Brody folded his arms over his chest and his jaw hardened in an adamant line. “I’d like to talk to Elspeth before she goes upstairs.”
“So ye can bully her into accepting you?” Diarmid asked snidely.
“As if I’ll let you put your paws on my sister again,” Hamish snarled, tensing up once more and bunching his hands at his sides.
“Hamish and Diarmid, you can both stop it right this minute,” Elspeth said. When she’d kissed Brody, she’d felt brave and free. Right now, she felt dirty and discarded. “For the tenth time, I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Her brother directed a fulminating glare at her, before he shot Brody a look of pure hatred. “No, you didn’t.”
The atmosphere, calmed thanks to Marina’s good sense, flared toward conflict again. Brody looked angry and hunted—and hurt in a way she hadn’t expected.
She did owe him some explanation, she supposed. But not now. At this moment, she felt too close to breaking.
“Brody, can I please talk to you tomorrow?” To her chagrin, her voice cracked. “Tonight, I’m—”
“Over my dead body,” Hamish shouted.
“Stop bellowing like a maddened elephant, Hamish.” She directed a quelling look at her brother. “If I want to talk to Brody, I will.”
“I’m the head of the family.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s all well and good, but given Mamma just disowned me, I’d say your authority is at an end.”
“Brava, ragazza,” Marina said, coming forward with a managing air. “I grow tired of all this noisy masculine posturing.”
“Let me posture and clear the room for ye, my love,” Fergus said. He addressed the crowd with the unmistakable authority of the Laird of Achnasheen. “Go to bed, everyone. This will all seem like a silly tiff tomorrow.”
The autocratic tone worked. With some grumbling, the room emptied of everyone but Fergus, Marina, Elspeth—and to her dismay, Brody.
“Elspeth, we can’t leave things as they are right now,” he said stubbornly.
She crossed her arms, feeling harried to the point of shrieking. Would this horrible night never end? “You just want to propose again.”
“At least I’d like to ken why ye said no.” She hated that he sounded kind and reasonable, and as if he had a right to question her decision.
She clenched her shaking hands in her skirts. “We wouldn’t suit.”
“But—”
“It’s late, cuz. Too late in the day to start all this up again.” Fergus strode across and clapped him on the back. “Come and have a wee dram in the drawing room. You look like ye need it.”
Instead of shifting, Brody stared at Elspeth, as if he strove to pierce through her skin to discover the secrets lurking in her heart. She hoped to heaven he didn’t succeed. There were a few secrets there she had no intention of sharing with him—ever.
“I’ll ask again, Elspeth,” he said with grim emphasis.
Close to despair, she shook her head and turned away from that penetrating gaze. “My answer won’t change.”
“Leave her be for tonight, Brody.” Marina’s arm tightened around her shoulders. “Can’t you see she’s at the end of her tether?”
“Thank you, Marina,” Elspeth whispered.
“Very well. But this isn’t over,” Brody said, his tone grim, even as he and Fergus headed for the library door.
After the door closed behind the cousins, leaving Elspeth alone with Marina, she sucked in her first full breath in forever. Nausea still soured her stomach, and she felt bruised and unsteady, as if she’d been crushed under a runaway carriage. “I’m sorry. I seem to have ruined your Christmas party.”
Marina shrugged as she released her. “Cavolo, don’t you get all operatic on me, Elspeth. This isn’t such a big problem. Anyway, a little scandal enlivens a dull winter.”
“It doesn’t feel like a little scandal,” Elspeth said in a low voice. Marina’s calm acceptance of what had happened helped her feel less like a worm.
Marina surveyed her, black eyes perceptive and, more importantly, kind. “I’m sure it doesn’t.”
“If you hadn’t come in—”
“Pfft.” Her airy gesture was unmistakably Continental. “You have too much sense to lose your maidenhead to Brody Girvan on the library couch. Anyone could have walked in.”
