Page 99 of Sutherland's Secret
He stepped up to her and looked down on her upturned face. She was so different from when he’d picked her up in the road. She’d filled out and was nicely rounded in all the right places. She had color in her face and her eyes sparkled.
“Well, lass, are ye happy with the outcome?”
“I am. Charles can finally rest, and his family can now have peace.”
“Good, then.”
Thomas stopped next to Eleanor. “I’d like to set off for London as soon as possible,” he said, brushing something off his coat. “The earlier, the better. I need to deliver Cumberland’s letter, and Mother and Father are probably beside themselves with worry. I’ve not been able to get a letter to them from this godforsaken place.”
Eleanor kept her gaze steady on Brice, a question in the depths of her blue eyes. Brice wanted to knock Thomas out to keep him from going on and on about London. He was powerfully weary of it.
“Thomas,” Eleanor said. “Do be quiet for once.”
Thomas’s voice trailed off in surprise.
“I’m not going to London,” she said.
“Not going to London?” He sounded perplexed.
Brice knewhewas perplexed. “What are ye saying, lass?”
“I’m not going to London. I’m staying here. That is, if you’ll have me.” She suddenly looked vulnerable and unsure of herself.
Brice could barely breathe through the hope that had a chokehold on him. “Are ye sure about this?”
“Will you have me? Or do I need to beg?”
“Eleanor,” Thomas sputtered. “This is preposterous.”
“Be quiet, Thomas. This doesn’t concern you,” Eleanor admonished her brother without taking her eyes off Brice, who was struggling to breathe appropriately, and his knees felt curiously weak.
“No need to beg,” he said. “But Eleanor, I need ye to be sure about this. I do no’ want ye to regret yer rash actions—”
She put a finger to his lips, silencing him. “My actions aren’t rash. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I don’t want to go to London. Not when my heart is in Scotland.”
He was fairly certain that his heart missed a beat or two before it resumed at twice its normal pace. “I could no’ live if, years or even months from now, ye decided ye needed to go back to London.”
She stepped closer to him. “I’ll say this one more time and I’ll not say it again. I am not Alisa. If you don’t trust that I will stay here with you, then I might as well return to London with Thomas.”
The thought of Eleanor leaving him to go to London was terrifying. Yet it was a part of her. It was her home and where her family lived. How could she not want to return to everything she knew? He didn’t have the excitement to offer her that London had.
“Brice,” she said. “Do you not want me?” She took a step back, her eyes darkening in pain.
He grabbed her and crushed her to him. “I want ye so bad that it hurts,” he whispered harshly. “I canno’ let ye go but I fear to let ye stay.”
She pulled away and looked up at him, studying him. “We all have fears we have to face, but I assure you, I am not one of those fears. I love you, Brice Sutherland. You and Scotland, this is where I belong. I know it in my heart. What does your heart tell you?”
He hesitated, not wanting to tell her his heart in case it would force her to stay. And yet hadn’t she just told him that she wanted to stay? That her heart belonged to him and to Scotland?
“I want ye here,mo ghràdh. With me, always.”
“Then this is where I will be.” She tapped his chest, right above where his heart was thundering. “Right here in your heart.”
“Ah, lass, ye have more than my heart. Ye have my soul as well. I love ye so, Eleanor.”
Epilogue
Eleanor wanted to wed Brice at the exact location on the road where he’d found her unconscious and near death. A fitting tribute, since she considered that spot the place where she’d been reborn. But it was too far from home and, frankly, in the middle of nowhere.
