Page 82 of Waiting for a Scot Like You
The knowledge of it nearly made him buckle.
“Then, today willbe goodbye,” he said heavily.
“It doesn’t have to be.” She walked to him, color inher cheeks, her breath coming quickly. “We can be together, Duncan, only not as husband and wife.”
He frowned and said vehemently. “I don’t want you to be mymistress. Mistresses come and go, and their paramours are just as transitory.”
“We don’t need to use words likemistressandparamour.” Her trembling hands took his, but he couldn’t be certain who shook more. “We can beus.”
His mind and heart struggled to understand what she offered, but he scrabbled against a wall of glass, finding no traction. “No one in my lineage has ever done such a thing. McCamerons marry. It’s a maxim that runs deep in my blood.”
She looked at him, and in that agonizing moment, he saw in her eyes the truth that he didn’t want to acknowledge. His fear became reality when she said sadly, “We’re never going to be able to bridge the divide between us. I cannot give you what you want, and you can’t live with what I need.”
His throat burned as if choked by acrid gunpowder smoke. Impossible not to curse himself, because he’d known the risks of caring for her, but he’d told himself that he would be cautious and protect himself. And now here he was, his heart merely a collection of fragments that he’d never be able to reassemble. Hell, he didn’t know if hewantedto put his fucking heart back together.
He could be wise, beginning now. The wisest course of action would be to cauterize his wounds and keep moving.
“Fine.” The word was as flat as he felt inside. But this was good. He wanted to feel nothing, as he was certain that, should he let a tiny splinter of pain pierce him, he’d simply fall apart.
Duncan had lived through over a decade of warfare and witnessed countless terrible things. He’d buried comrades in arms and had to console his men when their friends had died under his command. And he’d done well to keep it all contained tightly within him. Not even the Union of the Rakes knew the extent of his scars. He survived because that’s what he did.
“We should leave soon,” he said dully, “if we’re to get you to Lord Gibb’s today.” He threw the words out in a final, futile effort, hoping that she would at the least change her mind about attending the house party, which he hoped meant they still had a chance.
“I see,” she said quietly. She straightened her shoulders, like a boxer shaking off a direct hit, and picked up her valise. “I’m certain I can prevail upon Mr. Atherton to lend me a carriage.”
He told himself he didn’t care that she still intended on going to Lord Gibb’s.
Funny how not caring still hurt like a goddamned cannon blast.
He drew himself up to full attention. “I gave my word to Rotherby that I would see you safely to Lord Gibb’s. I do not go back on my word, and I don’t shirk my duty.”Dignitas, Honestas, Pietas.
“I’m not your duty,” she said, her voice thick.
“You weren’t.” He closed his baggage with a snap. “But now I find that I must consider you so. I’ll wait for you downstairs.”
He left the chamber without waiting for her response. Of all the things he’d done today, including hand-to-hand combat and foiling an armed robbery, walking out of the bedroom with his head up and his shoulders back took the greatest toll.
“You’ve our gratitude, Major,” Atherton said as Duncan and Beatrice mounted their horses. “Is there naught more we can do for you?”
“The loan of these mounts is enough,” Duncan answered. His voice was flat, hardly friendly, but there wasn’t anything to be done about that. He wanted to embrace this nullity of emotion. Better this than the alternative. “I’ll have them back to you on the morrow.”
Atherton frowned slightly at Duncan’s use ofIrather thanwebut did not remark on it or the frosty silence between a couple who had been so enamored of each other the night before. He did glance at Beatrice sitting stiffly atop a chestnut mare, yet she had her gaze fixed on the path leading from the house and did not notice his scrutiny.
“You’re both welcome here again,” Atherton said with a forceful attempt at jolliness. “And there should be no burglars or ruffians of any sort. That I promise you.”
Duncan bit back a reply that Atherton could offer no such promises, since life was unpredictable, dangerous, and painful as hell. Instead, he nodded. “Again, my thanks.” To Beatrice, he said, “Ready?”
She answered tightly, “Let’s go.”
He touched his heels to his horse, prompting it into motion. She did the same, and they rode down the path, soon reaching the main road.
“You know the way?” she asked as he turned them northward.
No, in fact, he was utterly lost as to what to do with himself or how to feel. But that wasn’t what she asked. “Atherton’s butler gave me directions that will see us in Nottinghamshire by midday and at Lord Gibb’s by afternoon.”
Even to his own ears, his words were grim, and he hated that he could still feel enough to hurt. Yet thinking about saying farewell to her made him want to gnaw on flint.
It was, unfortunately, one of those gorgeous English late-summer days filled with sunshine and birdsong. The sky draped overhead in a cloudless span of azure, and beneath it rolled a green quilt of farmland and pasture, dotted with swaying trees and punctuated here and there with gemlike ponds. Shepherds tended flocks of snowy sheep, cows placidly grazed in clover, and everything was so bloody perfect that Duncan wanted to cast up his accounts.