Marina’s good sense started to shrink the grand tragedy to manageable proportions. “Anyone did walk in.”
“Exactly.”
Elspeth looked away and twined trembling hands together over her heaving stomach. “I didn’t feel sensible when Brody kissed me.”
Marina’s laugh held a note of wry fondness. “We never feel sensible when we’re in love.”
Elspeth made a choked sound and raised shocked eyes to her friend’s face. “I never said I was in love.”
Marina rolled her eyes with such theatricality that at another time, Elspeth would have laughed. “You didn’t have to. As long as I’ve known you, you’ve never had a thought for anyone else.”
Elspeth had imagined that she’d finished blushing for the night. Marina’s accusation dashed those hopes. She strove to sound as if the idea was insane. “Oh, I might have harbored a girlish tendre for him, but I’ve grown out of that.”
“Is that right?” Marina asked in carefully neutral tones.
“Of course.” With manufactured casualness, Elspeth imitated her hostess’s characteristic shrug. “I came to realize that he’d never look at me as anything but Hamish’s bookish little sister. You reach a stage where you need to accept there’s no point crying for the moon.”
Marina still studied her with the same concentration she devoted to a complicated drawing. “Yet tonight, the moon came very close to you, bambina.”
It had. Damn Brody. Any closer, and she’d really be ruined instead of just accused of it. “It was just a bit of flirtation.”
“Flirtation can signify a more serious interest. The handsome young laird has spent the last few days following you with his eyes. It’s a pity that you’ve outgrown your interest in him, just as he’s grown into an interest in you.”
“I’m the only unattached female at this party.” Elspeth couldn’t quite contain her bitterness, as she pointed out the unassailable fact.
“Oh, Elspeth,” Marina sighed, with a humiliating mixture of impatience and sympathy.
Elspeth bristled. “It’s true.”
“Yes, it is. But that’s not why he’s enchanted. Don’t you know you’re lovely?”
“Because you fixed up how I look,” she insisted.
Marina continued to study Elspeth with her perceptive artist’s eyes. Eyes that saw too much, including the falsehood of her claims of indifference to the Laird of Invermackie. A prickling flush mottled Elspeth’s cheeks, but she leveled her shoulders and raised her chin, ready to counter any well-meant arguments.
But Marina only released a soft, “Ah.”
“You understand,” Elspeth said in relief.
Marina’s eyes were still kind. “You fear that this new, polished version of Elspeth Douglas has blinded him to what you’re like under the primping.”
Feeling awkward, she sidled from foot to foot. Perhaps she’d have done better to go to bed when everyone else had. This conversation was almost as difficult as the horrible scene that preceded it. “Yes,” she mumbled. “He never looked at me before.”
“I don’t think he was ready to see you until now.”
“I’m still the same unadventurous creature I ever was.”
“Not really.” Marina’s lips twitched. “Per pietà, that girl would never have sneaked away in the middle of a family party to kiss a rake.”
Despite everything, Elspeth gave a choked laugh. “No, that’s true.”
She resisted pointing out that no self-respecting rake would have been caught dead kissing the frump she’d been, either.
Marina took her hand. “I meant what I said about staying here. I won’t have you coerced i
nto a decision you don’t want to make.”
Elspeth squeezed her fingers. “I appreciate that.” She pulled away. She feared Marina’s kindness. Already tonight, it had threatened to bring her tears to the surface. She was afraid that once she started crying, she’d never stop. “Mamma will get over it. Sooner rather than later, if we’re lucky. She’ll realize there’s no reason for gossip to spread beyond the family and affect her precious political influence. It’s all just a storm in a teacup.”
Right now, the night’s events didn’t feel like that. Brody’s proposal, when he spoke the words she’d longed to hear for so many years, still felt like the worst moment in her life.
“If she doesn’t forgive you, remember you have friends.”
Elspeth mustered a shaky smile for this woman, who was generous enough to champion her. “Thank you.”
