by Lydia Dare
Sorcha threaded her arm through Alec’s and leaned into his side. “Introduce me ta the lady, Alec,” she said softly.
*
No one had ever mistaken Delia Sewell for a lady, at least not that Alec was aware of. Then again, the first time he’d laid eyes on the Cyprian she’d been lounging on a divan at Brysi, wearing rouge on her cheeks and not much else.
God, he’d rather keep all of that from Sorcha.
In the chair beside him, Sorcha huffed out an impatient breath of air. He had to say something soon. Damn Charles to hell for bringing this mess to his doorstep. Frustrated, Alec flopped his hand between the two women. “Miss Ferguson, meet Miss Sewell.”
“It’s very nice ta meet ye,” Sorcha said, her voice quiet and sure. She smiled in greeting, which caused Delia to look down her nose at Sorcha. How dare the Cyprian take a superior attitude with his intended? Sorcha was worth ten of Delia. And even more than that.
“Likewise,” Delia replied with a dismissive nod.
“How was yer journey ta Edinburgh?” Sorcha asked.
Delia stepped farther into the room and perched herself on the arm of Alec’s chair as though she belonged there.
“As eventful as any other.” She looked at Alec from beneath hooded lashes. “Do you remember the time we went to the country for the weekend, just the two of us?”
Alec managed a grunt, but that was all. Had the woman lost her blasted mind? A muscle along his jaw began to twitch, and he could just imagine that his face was a brilliant purple.
“We had the most splendid trip.” Delia shot Sorcha another superior glance. Damn her.
“I really don’t think—” Alec began.
But Delia spoke over him, “It rained and we spent most of the time in bed, when we weren’t snuggling together in the coach.” Her deep throaty laugh nearly took over the room. Alec remembered that trip well. He’d paid her handsomely to go along with him, to be his paramour for a short time, just for the convenience of having her life force at hand. Obviously, she’d thought more of the occasion than he had.
Sorcha visibly stiffened in her seat, which made Alec rise from his spot. “We’ll need to be on our way,” he tossed out to the room at large. “I promised to have Miss Ferguson back to her father posthaste.” He looked down into Sorcha’s eyes as she gazed up at him. “Are you ready, love?” Storms brewed behind her lashes. Thank God, Rhiannon wasn’t nearby or a true storm would be brewing indoors.
Sorcha rose from her seat, squared her shoulders, and said, “I can see myself home just fine, Alec.” Then she started for the door.
He caught her arm and pulled her back to him, and then he whispered, “I’ll accompany you. I had planned to have a talk with your father tonight, anyway.”
“Regrettably, Alec,” she shot back, her voice cracking only once, “I find myself in need of some time alone.
Renshaw can see me back ta my home.” She glanced around Alec’s town house. “This certainly isn’t it.”
She started again for the door, and he found himself chasing after her like a puppy at her heels. “Sorch, wait,” he tried.
“It was nice ta meet ye all,” Sorcha said properly to the group. Then she turned on her heel and quit the room, her nose held high in the air, her shoulders proudly back.
It wasn’t until she was outside the front door that she allowed the facade to crumble. Sorcha caressed a strand of ivy that trailed up the house front. She whispered to the plant as she stroked it lovingly.
“Sorch!” Alec’s hand on her shoulder made her jump.
“Oh, Alec.” She frowned at him. Then she shook her head quickly and started down the steps toward the coach. “Ye should have told me.”
“Told you what?” he asked as he reached for her fingertips.
She stopped and turned back to face him. “That ye have a mistress, Alec,” she whispered. Her hand came up to stroke the day-old beard stubble on his face. “As much as I love ye, I refuse ta share ye.” She inhaled deeply and graced him with a watery smile. “She’s beautiful, by the way. Such a resemblance ta Caitrin. Miss Sewell will suit ye well until ye find a wife of yer own.”
“I’ve already found a wife of my own,” he ground out. How dare she assume his feelings had changed? How dare she let Delia’s presence change anything? How dare she throw Caitrin’s name at him again? “It’s you, Sorch.”
“Then what is she ta ye?” She watched his face closely.
“She’s a whore,” he bit out. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“Ye’ve bitten her?” She looked so sad as she said the words.
