The knowledge that she still loved him cut deeply. She had thought she’d put him behind her, but all the last night had proven was how weak she still was around him. For him. She’d fallen in love with him almost at once when they were fifteen, attracted to his handsome looks and adventurous spirit. And she’d grown to love him over a sweet, prolonged courtship until they eloped at eighteen. He was her first love, and he’d always be special to her, she supposed.
Love wasn’t always enough; she’d learned that lesson the hard way.
He is a different man now, a voice in her head argued.
Aye, he was. He’d changed.
And so had she. Aisla liked who she had become in Paris. She enjoyed her independence and her newfound sense of self-worth. Here in Scotland, she felt lost and judged, whereas in Paris she’d felt none of that. Though, in all honesty, it was different at Tarbendale than it had been at Maclaren. But deep down, she still felt that sense of being suffocated as if she were being wrapped up in someone else’s identity. It frightened her.
No, she would have to leave. She’d also made a promise to her best friend, a man who had been there for her when she’d had no one. Aisla drew a deep breath, watching as the sun’s rays danced over the surface of the loch in touches of brilliant gold. She would help him find a wife, but she would not marry Julien. She couldn’t. Even if he wanted a marriage of convenience and friendship, he still deserved a wife whose heart didn’t belong to another man. And up until last night, she had thought her heart was her own. Now, she knew it would never be so.
She would secure the divorce and she would return to Paris. Where she belonged. The spear of sadness took her by surprise. Why was she disappointed? Did she want to stay? Oh, it was so dratted confusing.
“My lady?” Pauline asked, waking from her slumber. “Are you well?”
“Yes, Pauline.” She drew a deep breath. “I could not sleep.”
Her maid sent her a pointed look, and Aisla blushed. She was not blind and would have noticed that her mistress had not slept in her own chamber for most of the night.
“Of course, my lady,” she said.
“I need you to do something for me,” Aisla said, walking over to the small desk for a piece of foolscap and a pen. She wrote a hasty note. “Will you please deliver this to Lord Leclerc at once? I need you to take it, please, Pauline, with the utmost discretion. I must see him, alone, as soon as possible.”
“Are you sure that’s wise?”
Aisla blinked at the maid’s unusual boldness, though she’d gotten used to Pauline’s directness over the years. It was part and parcel of her being passionately and unapologetically French, and it was one of the reasons Aisla treasured her. “What do you mean?”
One eyebrow quirked upward. “The laird is a jealous man, if I recall,” she said carefully. “And he has not warmed to Lord Leclerc. I fear, my lady, if you meet with monsieur alone, especially today, that your Laird Maclaren will not look upon it with good humor.”
Aisla flushed, understanding exactly what Pauline was suggesting. But Julien was her friend, and she needed to clear her head. She couldn’t speak to Makenna—she was the laird’s sister and too biased in her love for him to be of any objective help. Pauline, as much as Aisla loved her, was a maid. She had no one else. And if she didn’t figure out what she was going to do, she would lose her mind.
“Perhaps,” she said. “But it is not for you to question me, Pauline.”
A mildly chastened Pauline bobbed, though the worry remained in her eyes. “As you wish, my lady.”
“And he’s not my lord.” Aisla paused, her skin heating for no reason. “Before you leave, my blue riding habit, please.”
Once Pauline had left to deliver the summons, and she’d finished dressing, Aisla made her way quietly into the hallway. She paused in front of Niall’s door, noting there was no sound from within, before descending the staircase. It was still quite early, with the sun only just beginning its steep climb, but sounds in the kitchen of the staff readying for the day reached her ears. She had almost made it to the outer doors past the kitchen that led to the stables when a mocking voice stopped her in her tracks.
“And where are ye running off to this early, pray tell?”
Aisla’s feet stumbled to a halt as she turned to see the usual malicious scowl on the housekeeper’s face. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Fenella, but I feel like a stroll.”
“At this wee hour of the morning?”
Aisla gritted her teeth, but kept her face pleasant. She hoped the voices would not float above stairs and rouse her sleeping husband. “I could not sleep.”
