Chapter Six

Let her go? Let her go?

Didn't Brynne know that if Lachlan could, he would have?

He'd never liked pain with his pleasure.

If he had the ability to release himself from the spell she'd cast over him when he was but a boy of sixteen, he would have done it gladly. But while a man could live without a limb, he needed his heart. And if he let his Bry go, he'd be wrenching the organ straight out of his chest.

Yet he'd be damned if he begged for her on his bloody knees.

"I'm not keeping ye," he said, gesturing at the door. "But I'm not leaving, either. Not until we've figured this out once and for all."

"There is nothing to figure." Her hands went to her hips as temper glinted in her eyes. Temper he was glad to see, as he couldn't abide her sadness...especially knowing he was the cause of it.

"If you will not leave of your own accord, then I shall have you thrown out."

He snorted at that. "Ye and what army?"

"Why are you doing this?" she exclaimed, her slender shoulders heaving in visible frustration. "Everything was fine. We were fine. You didn't have to come here. Stirring up old waters best left alone."

"Ye call hiding away in a house that ye hate fine?" he asked.

"I am not hiding ," she scoffed. "Two days ago this house was filled with over two dozen people and if not for you, I'd already be on my way to London."

"Ye can be standing in the middle of the room with a hundred people surrounding ye and be hiding, Bry. This isna the life ye wanted. Hosting house parties for yer brother, keeping yer gorgeous paintings tae yerself, pretending tae be the perfectionist that everyone expects ye tae be."

"There's nothing wrong with any of that!"

"There's nothing right, either. Not for ye." Couldn't she see? Couldn't she see that she'd flown right back into that gilded cage that they'd made for her when she was a girl? Except this time, she was the one who had closed the door. "Ye wanted more for yer life, Bry. Ye wanted tae travel, and see the world, and experience all it had tae offer."

She pressed her lips together. "I can do that yet."

No , he thought silently. Ye canna, love. Not without someone there tae break ye free.

"Once Weston is married," she went on, "I have every intention of traveling. Not that it is any concern of yours."

"And will ye continue tae live here? In this place that ye have always despised?" As he hated the white-walled mansion every bit as much as Brynne did, Lachlan's gaze frosted over when he took a sharp glance around the room.

After his initial two-week tenure here, he'd returned the following summer as a temporary ward of the Earl of Dorchester. His father had recently married–again–and not wanting to overwhelm his young bride with a gaggle of rambunctious boys, had sent as many of them away as he could.

Lachlan was glad–even secretly overjoyed–to return to Hawkridge Manor. He'd thought of Brynne often, and couldn't wait to see her again. But by the time he'd gotten there, she had already departed for Cheltenham Ladies' College.

He had felt her absence keenly. And after the first month of being stuck in that frigid, Godforsaken tomb of an estate, he was already counting down the hours to when he'd be able to return to Campbell Castle.

It may have been in a state of perpetual disrepair with crack in the walls and spiders hanging from the ceiling and a wild pack of hounds gamboling through the halls at all hours of the day and night, but on its coldest day his childhood home was warmer than Hawkridge.

When he'd returned to the manor as an adult, he was surprised to find it exactly as it had been when he was a boy, despite having transferred to Weston's management. Then, it was well-known that Brynne's brother was just as emotionless as her father. And those who didn't know his Bry as he did swept her with the same brush.

On more than one occasion, he'd heard her described as an ice queen. Beautiful, reserved, and utterly untouchable. But he knew better. He knew there was warmth there. Warmth, and humor, and an almost insatiable curiosity for life and all the wonders it contained.

Which was why he couldn't stand seeing her here. Trapped in the very same place that had robbed her of a child's unique freedom and inquisitiveness and joy.

She was a grown woman now.

He knew that better than anyone.

But that didn't mean she wasn't still trapped.

Trapped by a society that benefited from her lack of independence.

Trapped by a series of outdated rules designed to suppress women and elevate men.

Trapped by a family that had never quite understood her.

Not even her own brother.

But Lachlan had. Lachlan did. Often better than he understood himself. He and Brynne…they were two stars in the same constellation. Two parts that helped to comprise the whole. And when one of them dimmed, they both lost their light.

"Ye need a home, Bry. Someplace tae put down yer roots. Someplace tae return to after yer travels. Someplace tae raise yer children." He walked towards her then. He didn't direct his legs; they moved of their own accord. He half-expected her to run, and he wouldn't have blamed her if she did. But his Bry was stronger than that. She may have been as slim as a willow, but there was steel there.

Steel and softness.

Independence and uncertainty.

Brynne was a maze of contradictions, and he adored every twist and turn that made up the woman he loved. The woman he'd lost due to his own arrogance and their mutual failure to communicate. The woman he'd do anything to have again.

