by Nichole Van
But it was something else to hear the words from Rafe’s mouth.
“But how can you be sure?” She had to ask it. “Why do you automatically assume . . .”
That we cannot marry.
Her unspoken words hung between them. She could not quite bring herself to voice them, to put the idea forth so baldly.
If he noticed or cared, Rafe did not show it. His expression seemed to assume that their marriage had been a foregone conclusion. Which, in and of itself, was a bit earth-shattering.
His hands rested atop his kilt, fisting and relaxing, over and over, as if helpless to stem the emotions in his chest.
“Kendall despises Mainfeld,” he finally replied. “Remember what I told ye? He found out I had danced with ye that night at the ball and then forbade me—”
“I grant you that, but this isn’t some honor blood feud. We do not live in the Middle Ages. At some point, our fathers have to move past that wretched duel so many years ago. But my father—well, Lord Mainfeld, I guess I should say—would grant his blessing, if he knew it was what I truly wanted.”
“Bah! Kendall doesnae care what I want. I’m convinced that even without the bad blood between our fathers, he would still deny me simply tae be cruel. Ye dinnae know him—”
“You’re correct, I do not. But if he is as desperate for an heir as you say, then why would he so vehemently oppose me? Despite my actual parentage, I am the acknowledged daughter of an earl.”
He fixed her with a dark look. “Surely Kendall knows who your father is. You are the image of your natural aunt. Catharine traveled with Kendall and Dr. Ross as a young woman. My father, at the very least, knows her in passing. He cannot be blind tae the similarities between you—”
“Why are you assuming this?” she pressed onward. This was their future he was casting aside. The possibility of her being his bride. “Why are you assuming that he will say no to a union between us? Particularly, if you make it clear that it is the only way he will have grandchildren? Do you wish to marry Lord Syke’s daughter?”
“Of course not.”
She bit her lip, thinking to perhaps stem the words, but they tumbled free regardless, angry and frustrated.
“Then why will you not fight for us?!” She leaned toward him. “Do you not care?”
Something snapped within him, some tether holding back an avalanche of words.
“Fight for us? Care?!” He surged to his feet, one hand on a hip, the other in his hair. “Are ye daft, lass?!”
“Daft?!” She rose, as well, hands waving. “Remember that moment in the bothie?! The one where you said you wanted me?! Was that all a lie?!”
“Of course not! I adore you!”
“Forgive me if I’m struggling to believe it! How does your current line of thinking show that you want me? That you adore me?” She gestured wildly. “You’re giving in and assuming that your father won’t permit . . . that he will not allow us to. . .”
She drifted off, her nerve failing her.
“Marry?” He finished the sentence for her.
The word hung between them, nearly pulsing with life—marry, marry, marry.
She nodded, pulling the tartan closer, wrapping it tight around her, as if the wool would protect her from his words.
He laughed—a bitter, caustic sound.
Sophie winced, turning her head to the side, tears falling in earnest.
She moved to pass him, intent on retiring to her quarters.
He stopped her with the wall of his chest.
“No. Not tears.” His arms wrapped around her, his tone instantly softening. “I think ye are misunderstanding this situation, lass. Ye don’t understand what I’m saying.”
She held utterly still in his arms, her own hands trapped between them, her knuckles pressed against his sternum. She kept her eyes on his Adam’s apple, fearful that if he looked into her eyes, he would see the heartache in her soul.
Sophie swallowed back the tears choking her, sucking in a stuttering breath.
“Then what are you saying?” she whispered.
“Sophie?”
Silence.
“Sophie, lass, please look at me.”
It was the plaintive note in his please that convinced her.
She lifted her eyes, expecting to see sadness or determination or wariness. Anything but the warmth and adoration that shone there.
He studied her, his expression one of wonder . . . almost awe. He traced the side of her face with two fingers, gently tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
“Do ye remember our first meeting? Behind the curtain at that ball all those years ago?”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
He continued, “Ye were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. And not just your face—which is stunning, mind ye—but I noticed so much more than that. I admired the original turn of your mind, the clever way ye looked at the world. And I knew, in that moment . . .”
He drifted off.
“Knew what?” she whispered.
He drew that same finger down her cheek, his eyes tracing the path. “That my heart would always belong to you.”
Sophie froze, her own heart literally giving a stuttering hiccup before racing away. “Pardon?”
He brought his eyes to hers, intense and weighty. “If ye believe nothing else from me, then hear this: Lady Sophronia Sorrow Fulstate . . . I want you. I worship you.” He paused, releasing a deep breath. “I love you.”
She sucked in a gasped breath.
“I love you,” he continued. “It seems at times that I have always loved you.”
He loved her?
He had always loved her?!
‘But Rafe—”
“Lennon, lass.”
Oh, for the love of—
“Lennon? Truly?! At a moment like this?!”
He laughed, this time a soft breath of sound.
“Lennon,” he repeated, giving the word a slightly different intonation, though it still sounded like lennon to her ears. “L-E-A-N-N-A-N . . . leannan.” He spelled it out for her.
“Leannan?” she repeated.
