her wrist free. "I am not trying to interrogate you."

"I found pleasure in Allison's company, ‘tis true. I willna deny it, or apologize for it, as we were two consenting adults who knew what the other was after. For me, it was a means by which tae pass the time while I waited."

"What were you waiting for?"

"Ye, Bry." As he met her gaze, his eyes shone as brightly as the cigars. "I was always waiting for ye. Just like ye have always been waiting for me, or else ye would have married that prince."

She was unable to deny it.

Not without lying.

And that...that she couldn't do. Not to Lachlan, who often seemed to know her better than she knew herself.

"When he asked me to marry him…" When she hesitated, her heart gave a wild thump against her ribs, as if it were a feral thing trying to break down the walls of its cage. "When he asked me to marry him, the first thing I thought of was you."

"I canna promise ye the world, Bry. Or a fancy estate high on a hill." He turned into her. Gently took her hands in his. Squeezed her fingers. "But I can promise that I'll never put ye on a shelf. I'll never take ye for granted. And I'll love ye every single day for the rest of our lives on earth and in heaven. Marry me, little bird. Marry me, and give us what we've both been waiting for all these years."

Brynne had long last track of the number of proposals she'd received. It was not a statement bred of arrogance, but rather resigned truth. Ever since her debut, she had found herself inundated with them, some more memorable than others.

The Duke of Tremblay had filled the entire parlor with roses. Their overwhelming scent–and the sight of the duke, a man twenty years her senior, down on bended knee–had sent her running for the nearest chamber pot.

Once she had chased a baby tiger–a tiger –through the halls after the Earl of Sutton had presented it to her with a ring tied round the animal's neck and it had promptly bitten him on the arm.

She'd felt more sympathy for the tiger.

The Marquess of Rutherford had paraded a troupe of somersaulting acrobats in front of her.

The Duke of Sommersby had lit the sky with fireworks and then attempted to get her into a gas balloon to view them from above. It was most fortunate that she had declined his offer, as a flying spark had caught on the silk canopy and promptly burned the balloon to the ground before takeoff.

Now Lachlan was asking her to marry him. Without flowers, or animals, or flying deathtraps. Without even a ring. Yet the simplicity of his proposal was more heartfelt, and more genuine, than any she had ever received.

"Lachlan, I–"

" There you are!" As if on some terribly ill-timed cue, Lady Theresa Hillbrook–as renowned for her outlandish taste in fashion as she was for her shrill voice–toddled towards them, the train of her orange gown adorned with bright pink bows billowing in her wake. "I've been looking everywhere ." Breathless and beaming, she blinked curiously at Lachlan. "Who might this fine gentleman be? Goodness but you're tall, aren't you? And so broad-shouldered. It's a wonder you fit through the door."

Having instinctively snatched her hands from Lachlan's grasp at the first sound of Theresa's war cry, Brynne stepped discreetly to the side in order to put the appropriate amount of distance between them. She could all but feel his displeasure, but what else was she to do? Announce to the entire ballroom that he'd just proposed and she had…what? Not yet accepted, but also not declined.

Sequestering her upheaval of emotions behind a pleasantly empty smile, she proceeded with introductions. "Lady Theresa, may I present Lord Campbell. An old–"

"Family friend. Aye, so ye keep saying," he cut in, and were glares possible of doing such things, Brynne feared she would have found herself turned to stone on the spot. He had never looked at her like that before, and it was a struggle not to wither beneath his obvious contempt of what he conceived as cowardice.

Easy for him, she thought with a nudge of resentment. What did he have to lose if they were to become engaged? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. While she ran the very real risk of angering her entire family, from her grandfather all the way to her brother. Not to mention the fallout that would occur with the ton . One of their own breaking ranks to marry a Scot who had never made any effort to shield his disdain of High Society?

They'd tear her to shreds.

But did any of that really matter, if she loved him and he loved her?

Marrying Lachlan would take her away from everything she'd ever known, but it would also provide her with things she'd never had.

How was one to even begin to calculate such an equation?

"Lord Campbell, Lord Campbell…" Retrieving a fan from between her ample bosom, Theresa snapped it open and waved it in front of her face while ogling Lachlan over the top of it. "Of the Mayfair Campbells?"

"Lord Campbell and his family herald from Northern Scotland," Brynne explained when it became clear from his stony silence that Lachlan wasn't going to bother to answer. "The village of Glenavon."

"Oh," she trilled. "How exotic . But where is your kilt?"

"Should I drop me trousers and let ye have a peek?" he said with a dangerous sort of pleasantness that sailed straight over Theresa's head.

"I am sure that won't be necessary," Brynne interceded hastily even as Theresa made a noise caught somewhere between a purr and the sound of a cat hacking up a hairball. "Besides, Lord Campbell was just expressing his farewells. Weren't you, my lord?"

"Aye," he said coolly. "That I was. I'll be making a stop at the town square tomorrow at noon, and then I'm back tae the faraway land of the Scots. Did ye hear, Lady Theresa, that in a few years' time we might even have the telegraph in Edinburgh? That is, if we ever get steam engines tae pull the lines and the poles we'd need for such a modern invention."

"You haven't trains or the telegraph?" she said in dismay.

"Nay," he said solemnly. "Just lots of sheep."