“Now I think you want to be alone to have a good cry.” Marina’s voice developed a practical note. “Time for bed.”
“You’ve been too good to me.”
Another Continental sound expressing dismissal. “I like you.”
“I like you, too,” she said huskily.
“I’m glad, bambina.” Marina kissed her cheek and squeezed her shoulder in reassurance. “Now try and sleep. There’s nothing more to be done tonight. Fretting never did anyone any good.”
Elspeth felt as wrung out as an old dishcloth, but despite her exhaustion, she knew a night of fretting was inevitable. She summoned another smile, even shakier than the last. “Who would have thought the family would throw me out on my ear for my licentious behavior?”
“Si, who knew?” Marina released a soft huff of laughter. “I suspect you still have the capacity to surprise all of us.”
“I surprised everyone tonight,” she said, in a voice thick with unshed tears. She couldn’t help remembering her mother’s coldness, and Hamish’s rage, and Brody’s brave attempt to save her from scandal. That had been the most difficult of all to bear.
“That’s not necessarily such a terrible thing, cara. Now, go to bed. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. A day of transformation and hope.”
“I don’t feel very Christmassy,” she admitted.
If she could, she’d run away from her family and her duty and every mistake she’d made. She’d escape from the horrid memory of Brody’s unconvincing proposal, and even worse his unconcealed astonishment when she said no. His astonishment and more upsetting, his hurt.
Most of all, she wanted to escape the knowledge that everything she’d done and said during the last few days turned out to be a pack of pathetic lies. She’d decided she would no longer love Brody Girvan. She’d believed that she could dabble in a flirtation, without risking her heart or her honor.
Tonight’s fiasco proved both predictions tragically false.
“Let’s see what the morning brings.” Marina watched her, still with that understanding expression softening her dark eyes. “I’ll walk you to your room and fight off anyone who might lie in wait.”
Elspeth’s response was closer to a sob than a laugh. “I couldn’t bear another scolding.”
“No scoldings, ragazza. Not tonight. My word as a Scotswoman. Even if I’m a Scotswoman only by adoption.”
Chapter 14
After that turbulent scene in the library, Brody didn’t sleep a wink. He hadn’t suffered a restless night over a female since those adolescent days when he’d been head over heels in love with Polly Macrae. If a week ago, someone had told him that the next woman to torment his nights would be Hamish’s mousy sister, he’d have laughed in their face.
By God, he wasn’t laughing now.
In fact, as he came downstairs in the dark, with the hope of catching Elspeth at breakfast, he had the strangest conviction that his sole chance of happiness depended on persuading this stubborn, unusual, gorgeous girl that she must marry him. Even more lowering for a man credited as a devil with the ladies, he was far from convinced that he would prevail.
As he’d expected and despite the early hour, Elspeth sat alone in the morning room, staring into a cup of tea with a disconsolate expression. A slice of toast sat untouched on a plate near her elbow. Brody paused in the doorway and took stock of what he saw, struggling to work out the best approach.
The lassie looked deathly sad. How else would she look? Because he’d been a selfish blockhead all his life, he’d lured her to take risks with her good name. Now she was exiled from her family and reviled as a light skirt. Last night, he’d burned to protect her from every attack. She’d rejected his every effort as too little, too late.
Devil take her, it was worse than that. She’d rejected him.
Her terse denial still stung like acid. He’d never asked a woman to marry him before. When he did, he’d never imagined his choice would have the temerity to say no. While he’d been angry last night, beneath his anger, he’d been hurt. And shocked—which said far too much about his conceit.
The unbelievable had happened. Elspeth had refused to marry him. Not all the haranguing and blandishments in the world had shifted her from that decision. He’d spent all night, not just regretting her response, but examining his soul. And finding it sadly wanting.
Until these last months, he hadn’t been much in the habit of self-reflection. Like most young men of acceptable manners and appearance, not to mention large fortune, he received a warm welcome wherever he went. He’d never found any particular reason to question the general opinion that Brody Girvan was a fine fellow.