“Mo leannan.” He leaned forward, pressing his forehead to hers. “My beloved.”
She gasped, those dratted tears spilling over. “Leannan? Beloved?”
“Aye.”
And then he kissed her, right then, her mouth agape in surprised shock, tears on her cheeks.
The contact jolted her, scrambling her senses further.
It only took a fraction of a second for her to return his embrace, her mouth hungrily responding to his. Her hands were still trapped between them, but she freed one, wrapping it around his neck.
This man.
She was his beloved? His leannan?!
And he had deliberately goaded her into calling him beloved every time she said his pseudonym?
But, of course, he had. It was such a . . . Rafe thing to do.
She almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of it. To have the heart of one like Lord Rafe Gilbert . . .
The mind nearly boggled at the thought.
And yet, here she was . . . kissing him senseless in the great hall of her natural father’s castle in the Scottish Highlands.
The kiss went on and on, Rafe’s hands splayed across her back, lifting her to her toes, bringing her that much closer.
“Mo leannan,” he murmured. “Mo chridhe. My heart.”
She threaded her hand into his hair, not allowing him to pull away from her. She would keep him here by sheer force, if necessary.
“How can you call me your beloved and then not fight for us?” she whispered against his lips, tasting the salt of her own tears. “How can you not want us to be together—”
He kissed her again, swallowing her words, his actions becoming more and more desperate.
“I want it more than anything,” he replied, pulling back just enough to speak. “I would give just about anything tae keep ye, Sophie, love, ye must believe that.
But, my father . . .” He paused, kissing her one more time.
She was quite sure her knees had gone utterly boneless. “Your father?”
He leaned his forehead against hers once more. “My father knows.”
Sophie blinked. “Pardon?”
“My father knows how I feel about you. He knows that I love you.”
“H-h-how? How could he know that?”
“He knows me. He deduced the reasons behind my behavior.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”
Rafe let loose a gust of air and stepped back, his hands leaving her body, as if greatly reluctant to let her go.
Cold swept over her at his loss.
“Ye know the ball where I kissed you?” he asked. “I have never enjoyed an evening more than that one. Truthfully. As I said before, I had every intention of courting ye in earnest after that night. But my father learned of my behavior and loudly voiced his disapproval of ye.”
“Yes.” Her heart plummeted. “You have mentioned this.”
“Aye. But I have not told ye all.” Rafe slowly nodded his head. “The day after the ball, Kendall tried everything to make me give ye up. I held fast. I refused. I was going tae take my mother out of the country. I hoped to convince ye to elope with me.”
“Truly?” Sophie’s voice cracked. “What a crazy, wonderful idea.”
“It was.” His eyes so very sad. “We would have taken off with Andrew on his adventure to the South Pacific.”
“Oh!”
“It would have been incredible. But . . .”
“But?”
“My father was livid at my intransigence, at my refusal tae bow to his demands and give ye up. And so, Kendall took matters into his own hands. He forced me tae accompany Andrew—”
“Forced you?” Sophie’s hand clutched her stomach.
“Aye. He ordered two burly grooms tae ‘escort’ me to The Minerva in Leith. He compelled me to go on the voyage, knowing that ye would be married when I returned. That is how much Kendall hates Mainfeld. That is how opposed he is tae a union between us.”
She practically watched the fight drain from him.
Sophie didn’t want to join him in his hate for his father, but it rose in her nonetheless. How could that callous duke take such a kind, generous son and deliberately crush him, grind him to dust like so much chaff?
Silence.
“So you see, Kendall will never allow our marriage. He practically took me up in chains the last time I mentioned it. If we were tae marry, we would do it without his blessing. And he would exact revenge upon my mother for it. Kendall would cast her into the worst asylum he could find.”
“I agree with you. I would never do anything that would harm your mother so. Can she not be spirited away then? You had mentioned that before—”
“That option has passed. ’Twould be just as cruel to her, as she dotes upon her grandchildren so. I think she would prefer the asylum—”
“No!”
“Aye. ’Tis the truth. Regardless, I cannot purchase my happiness at the cost of condemning my mother to a life of captivity and misery. I cannot. Such a thing would poison my soul . . . and so I cannot think of a way . . .” He paused. Cleared his throat. And then continued. “Despite it being the absolute profoundest wish of my heart, I cannot see how there can be an . . . us.”
Even though Sophie knew the words were coming, even though she knew he would—and should—choose his mother over her, hurt still lanced through her chest.
She licked a tear off her upper lip.
Rafe observed it in silence, dark eyes tracking the drops on her cheeks. He brushed them away with his thumbs, but more followed. Shaking his head, he let out a curse and bent down. He began kissing the tears away, murmuring his love over and over.
“I would give anything tae be the one to always kiss away your grief,” he whispered, a hitch in his breath.
Sophie could not bring herself to answer. Instead, she pulled his mouth back to hers, communicating her anguish through a punishing kiss.
Finally, Rafe pulled back, pressing his forehead to hers, hands trembling, chest heaving.
“I hate him,” he hissed. “It’s unchristian and unholy and likely going to destroy me, but I don’t care. I hate him!”