He nodded. He wouldn’t lie to her. But what did she expect? He had to drink blood to survive. And he’d not apologize for that.
“Ye’ve shared her bed?” She stroked his face again, her voice silky soft.
“Sorcha, this is not a fitting conversation for a gentleman and his bride-to-be.” He knew he sounded like an arse before the words even came out of his mouth. But he couldn’t help it. Discussing a mistress with a fiancée just wasn’t done, and she was making him more than uncomfortable.
“I ken ye have shared her bed. I can see it in the way she looks at ye.”
“You see an opportunistic woman who lets any number of vampyres into her bed in exchange for pleasure and a few coins.”
Sorcha looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m goin’ home, Alec,” she finally said. He made a move to follow her. But she held up a hand. “The way I see it is this—she offers ye the same thing I did, my body and my blood, in exchange for a bit of pleasure and some coin.” She looked at his house and then down at his fine clothing. “So, what makes us different?”
There were so many answers to that question that he couldn’t even pick one. “You are mine,” he ground out.
“Yet ye said yerself ye can never, ever love me, so I doona ken what’s so different about us after all.” Then she fled into Eynsford’s still waiting carriage and departed. She was gone before Alec could even gather enough thought to chase after her.
*
Sorcha settled back against the squabs and fought the heavy need to cry. She’d been fortunate to find a man to love. And unfortunate that he was a man who couldn’t love her back. He’d bitten that woman. That whore. That piece of perfection. And the woman who was head over heels in love with him.
Sure, he’d bitten Sorcha too. And he’d given her pleasure. But he’d never given her his heart. In fact, he’s given her his staunch resolve that it wasn’t his to give.
She’d thought she was all right with that. And she probably would have been, had Miss Sewell not sauntered into Alec’s parlor, reminding Sorcha that one woman’s blood was as good as another’s. She was nothing special to Alec, and she never would be. And she didn’t think she could live with that after all.
Alec hadn’t asked her father for her hand yet. There was still time to undo what hadn’t yet been done. Sorcha knocked on the roof of the carriage and called out to Renshaw to take her to the Westfields’ instead of driving her home. Perhaps Elspeth could heal a broken heart before it shattered into a million pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as Sorcha spotted Westfield Manor through the coach window, she took a calming breath. More than anything in the world, she wanted Elspeth to wrap her in comforting warmth. She wanted the healer to ease all her pain. She wanted to feel happy. Or to feel nothing at all.
Nothing was preferable to the dull ache that slowly constricted her heart.
The carriage rumbled up the stony drive and Sorcha closed her eyes, feeling every bump until the conveyance finally came to a stop. The coachman opened the door and offered Sorcha his hand. Worry lined the man’s face, and she tried her best to assure him with a smile. “Thank ye for everythin’, Renshaw. Ye should probably head back ta Mr. Macleod’s. I think I’ll be here a while and then I’ll return in Lord Benjamin’s carriage.”
“Is everything all right, Miss Ferguson?”
Oh, she wished he hadn
’t asked that. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids. “Aye. Just please doona mention any of this ta Lord Eynsford.” Cait would know anyway, and that was awful enough.
Reluctantly, the coachman nodded. Then Sorcha scurried past him up the stone steps to the large oak door. Before she could even knock, the Westfields’ young butler opened the door. “Miss Ferguson! I had no idea ye were back home.” He held the door wide. “Come in, come in, lass.”
She crossed the threshold and tried to smile at the exuberant butler. “Please tell me Lady Elspeth is in, Burns.”
It would be just her luck to show up here and have Elspeth aiding a midwife on the other side of town.
He winked at her and shut the front door. “Her ladyship is in the nursery, Miss Ferguson.”
The nursery. Thank heavens she was home. “I ken the way, Burns. I’ll surprise her, if ye doona mind.”
Burns nodded; warmth and cheer nearly radiated from him. “I think she would like that, lass.”
Sorcha climbed two sets of stairs and wound her way down one corridor and then one more before finally reaching the massive nursery. One would think Lord Benjamin planned on raising an entire pack of Lycans from the sheer size of the room. Thus far, he had only filled it with a fiery-haired witch-to-be, a tiny one at that. From the doorway, Sorcha heard little Rose Westfield’s childish giggle, and the sound nearly brought her to tears, though she wasn’t certain why.
