Page 91 of The Highlander's Temporary Bride
For now, she knew the whole story, and while Agnes was working on forgiveness, Emma wasn’t sure she could.
Not until she saw her father step down, reaching for her mother, and watched his face fall as Lavinia pulled away, rushing toward her daughters. In another moment, Lavinia had embraced both of her daughters, weeping and laughing, pressing kisses to their temples.
And Matthew Wells stood alone, watching them with a tight jaw and downcast eyes.
After a stilted round of greetings, then showing her parents to their rooms, and letting them wash up, the day had passed in fits and starts. Emma had too many tasks for the wedding to worry about what to say to her father, but she’d barely managed a hello.
It soured every step, and she wanted to demand he leave—or explain, or…
“Emma.” Grant found her at the top of the stairs, their place from all those months ago, where they’d struck their bargain. “Yer faither and maither wish to speak with ye. They’re in rooms.” Emma let herself fall against her husband-to-be as he wrapped arms around her. “Ye want me to come?” She didn’t answer. “Or leave?”
“No,” Emma finally said. “I knew that I could not put this conversation off much longer. But thank you.”
She went up on tiptoe and gave him a sweet, swift kiss, and Grant caught her chin. “I will nae tell ye how to feel or what to say to yer faither, but that is a heartbroken man.” He swallowed. “And I cannae forget that he did try to save my life—or maybe did, by delayin’ the hangin.’”
Emma pulled in a breath, knowing that Grant was trying to give her something to hold onto, so she didn’t fall to pieces. To remind her of the strange coincidences and fates that twined them all. Or perhaps, Providence had intervened.
“I know terrible faithers,” Grant murmured. “The Earl would have tae work a bit harder to be as bad as mine.” Emma gave him a look. “Alrigh’, I admit that I rather like the man. But I just don’t want this hangin’ over ye on our weddin’ day. I’m a selfish?—”
Emma grabbed Grant’s shirt and pulled him down for a searing, blazing kiss. “You are not. You are trying to be fair and calm. I thank you.”
With that, she went to see her father, though every step dragged, and Emma remembered the night of her flight from Wells Manor.
What was it like to wake in the morning and find me gone? To find my letter?Emma swallowed as she opened the door to her parent’s room, not even bothering to knock, and both looked up. Relief leaped into their eyes and a piercing ache hit her chest.
Agnes was already there, sitting on the couch, and her face was calm, but her green eyes seemed wary. She tried to smile at Emma, then flashed a look at their father.
“Here, Emma,” Lavinia said. “Come sit.”
“I have no wish to stay longer than needed,” Emma said coldly.
Agnes’s face creased with worry, and she flew to her twin’s side. “Do not let what happened all those years ago cast a pall on your celebration,” she murmured. “Please. We are together now.”
“We could have been together all our lives,” Emma burst out, and clutched at her heart. Agnes slid an arm around her.
“You don’t know that.” Of all things for Matthew to say. Emma felt her temper surge like a storm under her skin.
Have you always been so unfeeling? Did I simply refuse to see it?
Her father seemed to stare at them as though he couldn’t even see them.
Emma might have flown at him if not for Agnes. “So, you don’t care what you’ve done? Or what you took from us? How could you be so selfish?”
“I thought your mother would die if Agnes did,” Matthew said, and closed his eyes. “She nearly did when our first child—our first daughter did not live. It was wrong and selfish, I knew that. I took that sin on to save her. I thought I…”
“You—you are the monster,” Emma spat. “All these years and you said it was the Scottish, but it wasyou.My husband—Agnes’s husband, they would never do such a thing. They would never be such a coward.”
“Emma,” Lavinia said, and came to her side. “Listen?—”
“No.” Emma looked at Agnes, whose eyes were glassy with tears. A sob broke from Emma, thinking of Agnes, alone and unaware, and for herself, longing for a sibling all those years. “How could you?”
“I…” Matthew stared at Emma, then at Agnes, and his chest heaved. Suddenly, he turned and went to the window. Silence pervaded the room, Emma’s chest burning, and she wanted to scream at him to leave—was about to demand Grant throw him from Banrose Castle when a dull shock went through Emma.
He's—he’s weeping.
The Earl of Cumbria and Fairisle Lakes, her father, had pressed his face into his hand as he wept. Lavinia pulled in a breath and both her daughters looked to her.
She seemed young then, a little uncertain, and then she began to move, walking faster and faster, until she came to her husband’s side. Lavinia pulled Matthew’s hand away and he looked at her, devastation written in every line of his face.