They stared at each other in awkward silence until Aisla turned away. She owed the woman nothing.
“Enjoy yer…stroll.”
The woman’s voice drifted behind her, but Aisla was already out the door and hustling toward the stables. She felt the housekeeper’s eyes on her even after she entered the stables. Alerting a sleepy groom to a need for a horse, she waited impatiently as one was saddled and brought forward.
The brisk ride in the cool morning air felt inordinately good. Her mind had been on edge since she had awakened, although her body had been well and truly sated. In fact, she felt the delicious soreness between her thighs at the mare’s rolling gait, and she blushed, thinking of her husband. It’d been a long time for both of them, but that didn’t mean that Niall had forgotten how to make her body shake with pleasure. Several times, in fact.
Aisla’s blush intensified and she urged the horse into a faster canter to cool the blooming heat in her cheeks. Her hair, which she’d secured into a loose knot without Pauline’s expert tending, came loose from its pins and tumbled down her back in a tangled mess, but Aisla didn’t care. She was too busy trying to outrun the wicked memories of her husband’s sexual skill that had burst, unprovoked, into her brain. Her thighs throbbed, the knot of tension between them brightening to the point of pain.
Good heavens, she was going to fall off the horse if she wasn’t careful.
She made it without incident to the folly she’d indicated in her note to Julien. It was a lovely terrace, built like a miniature castle that stood on the edge of the loch, the exact halfway point between Tarbendale and Maclaren. Its marble columns were covered in twining vines, and it looked quite mystical in the sunlight. But Aisla was too distressed to notice as she dismounted, stripping off her gloves and pressing cold hands to her hot cheeks.
Julien was not yet there. She paced the cracked marble floor of the folly from end to end, waiting. She hoped that Pauline had not encountered any delay or couldn’t find him, though Aisla couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t be in his chamber abed. She balked. He was a man, after all. And she hadn’t exactly been in her own bed last night, either.
Her worries were all for naught as the sound of approaching hoof beats reached her.
“Good God, Aisla,” said a hastily dressed Julien as he dismounted from his horse, tethering it beside hers. He hadn’t even bothered with a cravat or several of his shirt buttons over his rumpled breeches. His dark blond hair was tousled and his face unshaven, glittering with golden stubble. She’d seen him look worse after a long night of overindulgence in Paris. “What was so bloody urgent that that termagant you employ felt the need to drag me from the comfort of my bed?”
Aisla smirked. “Long night?”
“No.” He scowled. “What did Your Highness want?”
No longer able to maintain any semblance of composure, she sat on the crumbling stone bench and put her face in her hands, a sob breaking from her lips. “Oh, Jules, I don’t know what to do. The most terrible thing has happened.”
“What did that bastard do?” Julien hissed savagely. “I’ll kill him.”
“No, no, not that.” Her blush went volcanic and she did not miss the instant narrowing of his eyes. He was nobody’s fool. She faltered on her words. “I made a wager with him.”
“A wager?” Julien echoed.
&n
bsp; “I overheard him make one with his brother that he could not get me to change my mind about the divorce, and I was so enraged that I challenged him to another wager.” Her cheeks heated. “One of seduction. If I won, I would go back to Paris with you and Niall would handle the divorce proceedings without me. And if he won, I would stay here with him for the six weeks he wanted…one for every year I was gone.”
Julien knelt to take her icy hands in his. “Wager or no wager, you don’t owe him anything, chérie.”
She huffed a breath, tears pooling in her eyes. “Oh, Jules, I’ve been so wrong. so foolish. I thought I could brazen it out, ignore the physical attraction, but my heart…my heart…is utterly compromised.”
“What are you saying?” he asked, rocking back to his heels but still holding her palms. She met his pale green eyes, and for once, found she could not read them.
“That I can’t marry you.” She paused, gripping his hands. “I love you as a friend forever. And I adore you for coming with me here to face my past, but I can’t marry you. Or anyone.”
“You still love him.”