She must have made some sort of anguished sound because an instant later, Elspeth stood just inside the nursery, concern etched across her brow. “Sorcha!” she wailed, her red locks bouncing about her shoulders.
“Havers! I thought ye were in Kent.”
Kent, where all her plans for a Lycan-filled future had gone awry. Sorcha couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, not when she was standing so close to the one witch who had always seemed like more than a coven sister. Sobs so deep that Sorcha didn’t know where they came from threatened to cleave her in two. Elspeth caught her and held her close.
“Oh, Sorcha! What is it, love?” the healer crooned.
“Surely it canna be this bad.”
But it was every bit as bad as that and worse. Sorcha couldn’t even speak. She wanted to, but words just wouldn’t come. All she could do was sob.
Then the baby started to cry too. A second later, quick footsteps pounded up the staircase. “Ellie!” Lord Benjamin called from somewhere below. “What the devil?”
“It’s Sorcha,” Elspeth called back, smoothing a hand down Sorcha’s back. “I think Rose is cryin’ sympathetically. Come and take her, will ye?”
Havers! Sorcha didn’t want Lord Benjamin to see her like this. She tried to stop her own crying, which only made her hiccup loudly. It was one thing for Elspeth to see her like this. Elspeth was like the older sister she’d never had. The healer was the kindest, most caring soul Sorcha knew.
Elspeth could heal her broken heart. But Lord Benjamin was a man. A Lycan man at that. And Alec MacQuarrie’s oldest friend, or ex-oldest friend. Either way it didn’t matter.
She just didn’t want to see him. Not right now.
Before she could even semi-compose herself, Lord Benjamin Westfield stood behind her. “Good God, Sorch!” he breathed. “Are you hurt?”
Oh, she was hurt more than she ever had thought possible. But she didn’t want to tell him that. He sounded so concerned, which only made her humiliation that much worse. And she hated it when he handed her a handkerchief. She must look a sight.
“Stay with Rose and let me see ta Sorcha,” Elspeth suggested, and she began to tow Sorcha down the corridor.
Sorcha let her friend lead her into a softly lit private parlor and dutifully sat on a comfy chintz settee. Elspeth settled in beside her and grasped Sorcha’s hands. “Take a deep breath, love.”
Sorcha nodded and did as her friend asked. Her jagged breathing started to smooth out, and she began to feel like the most foolish idiot in all of Scotland.
“Can ye talk now?” Elspeth leaned close, looking into Sorcha’s eyes.
She thought she could talk, so she nodded. “I-I need ye ta heal me, El.”
The worry didn’t vanish from Elspeth’s face, and she just squeezed Sorcha’s hands tighter. “I doona feel any sickness in ye.”
Sorcha closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see her friend’s face. “My heart is broken, El. I need ye ta fix it. I just want ta be myself again. I want ta start over.”
Elspeth sighed heavily. “Oh, Sorch. That’s no’ somethin’ I can do. Matters of the heart are beyond my powers.”
Sorcha’s eyes flew back open. Elspeth had to help her.
She just had to. “But—”
“Who broke yer heart? Was it one of Eynsford’s scurrilous brothers? Which one was it? What did he do?”
Sorcha choked on a sob. How she wished she’d stuck to her original plan. “Nay.” She shook her head. “Lord Radbourne or one of the others would have been better. One of them could have at least fallen in love with me. Why did I lose sight of my goal?”
Because she’d stupidly, foolishly, shamefully fallen for a man who could never be hers. Not in the way she needed him to be.
“What happened?” Elspeth’s calm voice floated over Sorcha like a warm blanket.
“It doesna matter. I just need ta be healed. I want ta be whole again. There must be somethin’ ye can do. Please, El.”Elspeth smoothed a tear from Sorcha’s cheek. “If there was somethin’ I could do, Sorch, I would have done it for myself when Ben broke my heart.”
“Blasted men,” Sorcha grumbled. “Always breakin’ hearts. They ought ta be drawn and quartered, the lot of them.”