"Tell me ye are happy." He glided a finger along her jaw. Curled it beneath her chin. Nudged her head until there was nowhere she could look but into his eyes. Nowhere she could hide. Not from him. Never from him. "Tell me ye are happy, and I'll leave."

"I…" Her throat convulsed as she swallowed. "I am fine."

"That's not happy."

"Maybe not," she acknowledged stiffly. "But it's a far cry better than miserable, which is what I am with you."

A dagger shoved between his shoulders would have hurt less.

"Bry–"

"This not going to work, Lachlan. It was never going to work." Her hazel eyes flashed with a combination of frustration and bewilderment. "Your coming here changes nothing."

"And is that what ye feel for me?" he challenged roughly. "Nothing? Because the goose pimples on yer flesh when I do this"–he trailed his fingers along her neck, traced the coarse pads across the slanted lines of her collarbone, slid down to outline the rounded curve of her breasts with his palms–"say otherwise."

She swallowed again. Skimmed her tongue between her lips. Shifted her weight.

"Physical attraction is not everything," she said after a long, ragged pause.

"Aye," he whispered, watching her eyes drift closed as he rubbed his thumbs across her nipples. Nipples that were hard and swollen beneath the thin layer of her muslin bodice. "But it's not nothing."

Bending his head, he brushed his mouth across hers.

Just a fleeting taste.

A memory of what had been.

A hope for what might be.

Her mouth hardening beneath his, she began to pull back…but then with a tortured, breathy whimper that went right to his loins, she rose up on her toes, grabbed on to the lapels of his jacket, and turned the taste of attraction into a torrent of desire.

"Bry," he groaned, cupping her breasts and slipping his tongue between her lips as a bolt of lightning sizzled through the air and slammed into the ground at their feet.

Fire enveloped them, flames licking up their bodies as they hungrily devoured each other like two poor souls starved. And in a way, they were. Starved for love. Starved for affection. Starved for the connection that had brought them together…and then snapped, leaving them floundering in dark water with no way to kick themselves back up to the surface.

For eighteen months he'd been treading in that obsidian pool of despair, longing for those late nights and early mornings where all he had to do was roll onto his side and Brynne was there waiting for him, a slumberous smile on her lips and passion in her eyes.

He backed her up against the wall. Filled his hands with all those rich, luxurious waves of tawny blonde hair as they deepened the kiss. As they used it as a lifeline to draw themselves out of that damned well and into the light.

Inch by inch, stroke by stroke, touch by touch, they went higher, and higher, and higher. The pleasure of having her in his arms, of feeling her heartbeat against his chest, of knowing she was right where she was supposed to be…it was indescribable. It was everything. But just as they reached the edge, just as he thought they might actually have a chance of making it out of that inky darkness…the rope broke.

And down they plunged.

"I cannot," Brynne gasped, wrenching herself free. Shoving away from the wall, she ducked under his arm and stumbled around the edge of the table. Steadying herself on a chair, she wiped the back of her hand across her mouth then clasped it to her belly. "I cannot do that with you without picturing you doing it with her ."

The "her" Brynne referred to was Allison Adair.

Lachlan's mistress…and the biggest bloody mistake of his life.

His short nails digging into the sides of his temple, he raked them along his skull and hissed out a breath. They'd had this conversation a dozen times. Two dozen times. He'd explained, and apologized, and even begged until he was blue in the face.

But it always ended the same.

With his heart bleeding in his hands…and Brynne walking out the door.

"I don't know what else tae say that hasna already been said."

"Sometimes…" she murmured without looking at him. "Sometimes I wish I never saw you and her. In that bed. Sometimes I lay awake at night and wonder where we would be now if I didn't see you then."

"I told ye nothing happened," he said fiercely. "I never betrayed ye, Bry."

"There's more than one way to commit a betrayal, Lachlan."

"Aye." As a spark of anger ignited, he glared at the middle of her shoulder blades where a long curl, tugged free from its coiffure, dangled. "There is. And what of the betrayals ye committed, Brynne?"

At that, she whirled around. " My betrayals?"

"I held secrets from ye." Even now the shame of it heated his cheeks, but he plowed ahead, determined to speak his piece. "I dinna deny that. And if I ever did anything tae encourage Allison tae seek out my bed that night, I'm sorrier for it than ye will ever know. But ye took vows, Bry. Ye promised tae stay by me side as me wife ‘Til death comes tae part us asunder' . Those were the words we spoke tae each other. When ye left me, when ye left us , was that not a betrayal?"

"You gave me no choice but to leave!" she cried.

"Or maybe there was a part of ye that was never completely there. With me. In that castle." The weight of his words, the truth of them, hung in the air like a guillotine waiting to fall. "Less than half a year, and ye fled in the dead of the night like a bluidy thief. Do ye know what I think?"