“I don’t know what I feel, but I would be a shell of a woman in a marriage, and you don’t deserve that. You deserve so much more.” She broke off with a sob. “God, how silly must you think I am.”
To her surprise, he chuckled and bent so that his forehead was touching hers. “Not silly, chérie. I understand. To be honest, I expected something like this.”
“You did?”
“You forget I’ve known you for the past six years, and I’ve never seen you like this with anyone.”
“It was that transparent?”
“To the trained roué, yes,” he said with his usual smirk, though it seemed forced. “But if you change your mind, my offer still stands. In friendship.”
Relieved, she flung her arms around his neck and drew him close. It felt as if a great weight had been removed from her shoulders. Not that the conversation had helped her decide what to do about her husband, but at least she didn’t have the pressure of Julien’s proposal hanging over her head. Or her promise to him. And she’d been truthful…she did want him to be happy. And he could never be with a thin mockery of a wife. Not even in the guise of friendship.
Julien drew back to wipe the tears from her cheeks, and they both froze at the sudden shadow thrown across the marble pavilion in the oath of the rising sun. Aisla turned to see the starkly enraged face of her husband.
“Well, is this no’ just bloody cozy?”
…
The sight that had greeted Niall had nearly made him stumble to his knees—his wife with her head on another man’s shoulder, him kneeling before her, both of them disheveled and half dressed as if they’d spent the past hour engaged in sweaty, pleasurable congress. Much like he and Aisla had been some hours ago, until he’d been rudely woken by Fenella.
“She’s gone to meet her lover,” the housekeeper had announced. “If ye care.”
“Enough, Fenella,” he’d groaned, resenting the intrusion. “My wife is probably in her own chamber.”
“Yer wife is off on a tryst with her Frenchman at this very moment. Come see for yerself if ye dunnae ken it.”
He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but the blatant certainty in Fenella’s expression had made him suddenly unsure. Aisla had not been in her chamber, and her tight-lipped maid had refused to say a word despite threats of dismissal. Suspicion had bloomed then, along with a sour, vicious spike of jealousy. Surely, she wouldn’t go to him after what they’d shared…physically and emotionally?
“Perhaps she wanted to go for a walk,” he’d said to Fenella, struggling to convince himself and to give Aisla the benefit of the doubt.
“If that’s what ye want to believe, then more’s the pity,” Fenella taunted. “But ask yerself this, why has yer wife gone in the direction of Maclaren?” She’d grinned, ugly and triumphant, and in that moment, Niall understood Aisla’s dislike for the woman. “And why did she send her maid there a half hour before?”
He ignored Fenella’s repellent demeanor under the damning information. It was too coincidental. His demons rose from the past to torment him. They were unappeased, wanting only to prick and disturb. Half crazed with an ugly mix of emotions, his doubts refused to settle. With a gloating Fenella on his heels, he’d started the journey toward Maclaren on foot when he’d sighted the two horses tethered at the folly.
Two horses.
“I told ye,” Fenella had said softly behind him, but he hadn’t heard anything over the roaring in his ears.
His heart had taken a battering then, though his stupid mind had still insisted that the riders could have been anyone. Hope held out for a pathetic moment, until he’d recognized that golden hair and her beautiful patrician profile. Then he’d recognized the other.
Niall had never wanted to murder a person more than he had at that moment…and his target wasn’t either of the two lovers. It was himself—his stupid, gullible, desperate self. God, he was a bloody, blind bastard. He was a fool to believe that a leopard could ever change its spots.
Upon seeing him, his wife scooted out of the Frenchman’s reach with a gasp, but it was too late. The damage had been done. Niall released a smothered curse as Leclerc rose, but Aisla put a brave hand on his chest and shook her head. After a silent exchange, the Frenchman bowed but remained standing close.
“It’s not what you think, Niall,” Aisla began.
He wiped his face of all expression, though his rage remained close to the surface. “Nae?”
“We were talking,” she said. “I needed to talk to Jul…Lord Leclerc.”
“At this indecent hour, when the sun’s not yet fully risen?”
“Yes.”
