Surrender to Me

by Sophie Jordan

  “I imagine you did.” Her expression turned lascivious. “With a bedmate like yours, I would have, too.”

  Ignoring the comment, Astrid bent and snatched her clothes off the floor.

  “I must say,” the girl began.

  Astrid shot her a wary glance as she shook out her impossibly wrinkled gown with one hand.

  “The way he was looking at you, I was a wee bit surprised that he left so early this morning. Especially on such an errand.”

  The hairs on her nape prickled and her stomach began to churn uneasily. “Left?” She could not keep the single word from escaping.

  “Aye. Departed over an hour ago.”

  As much as it pricked her pride to interrogate a maid on Griffin’s whereabouts and plans, nothing could stop her from asking, “Where did he go?”

  “To fetch the reverend in the next village.” She shook her head and laughed ruefully as she set the pitcher on a side table. “You should see the two lairds.”

  “Why is that?”

  “They’re downstairs even now discussing wedding plans like a couple of old women.”

  Astrid’s stomach plunged to her feet in a vicious dive. She dropped back on the bed, her legs suddenly too weak to support herself.

  “Never thought to see those two old dogs breaking bread together…even if they still snipe at one another in the process.” She sighed contentedly. “Can’t tell you how happy everyone is. No one ever relished the idea of that Thomas as lord and master of Balfurin. Griffin’s homecoming is a blessing, to be certain. And now his marriage to Petra…well, everything is coming together.”

  Astrid nodded dumbly. Of course. He had decided to marry Petra. Precisely as she had urged him. For duty’s sake. For his family, his people…for Petra who had suffered more than any woman should.

  For whatever reason, his conscience and good sense must have reared its head at last.

  Perhaps that is what he wanted to tell her last night. Before she stopped him, crushing her lips to his. Perhaps last night had been good-bye for him, too. A final farewell before he went about his duty.

  “I see,” she murmured, the words escaping her tight throat. “Good for Griffin. And Petra.” She nodded once in a satisfied manner, contrary to the ache that flared to life beneath her breastbone, calling her a liar and ten kinds of fool. A scathing voice rose up inside her, whispering and taunting her…

  Did you think this would be so simple? That you could walk away and not feel pain? You don’t want him to marry Petra. You don’t want him to marry anyone but you.

  She shoved down the insistent voice in her head, pushing it to the dark well inside where she had stored feelings she deemed too volatile, too selfish, too much like those that had guided her mother and led her to ruin.

  Standing, she gathered her composure, cloaking herself in a sheet of ice strong enough to kill off pathetic sentiments.

  Uncaring of her audience, she dropped the counterpane and set about dressing herself with stiff movements. Denying Petra a marriage to Griffin would be pure selfishness. Griffin and Petra were right. Astrid and Griffin…well, they were something else. Something that could never be——naught but a dream, elusive and fleeting, never intended to last. Fitting that he should have left before she woke. Would that his memory vanish from her heart as easily.

  Her husband had raped Petra. That alone stood as reason to bite her tongue and set aside the love she felt for Griffin…and whatever he may or may not feel for her. Surrendering the man she loved was the least she could do.

  Dressed and composed, Astrid walked down the corridor with brisk steps, intent on speaking with Laird MacFadden about arranging an escort to Edinburgh. With luck, she would be gone before Griffin returned.

  A part of her died, withered inside at reaching this decision. No good-byes. No seeing him one final time. No pressing her lips to his in a lingering taste. They would never again have a night in each other’s arms.

  It had taken her all day to gather her nerve and decide to approach MacFadden. A day spent contemplating Griffin’s abrupt departure, and his stinging neglect to inform her of his intention to wed Petra.

  It was one matter to have encouraged his nuptials to Petra, but another to watch him marry another with her own eyes. Her heart could not stand witness to such heartbreak. Nor her dignity. She would be gone before such an event took place.

  Quickening her pace, she turned the corridor, noticing a couple ahead. One of them, a female, struck a familiar chord.

  “Petra?” she called.