But he’d had an unhappy year. Finding the woman he wanted had made him hope that his life might start heading in the right direction. But it turned out that woman didn’t want him.
Once he’d left Fergus, he’d stood at his bedroom window, staring out over the snowy hills of Achnasheen, and facing up to the unwelcome truth that Brody Girvan wasn’t such a fine fellow after all.
He was selfish, and self-indulgent, and inclined to believe the world was ordered purely for his pleasure. Most people who met him never probed far enough beneath his debonair shell to discover the darker elements. Yet now he knew that his three closest friends harbored doubts about his character. Hamish, Diarmid and Fergus believed that while he might make a braw companion for a night’s carousing, he wasn’t worthy of Elspeth’s hand.
That had hurt, but not as much as Elspeth Douglas had hurt him, when those assessing brown eyes had penetrated through to the vacuum in his soul. She’d been adamant that she wouldn’t have him as her husband, even if the marriage restored her good name and her place in her family.
Yet while he knew that she was better off without him, Brody couldn’t stop wanting her. He’d never longed for anyone the way he longed for Elspeth, while she’d decided he didn’t deserve her time or affection.
Desolation and self-hatred left a cold, rusty taste on his tongue, as he now surveyed the woman who had brought him to his knees. The view wasn’t encouraging.
She’d dragged her hair back from her face in the familiar, severe style—no seductive tumble of mahogany curls today. She wore an old brown dress that Marina mustn’t have thought worth altering. It was plain that his wee wren had decided that she wanted to sink back into the shadows where she was safe.
But it was too late for her to hide away. Brody had seen her flaring beauty. He’d seen it, even before she decided to share it with the world. Elspeth Douglas would never again fade into the background, no matter how she tortured her hair or buttoned her collars up to her stubborn chin.
He sucked in a broken breath, nervous as a schoolboy approaching his first love, and stepped through the door. When she raised heavy eyes to observe him, the lack of welcome in her expression might daunt a laddie less determined.
The lamplight revealed signs of crying. Her pink eyelids and woebegone features made him sick with guilt. He’d set out to make this bonny girl happy, and all he’d done was cause her grief.
“Good morning, Elspeth,” he said in a somber voice.
“Good morning, Brod
y,” she said no more brightly. Looking hunted, she stood up when he dared to venture closer. “You’re early this morning.”
“No’ as early as you.”
“I had trouble sleeping.”
He already knew that because of the purple shadows under her eyes. “So did I.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, edging out from behind the table. “Enjoy your breakfast. I’ll see you later.”
He didn’t shift to let her past. “I need to talk to ye.”
Her slender white hands performed a nervous dance in the air. “I’d rather leave you to eat in peace.”
“Thanks to you, I haven’t known a moment’s peace since I got to Achnasheen,” he said grimly. “I’m here because I knew this was the one chance I’ll have to get ye alone.”
Something that looked like panic crossed Elspeth’s face, and she retreated a shaky step. “This is an ambush.”
He frowned, not sure what he could do to make her listen. “Aye, if ye like.”
She squared her shoulders and took up a belligerent stance familiar from last night, when she’d been intransigent about not wanting to marry him. He was in such a low state that this felt like an improvement. Her defiance was preferable to her fear. “I don’t like.”
“Too bad.” He gestured for her to sit down again. “I willnae take much of your time. Ye owe me that much.”
She leveled a hostile glare at him from under lowered eyebrows a darker brown than her luxuriant hair. He wondered whether she would insist on going. If she did, what could he do? Tying her to the chair was unlikely to promote his cause.
To his relief, she released an annoyed sigh and sank back into her chair.
“Thank you.” Brody crossed to the sideboard. “Would ye like some coffee?”
Her hands curled around the arms of her chair, and her answer was snappish. “I’d like you to say whatever you feel you need to, so that I can go back to my bedroom.”
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