Despite having never met the man, Sophie could not bring herself to respond.
She felt like hating the Duke of Kendall, too.
But she had already fought so hard to rid her heart of such rage. It was an acid to her soul.
Hatred had nearly destroyed her once. She would not allow it purchase again.
But it was difficult. It was so difficult to not hate as Rafe continued to rage, as she had to stand as witness to the result of his father’s cruelty.
She tried not to hate as she lay in her bed later that night, imagining more and more desperate ways that she and Rafe could be together.
And she viciously smothered the emotion as she watched Rafe ride out the following morning at first light.
Not knowing when, or if, she would see him again.
28
Rafe rode out of Drathes Castle at first light.
He did not look back.
One slight glance from Sophie would be enough to destroy his resolve, to claim her as his own and abandon his mother to her fate.
And he could not do that.
He would not claim his future on the back of his mother’s misery.
Anger burned a hole in his chest. The more Rafe thought of Kendall, secure in his position, king of his fiefdom, basking in power and wealth . . .
Rage tasted acrid in his throat.
How could this be the end? After everything, Rafe would be forced into a marriage he did not want, dancing to his father’s tune like a trained monkey, spending his days bending to that man’s will . . .
Just imagining such a life wrapped a vise around his chest, snatching his breath and constricting his lungs.
What was he to do?
Unbidden, images crawled through his mind . . .
Rafe arriving in London and luring his father away somewhere for a hunting trip. How simple it would be to contrive a convenient accident.
Or perhaps a vintage French brandy laced with sufficient nightshade to ensure death.
There were numerous ways to send the Duke of Kendall to an untimely end.
And with his death, Rafe’s mother would be free. Free of his father’s threats and abuses. Free to live as she chose.
Even if the deed were pinned on Rafe, he could flee the country. Sophie was adventurous; surely she would join him. They could be together.
Rafe only had to enact a plan . . .
Sophie’s words from those hours in the bothie on Cairn O’Mount rattled through him.
Hate and anger can be molded into determination and strength.
He knew that murder was not what Sophie had meant. Would she forgive him for killing his father?
And was he actually contemplating patricide as the only viable solution to this?
Didn’t he try to kill you first on Cairn O’Mount? an insidious voice whispered. Grant said he was only to warn you, but how do you know?
If Grant had been successful, no one would have ever tied Rafe’s death—in a ravine on a moor in the Scottish Highlands, a brigand’s bullet through his skull—to his father.
Was death truly what his father had intended for him? And if so, didn’t Rafe have a right—even an obligation—to protect himself?
Only the dissolution of her marriage bonds would release his mother. Divorce was impossible. Therefore, his father’s death was the only viable solution.
Rafe tried to push the dark thoughts away—they had no proof that Kendall had ordered Grant to kill him, the likelihood of it seemed slim and illogical—but the idea of being free took on its own life.
Images and ideas flooded him. So many options; so many ways he might go about ending his sire.
The violent thoughts acted like tinder to the fla
me of his rage, stoking it higher and higher, until it felt as if he had to kill Kendall. That it was the only logical place for his hatred to go.
Rafe cantered into Aberdeen in the early afternoon, heading straight for the harbor. It was a simple task to locate Captain White and book passage on the packet boat leaving for London in two hours.
Captain White, a good friend of Kieran’s and hence an acquaintance of Rafe’s, was a looming, no-nonsense fellow.
“’Tis a pleasure to see ye again, my lord. I trust Kieran is well?”
“Aye.” Rafe fished coins out of his sporran. “He was hale when I last saw him in Edinburgh. He was for New York then.”
“Eh, New York always agrees with a man.” White took Rafe’s payment and then consulted his pocket watch. “We leave with the outgoing tide in precisely ninety-five minutes. Be punctual. Dinnae make me search for your sorry arse.”
Rafe nodded. He had no intention of being late. He had to reach Kendall as quickly as possible, anything to stem the tide of damage.
Rafe made his way to a nearby livery stable and arranged for his horses to be returned to a stable in Edinburgh. He then bolted down a quick luncheon of haggis and neeps at a crowded dockside tavern across from the packet boat. As he finished eating, he could see Captain White and one of the crew directing passengers into several skiffs to be rowed out to the packet boat bobbing in the harbor. The ship would leave promptly at the hour; Rafe didn’t have much time.
He paid his account and crossed the wharf, pushing through the lines of sailors unloading cargo and the crowds of passengers milling about, intent on Captain White and the skiff. The captain turned and motioned to him to hurry. Rafe picked up his pace.
But as Rafe stepped aside to allow a group of drunk sailors to pass, a familiar voice reached him through the din.
“. . . I cannae say precisely how long we’ll be gone, but the voyage should take at least two weeks, mayhap three.”
Rafe froze between one step and the next, feet locked in place, heart in his throat.
No!
It cannot be.
Surely, he was hearing things. That voice did not belong to whom he thought.
And yet . . .
The voice continued, moving away from him, “I can look at the charts and give ye a better estimate, if ye’d care to call upon me tomorrow.”