  The cloaked woman looked over her shoulder, the action inherently anxious, apprehensive. Seeing Astrid, Petra stopped and shot a vague, inscrutable look at her companion, a young man that held her arm in a plainly possessive hold.

  Astrid quickly closed the distance, assessing the man beside Petra suspiciously, her gaze lingering on his hand gripping Petra’s arm.

  “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes. Fine,” Petra replied, her voice a bit strident as she looked to the man beside her.

  Astrid followed her gaze, arching a brow. “Won’t you introduce me?”

  “Oh. This is…Andrew.”

  “Andrew,” Astrid murmured, somehow not surprised. Her gaze ran over the coachman. Although not particularly handsome, he was strapping, his arms thickly muscled. One of his broad hands clutched the handle of a valise.

  Her gaze snapped back up to Petra’s face, awareness hitting her. “Good heavens! You’re not—”

  “Please, Astrid!” Petra rushed forward, seizing her arm in a surprisingly fierce grip. The birthmark on her face seemed to darken with the depth of her emotion. “Don’t try to stop me. I can’t remain here. I thought I could, but I can’t.” She looked to Andrew then. Releasing Astrid, she moved back to his side.

  Astrid tried to wrap her thoughts around the fact that Petra was actually running away. “But Griffin—”

  “Is a good man,” she broke in, “but not for me. I appreciate his offer of marriage, but I don’t want to marry him.”

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  “All my life I’ve done as I was bid and it has brought me nothing but pain.” She looked to the man at her side. He smiled tenderly and pressed the back of Petra’s hand to his mouth. “Andrew has kin in Glasgow. He thinks he can find work at one of the factories there. Perhaps we can save enough for passage to America.” Dark eyes shining, she added in a broken whisper, “I’ll follow my instincts for a change and take a chance on love.”

  Astrid studied the couple in the dim corridor, feeling a stab of envy. Not because they loved each other. It was a simple matter to love someone. She loved Griffin. No great feat, that. Loving was the easy part. It took no strength or courage. The strength came in how one showed that love, what they chose to do with it, whether it survived life’s storms.

  She had thought herself strong and brave to love Griffin and walk away from him, to encourage his marriage to Petra. She had thought herself so different from her mother, someone who surrendered to her love of another man and deserted her child.

  Astrid swallowed, fighting down the sour taste filling her mouth as realization washed over her.

  Petra possessed true strength. Astrid did not.

  Petra loved and was willing to take a chance on that love, to follow it wherever it led. Astrid felt small standing before her.

  Behind her, footsteps thudded over the corridor. Fast approaching. Petra’s face tightened with panic. She pressed closer to Andrew, looking left and right, clearly uncertain whether to flee down the rest of the corridor or take shelter in one of the nearby rooms.

  Without stopping to think, Astrid motioned the couple down the corridor, “Go! Hurry. I’ll distract them.”

  Petra slanted her head and looked at her strangely.

  “Go,” Astrid repeated, waving them on.

  With a grateful smile, Petra and her lover fled.

  Astrid hastened in the opposite direction, ready to stall
the new arrival. Rounding the corridor, she stopped abruptly at the man heading her way, suddenly gratified with her split-second decision.

  “My, you’re up early,” Osborn announced with a leer. “Did Shaw fail to properly tire you out last night?” He stopped before her. “You know, I would be more than happy to accommodate if you find yourself hungry for more—”

  “How kind of you,” Astrid broke in with false charm. “I can think of no one whose company I would rather have than a remorseless killer such as yourself.”

  The smug grin disappeared from his face in a flash. “I would think you would thank me for ridding you of that worthless cur. It has certainly left you free to squeeze your thighs around the first buck to cross your path.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath and resisted the impulse to turn on her heels and leave him and all his crude insults where he stood. No matter how revolting his words, she stayed put, her fingers twitching at her side, itching to make contact with his face. She took comfort in the fact that with every moment that passed, she helped Petra thwart him and all his ruthless ambitions for her.