His eyes dipped lazily over her, pausing on her disheveled hair and cheeks. Her hand fluttered up as if to pat the tangled strands in place, but then faltered in midair. He arched an eyebrow, and understanding made her copper eyes widen.
“This is not what you’re thinking,” she repeated.
“Is it no’?” he drawled. “Ye left my bed to run to another man? We both ken what that makes ye.”
Fury flared on Leclerc’s countenance. “Now, see here, you cannot speak to a lady in—” he began, but once more his wife’s lightest touch held him at bay. Niall felt the beast keen inside of him, half hoping that the Frenchman give him an excuse to resort to violence. Niall would welcome it. With relish.
“Julien, please, don’t make it worse,” Aisla told the man softly. He stopped, pale eyes wintry, and turned on his heel to stalk to the end of the folly with a volley of vile French oaths.
Aisla’s gaze drifted to the woman standing behind him, anger tightening her lips and flashing in her eyes. “You’d accuse me of infidelity now? After we’ve both forgiven one another? After we’ve both decided to trust one another? And yet, it looks as though Fenella has taken you by the ear, yet again.”
“She came to warn me of yer tryst!”
A look of pain flitted across her face. “And you believed her, as you always did.”
“Aye.” His voice was bleak. “I didnae want to, but here ye are. In the flesh. With him.”
Aisla stepped toward him, her heart in her eyes. Or was it guilt? Guilt that she’d been caught with her lover. Had she been honest with him the evening before, when she’d told him that she’d not once taken Leclerc to her bed? Or had she only been saying what he so desperately wanted to hear? To win the wager, he thought. Perhaps that’s why she’d come to meet Leclerc. To inform him it had been done.
His anger flared again, roiling like a caged animal in his chest. He wanted to hurt her, to hurt him. But most of all, damn her eyes, he wanted to kiss those lush lips and salve his body with hers. He cursed himself for his weakness.
“Niall,” Aisla said, her palm stretched toward him.
“Dunnae.” The word was curt. Like a bullet, it stopped her in her tracks, her eyes going wide at the danger in it. The sense of calm taking over was like a
numb paralysis. Self-preservation, perhaps. “I’m well within my rights to call yer lover out,” he said.
He registered how she flinched after every cold word, but all the emotion on her face did was to kill the light burning inside of him. “I should have learned my lesson five years ago when I chased after yer skirts like a green lad and went to Paris.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You…you came to Paris?”
He swallowed his self-disgust. “Aye, to find ye. Once I’d been sober for some months, I wanted, stupidly, to win ye back. I thought I had a chance, but I was wrong, wasnae I? There ye were, young and beautiful and surrounded by yer fawning admirers. Ye had nae need of me.”
Niall remembered the day like it was yesterday. After Ronan had forced him to get sober, and Aisla still hadn’t returned after six months, he realized that his wife wasn’t coming back. She hadn’t gone to Montgomery as he’d expected. He’d gone there, too, his tail between his legs, only to be told that she had been living in Paris with her aunt. He’d expected to find her as miserable as he’d been. Instead, he’d found her laughing and dressed in sumptuous finery, her body on lascivious display, flirting and entertaining gentleman suitors as if she were an unmarried lass.
Everyone wanted her, panted after her like dogs in heat. And she’d reveled in it. Evidently, his wife had not missed any part of her prior life or meant to honor her marriage vows. Or him. He’d wanted to barge in there, toss her over his shoulder, and bodily cart her back to Scotland in the way of his Viking ancestors. If possible, she’d grown more beautiful than when she’d left, and his sorry heart had wanted nothing more than to feel the embrace of her arms.
But this Aisla seemed lost to him.
And then, as he’d stood obscured behind a silk folding screen, he’d overheard her conversing with one of her swains.
“What do you think about all these ladies hunting for husbands, Lady Montgomery?” the man had asked.
The name hadn’t stunned him. What came next had, though. His darling wife had laughed. “Marriage? Who would ever want to make such a ghastly mistake?”
Sweet Home Highlander Page 21