Brynne's eyes threatened to disappear into the back of her skull. "He has trains and telegraphs." She pointed her finger at Lachlan. "You have trains and telegraphs. The steam engine was invented by a Scottish engineer. Without it, Europe wouldn't have had an industrial revolution!"

His smile was razor-sharp. "Aye, but how will the English continue tae think so highly of themselves if they've no one tae step on?"

With that, he walked away, leaving Brynne staring after him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement. Lachlan may have grown up, but so much of the boy he'd been still remained. The boy who had taken on bullies and dared the wrath of an overbearing governess and showed a young girl the stars. The boy who had made no apologies for where he came from or where he intended to go.

"Scotland is a proud country, Lady Theresa." While Brynne knew that the other woman had meant no harm with her careless ignorance of Lachlan's homeland, that didn't mean it hadn't stung. Especially since Brynne was certain that hadn't been the first time Lachlan had encountered such a sentiment. "They've many agricultural and scientific advancements far beyond our own. It's much more than just kilts and claymores."

Theresa snapped her fan closed and tucked it under her arm. "Is he married?"

"Lord Campbell? No, he does not have a wife." Brynne's eyes narrowed in suspicion and a spark of jealousy. Which was absurd. Lachlan would no sooner marry Lady Theresa than he would spread his wings and attempt to take flight. But a dog with a bone was naturally protective. Particularly when that bone was six feet of delectable, roguishly handsome Highlander. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason," Theresa shrugged. "My parents would never allow it, of course. Such a misfortune that the gentlemen who are easiest to look at almost always have something wrong with them."

"There is nothing wrong with Lord Campbell."

"I didn't mean to imply that there was. Just that, being who is he, Lord Campbell isn't exactly marriageable material, is he?" She clucked her tongue sadly. "A blessed shame, given how he fills out those trousers. I really would like to see him in a kilt."

"James Watt," Brynne said succinctly.

Theresa peered across the room. "Who is that? Is he titled?"

"James Watt was the man who improved upon the first steam engine. He was a Scottish inventor, instrument maker, and chemist. His design adaption enabled the steam engine to produce power at maximum capacity. Without it, our entire railway system would be all but nonexistent."

"How fascinating," Theresa said in the absent tone of someone who didn't find it fascinating at all. "Oh, there's Lady Wellesley! I must speak with her about her new modiste. Parisian, you understand. Won't you excuse me?"

"With pleasure," Brynne muttered under her breath.

As brooding in the corner of the ballroom wasn't behavior fitting of a hostess, she went outside, using a door that circumvented the terrace and instead brought her out to the side lawn where she went through a grove of silver birch trees before reaching a path made from thin slabs of hand cut granite set on white pebbles.

When she and Weston were children, they'd often come here, to what they called the Stone Garden. So-named for the statue of their mother that resided in the center, it was a maze of stepping stones and boxwoods and hedges that towered far above her head.

The manor loomed in her wake, a beacon in the night that was visible for miles around. But in the stone garden, shadows prowled and darkness reigned. What did it say about her, Brynne wondered, that she felt more comfortable out here, alone, than surrounded by three dozen of her closest friends?

In the dim and the dark, she didn't have to wear a smile as if it were a glittering necklace. Something to be shown off and admired, even as the stones remained hard to the touch. She didn't have to pretend to be someone she wasn't. Unfortunately, the problem with that was she'd spent all of her life being molded by other people into what they wanted her to be that she didn't have a clear picture in her head of who she was.

Was she a future duchess, set to preside over the ton as an example for aspiring debutantes of what could happen if you minded your manners, followed all of the rules, and never challenged the status quo? Her perfect reputation maintained, but her heart left barren.

Was she a runaway bride who eloped to Scotland, leaving everything and everyone behind, because she'd made a vow a decade earlier over barley sticks and strawberry drops? Her name besmirched, but her heart content.

Or was she someone else entirely? Someone she'd yet to have the opportunity to meet.

An owl cried out as she stepped nimbly from one granite slab to the next, its eerie call causing the hairs at the nape of her neck to lift. Raising her skirts past her knees to keep the fabric from tearing on a rose bush's sharp thorns, she went straight to the middle of the labyrinth where a bench sat in a swath of moonlight beside the marble statue of her mother.

People who had known the late Marchioness of Dorchester often remarked that Brynne, with her blonde hair and hazel eyes, was her living image. An observation that helped and hurt all at the same time, for it was something that she would have liked to have seen for herself. Instead, she was forced to rely upon this statue, and the painting above the mantel in the library, and the recollections of others.

They said that children needed their mother the most, and that was unequivocally true. But to Brynne's way of thinking, a mother was not something you outgrew as you got older, like a shoe or a dress. No, a mother was meant to be there far past childhood. To mentor, and nurture, and lend a listening ear in times of trouble.

They also said you couldn't miss what you never had, but she believed that to be falsehood as well. For as she sat on the bench and gazed up at the face of the woman who had brought her into the world before leaving it far too soon, Brynne felt the ache of loss as keenly as if she'd known her mother for her entire life. And she wished, desperately, that she had the ability to heed her counsel.

The crack of a stick, the scrape of a boot heel on stone, and Brynne knew she was no longer alone. Letting her skirts fall to her ankles, she rose from the bench and fixed her gaze on a large shadow moving straight towards her with a lithe, prowling grace.

"I knew you'd come."