Elspeth’s eyes grew wide, and she shot out of her seat.
“Havers!” she cried, rushing toward a potted iris in the corner of the room. At least it used to be a potted iris. Now it was a cloud of black smoke. “I’ve never seen ye make a plant burn up like that before.” Elspeth fanned the smoldering plant, as though to air out the room. “Ye better tell me what this is about or there willna be a flower, shrub, or tree that is safe in yer presence.”
It was hardly the poor iris’ fault that men were such feckless creatures, but Sorcha was afraid to try and even help the poor plant for fear of making it worse. “What did ye do, El? How did ye get over the heartache Ben put ye through?”
The healing witch looked toward the doorway as though she expected her once-feckless husband to appear. “I had ta forgive him.”
“Forgive him?” The last person she wanted to think about forgiving right now was Alec MacQuarrie. He could rot with his friend Mr. Browning and the two English whores for all Sorcha cared.
“I had ta make peace with the situation,” Elspeth explained.
From the doorway, Lord Benjamin cleared his throat and Sorcha turned a scathing glare on the man she normally adored. He bounced little Rose in his arms, though concern still clouded his eyes. “Rose was worried about her godmother.”
“Ben,” Elspeth chided, “we are talkin’.”
He pointed to his left ear with a look of sarcasm on his face. “And I can’t help overhearing, so I might as well join you.” Then he glanced again at Sorcha. “Am I to take from the tears and damaged iris that your Lycan hunt didn’t go as planned?”
“Ben!” Elspeth hissed. “Ye are no’ helpin’.”
Lord Benjamin shrugged, stepped into the room, and then dropped into a chair across from Sorcha. “Tell me your problems, lass. I may have a different way of looking at them.”
Meaning he was a man. Her eyes dropped to her lap and she said nothing.
“Come now,” he said softly. “I know you had your heart set on one of Eynsford’s brothers. But you wouldn’t want to be a relation of his.”
Elspeth returned to the settee and resumed her spot beside Sorcha. “Ben, ye’re no’ helpin’,” she said again.
“Besides Cait has told her more times than I can count that a Lycan is no’ in Sorcha’s future.”
“Cait c
an go hang,” Sorcha grumbled, which earned her twin gasps from both Elspeth and her Lycan husband. But Sorcha wouldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to hear another word about Cait or her visions. No, there were no Lycans in Sorcha’s future, according to Cait. The only man she could look forward to was a vampyre who could never love her. It wasn’t fair! “If I want a Lycan, I doona think I should let Cait’s vision stand in my way. Besides…”
“Yes?” Lord Benjamin sat forward in his seat, shifting Rose from one arm to the other.
“I ken what Cait has seen for me, and I doona want any part of it.”
“She told ye?” Elspeth gasped. Everyone knew it was unspeakable for Cait to share the futures she saw. It went against the very principles of her gift.
Sorcha turned back to her coven sister. “Do ye ken what she saw for me?” It would be beyond the pale if Cait had told others, but never her. Elspeth simply blinked at her, which really didn’t answer Sorcha’s question in the least.
“Well, it doesna matter. I willna marry a vampyre who canna love me. Ye healed a wolf who was broken, El. There’s got ta be a way ta mend my heart. Tell me ye’ll try.”
“Vampyre?” Benjamin echoed. “Caitrin says your future is with a vampyre?”
“It doesna matter what Cait says. I’ll make my own future. Just as soon as Elspeth heals me.”
“For yer heart ta be broken, ye must have fallen for this creature. Perhaps ye should listen ta Cait.”
“Perhaps ye should just—”
“Alec,” Benjamin muttered.
Sorcha sucked in a breath and stared at the Lycan. How had he figured that out so quickly?
He shook his head as though he hardly believed the story. “It is him, isn’t it?”
Tears sprung to her eyes again. “I doona want ta talk about him.”
*
Alec paced back and forth at the foot of his bed, trying to decide how on earth he’d gotten into this mess. One minute, he’d had Sorcha in his arms and very nearly had her in his bed, and the next, she was gone, leaving him with a rakish vampyre and two whores, one of whom appeared to be suffering from that vague human affliction called love, or perhaps it was simply jealousy. He scrubbed his forehead in frustration.