  “You, sir, are a pig.”

  His gaze crawled over her, glinting with mirthful spite. “And you, Duchess, are little more than a whore…no matter your fancy airs.”

  She flinched.

  “And you mustn’t be very good,” he continued with an arrogant cock of his dark head. “First one husband. Now Griffin. You can’t keep a man to save your life, can you?” He flashed her a cruel smile. “Whatever you have beneath your skirts mustn’t be very appealing or Shaw would not have roused himself so early to leave your bed and fetch the reverend to wed him to my daughter.”

  Stepping nearer, he ran the backs of his fingers against her cheek and down the column of her neck. She turned her face sideways, closing her eyes against the feel of him.

  “That must have pricked your pride,” he continued, his voice a slow, insidious murmur that skimmed over her skin as nimbly as his hand. “Perhaps the right man could teach you how to properly please a man.” He stood so close now that she could smell the onions from last night’s dinner on his breath. Her stomach churned. Opening her eyes, she glared at him.

  “What say you?” he murmured. “Would you like that? To learn what a real man is like?”

  This time she could not stop herself. She flung his hand off her neck and stepped around him. With one hand rubbing her skin as if she could rub out the stain of him on her flesh, she backed away.

  “Never put a hand on me again,” she hissed.

  “No?” Straightening, he brushed away the invisible wrinkles in his coat. “Pity. Then it appears you’re quite finished here. Why not salvage your pride and leave? Today, in fact. Don’t be here when Griffin returns.” The last suggestion was uttered somewhat ominously. “His whore needn’t be standing on while he weds my daughter.” Shaking his head, he clicked his tongue. “That wouldn’t do at all. Not at all.”

  Without gracing him with a reply, she turned and hurried back to her chamber.

  Salvage your pride and leave.

  The fact that his suggestion mirrored her intentions did not make it any easier to hear.

  Pacing the length of her chamber, she rubbed her neck, the feel of his hand an irksome imprint there.

  She was not fool enough to think Osborn cared about her or the status of her pride. She knew his intent. He wanted her out of the way. Would not risk Griffin changing his mind with the shadow of her presence. Apparently only she knew the unlikelihood of that happening, knew that honor would prohibit Griffin from going back on the promise he had made to Petra.

  But Petra would not be here, a small voice reminded. Surely you could stay…

  And what? Be pathetic, desperate, lacking in all dignity? Sniffing about Griffin in the hopes of a future together?

  She still had the matter of her own life to resume. She needed to notify Bertram’s family of his death, meet with the solicitors, inform the next in line that he had inherited the vast, insolvent estates of the Duke of Derring. No. Better that she leave now. Before Griffin returned.

  Petra might have taught her that denying one’s duty and obligation for the sake of love was not such a transgression. She might in fact have changed Astrid’s thoughts concerning her mother, made her look at that long-ago night, when her mother had slipped from their townhouse, differently.

  Closing her eyes, she sank down onto the bed and saw her mother as she had been that night, standing beneath the streetlamp, her expression both anguished and eager in the muted glow. For the first time in her life, Astrid recognized the doubts that must have plagued her mother to leave all that was familiar…to leave Astrid.

  And yet she had done it, had walked into the unknown. Despite the risks, she had followed her heart and taken a chance…however badly it ended. However wrong it may have been.

  Tears blurred her eyes. At last, Astrid understood. Living meant taking chances. Risks. Mistakes even. Better that than running, or hiding as she had been doing.

  Opening her eyes, she stared ahead of her, seeing nothing in the still and silent room before her, seeing all.

  If only she had spent her time loving Griffin—truly loving him—perhaps he could have loved her back. Instead she had worked so hard at pushing him away, encouraging him to wed another, convincing him nothing existed between them. Nothing worth keeping, at any rate.

  No wonder he had decided to wed Petra. If he had felt anything at all for her, she had killed it.

  A chill feathered her spine. If she had fought for them, then perhaps the thought of waiting for him at Balfurin, of taking a chance on him—on them—might not have seemed so very impossible.