"No," she said shortly.

"I think I just gave ye the excuse ye were already looking for tae end what ye regret ever starting."

Her eyes cooled; ice glazing over the top of a pond on the first true cold day of winter. "This discussion is over."

"Aye," he said, his voice clipped and all the more bitter for it. "Run along. That's what ye do, isna it? When things get uncomfortable, ye run back tae what ye know. Like a horse with an entire field at its feet, but instead it returns tae its little square of wood and straw and grain."

"I'm not a horse," she said scornfully.

"Then what are ye?"

"I know what I am not. And I am not yours. Not anymore."

As she stormed out, Lachlan couldn't help but ask himself if she ever truly was.

The next morning, Brynne rose with the sun and went straight to her brother's study, where she dashed off a letter to their solicitor in London. The legality of dissolving a marriage that had both been consummated and surpassed its first year would be difficult, if not impossible, but if anyone could tackle such a difficult task, it was Mr. Jacobson.

All things being equal, she'd prefer to avoid an outright divorce. Especially since she hadn't told anyone she was married. Not only that, but such an act would require her to prove that Lachlan had committed either adultery, cruelty, or incest before the Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes.

Two of the three were not applicable. She and Lachlan were certainly not related, and while she could argue that he had caused much emotional distress, it did not raise to the level of cruelty demanded by the court.

As for the third…

The third she refused to consider on the grounds that a charge of adultery meant invoking the name and the presence of the third party involved. And Allison Adair was the second person on earth she never wanted to see again.

The first being Lachlan.

Naturally.

Which left, to the best of her knowledge, judicial separation. The marriage would remain legally binding, but the court would prevent Lachlan from interfering with her affairs. In short, she would be married but not married; bound to Lachlan legally, but not responsible to him personally. She could own property in her name, control her own inheritance without having to give it to her husband, settle her own debts.

Such an act would prevent her from ever marrying again. It wasn't ideal, but having been spurned once by a man she loved, she had little interest in ever repeating the experience.

There could be no children, which she did want.

Someday.

But surely such a sacrifice was worth her independence. Because she wasn't a horse in a stable. Whatever Lachlan had meant by that ridiculous analogy. And she was going to travel.

Someday.

And if she didn't…if she failed to fulfill the dreams she'd shared on a starlit night with a boy who'd one day shatter her heart….well, there were worse things.

She was financially supported by her family and respected by her peers. What need did she really have to see the world, or paint for anyone besides herself? She was content here. And if she occasionally felt a tug towards something greater, something more meaningful, then she could simply host a charity luncheon for the orphanage or hold a dinner party to benefit the theater or do any other number of things to prove that despite what Lachlan had said, she was happy.

And she'd be even happier once she was legally free of him.

Using Weston's gold letter seal to stamp the wax, she left the study and handed off the missive to the first footman who crossed her path in the hallway.

"Please have this delivered to the village before the mail coach leaves for London," she instructed.

"Yes, my lady. At once."

The footman hurried off to carry out her orders, and she sought quiet refuge in the parlor, her naked fingers–she'd not bothered to put her gloves back on after writing the letter–splaying across the wide wooden sill that shone with a fresh layer of beeswax polish.

She had every confidence that Mr. Jacobson would soon see the matter of her marriage settled. Hopefully sooner rather than later, as the last thing she wanted–aside from Lachlan showing up unannounced–was a long, drawn out affair that would have steam pouring out of the gossips' ears and ink splattering across the pages of the London Caller.

A sardonic smile twisted her lips as she considered the irony. Once, not so very long ago, she'd yearned for a life in the limelight. To be seen, and heard, and known . Not in a way that would invoke a scandal. Oh, maybe a tiny scandal. The sort where she tripped and flashed an ankle for all to see, or was caught out in the rain and a handsome lord offered her refuge in his carriage. The kind that would get her noticed and acknowledged without ruining her reputation.

But all it had taken was one London Season for her to discover that she did not, in fact, enjoy the attention that had been lavished upon her as the reclusive granddaughter of the Duke of Caldwell. Attention that had always felt artificially sweet, like too much sugar spooned into the tea. While once she'd dreamed of being a social butterfly when she was a little girl yearning to spread her wings beyond the confining walls of Hawkridge Manor, it wasn't long before she began to dread the endless litany of social engagements and public appearances.

The perfection that was required of her…it was too much for a single person to maintain. Especially one who already suffered from anxious mannerisms.

Say this, but not that.

Approach that person, but not this one.

Curtsy, dance, smile, laugh, flutter a fan.

She was like a doll in a music box, spinning and spinning on a metal disc…until one night, at the Duke of Hallowell's annual ball which marked the beginning of yet another Season, she spun straight into the arms of Lachlan Campbell.