  She shivered, hugging herself as the chamber’s coldness seeped into her bones. She glanced at the fire, noting that it still smoldered in the hearth. And yet it felt as though the temperature had dropped.

  Rising to her feet, she made her way to the mullioned window, the room’s chilliness increasing as she approached the fogged glass. Rubbing her fingertips over the icy surface, she peered out, gasping at the sight of swirling snow in the air. It fell thickly, blanketing the ground. Beyond the lake, blinding white stretched across the countryside. Squinting against its brightness, she strained to locate the road, already buried beneath the snow.

  Leaving suddenly posed a new challenge.

  Chapter 25

  Griffin buried his chin in his coat and pulled the wide brim of his hat low over his eyes in an attempt to ward of the sting of snow and wind. Waya lifted his legs high to pass through rapidly rising drifts. The Reverend Walter’s mount trekked behind him, falling in his tracks.

  “How goes it, Reverend?” Griffin called over the howling wind.

  The man nodded from deep within a scarf of tartan, squinting out at the winter-shrouded landscape, lashes tangled with white frothy flakes. “Told you we should have waited out the storm,” he called.

  Griffin pressed his lips into a grim line. The reverend had done his best to discourage their departure, but after lacing his palm with coin, the good man quit his warm cottage.

  Griffin was eager to return to Balfurin, regretful of his hasty departure, and impatient to see Astrid’s dark eyes again. Ironic that. Especially considering he had only ever sought to escape a similar pair of eyes. Now he longed for the sight of them.

  He should have spoken to Astrid before he’d left, but he’d been too damned aggravated to spare a moment for her.

  Instead he had left her alone, under the dubious care of his newfound family.

  A tightness gripped his chest, an uneasiness he could not shake. He had to get back. Had to see her. Touch her. He would not breathe easy until he did.

  Hefting her valise, Astrid made her way downstairs, intent on locating Laird MacFadden and seeing about arranging an escort, storm or no storm.

  A mocking smile twisted her lips. At the very least, Osborn would he happy to accommodate. Certainly his carriage could navigate the snow-laden roads, and she k
new how badly he wanted her gone before Griffin’s return.

  Raised voices drifted on the air. Slowing her pace, she advanced cautiously through the dining hall’s tall double doors, observing Griffin’s family at their breakfast. The smell of sausage pudding rose pungent on the air. No one paid heed to her.

  Osborn leaned forward in his chair and shook his head in agitation over his half-eaten plate of food. “We have to go after them! They cannot have gotten far…”

  Her hand flew to her throat, knowing at once he had discovered Petra missing. It had not surprised her when no one noted the girl’s disappearance yesterday. No one noticed when she was in the room, after all. No. All discussion was on Griffin and his sudden departure.

  MacFadden opened his mouth to respond to Osborn’s histrionics, but his eyes fell on Astrid hovering at the edge of the room. “Lass,” he greeted, cool blue eyes dropping to the valise she clutched in her hand. “Going somewhere?”

  Striding into the room, she stopped and lowered the valise to her feet. Nodding, she moistened her lips and prepared to voice the request she had rehearsed in her room.

  Osborn’s sharp voice stopped her cold. “I’d like to know how you are involved in all this.”

  “Me?”

  “Aye, you. No doubt you wanted Petra out of the way so you could continue your dalliance with Shaw. What have you done with her?”

  “Nothing.” She motioned to her valise with a snort. “And would I be leaving if I wanted Griffin for myself?”

  “Who knows the workings of the conniving female mind? Perhaps you wanted to stop their marriage out of spite, eh?” He nodded as though satisfied with that conclusion. “Is that it?”

  Ignoring him, she addressed MacFadden. “Would you arrange an escort for me to travel as far as Edinburgh, sir? I see no reason to delay my return home any longer.”

  The request did not fall easily from her lips, still she uttered the words that would take her forever from Griffin.

  Rubbing his chin, MacFadden assessed her. “Should we not wait for Griffin—”