Chapter 12 #2
He should’ve kept his damned hands to himself.
Should’ve walked away instead of backing her against that table like a starved brute.
Should’ve never tasted her the way he did—like a man who’d die without another breath of her.
The guilt kept coming.
“…Father is ferreting out whoever made the biscuits and made Lucy feel uncomfortable…”
The idea of her off alone, flagellating herself…
Even now, she could be running.
Accusations turned swiftly to worry.
“She did not look at all well…”
“Now that you mention it, her color was poor…”
Arran had done this to her. Pain tore through his flesh with the same white-hot agony of the ball he’d taken to the shoulder in his first battle.
He had ripped his family apart once before, and he had done it again.
“…Should someone go after her…?”
“…Of course, someone should go after her…”
Campbell deserved a confession from Arran.
And yet to give one would leave Lucy in a disloyal light.
Their opinion of Arran was already dark.
With his latest act, he’d corrupt Lucy before them.
What in blazes was he to do…?
He had to put this to rights.
For Campbell.
Liar. It’s for her. Lucy.
Yet again, he chose another over his family. The difference this time—Lucy was no Culross.
And he would never regret putting Lucy first in this.
Not when every instinct in him roared for her.
Not when the mere thought of her tears made his vision go red.
I need to go to her…
“Whatever you do, do not send Arran after her this time,” Quillon joked through the noise.
Arran sprang to his feet. A chair toppled with the force of his movement.
Everyone and everything came to another screeching halt.
Dipping a quick bow, he took off.
As he exited, the melee resumed.
“…you all really must stop jesting about Arran…” Dallin sternly chastised. “…our brother is not the same…”
No, Arran wasn’t.
His last battle at sea had changed him.
He lived with guilt and subsisted on shame.
He’d felt like a hollowed-out shell of a man—until Lucy.
She’d been the first person he could speak with again. She made him feel. She reminded him of the brother and cousin he used to be. The one he wanted to be again.
As he stalked the halls, he did a frantic, cursory search of each parlor he passed.
Even as her presence had healed him, he had hurt her—as was his way.
He’d committed enough wrongs. He would swallow one more lie, keep the truth from Campbell, and keep Lucy in Campbell’s life.
Even if it meant breaking himself open and bleeding out for it.
Grief sent him stumbling. Out of breath, his chest threatened to cave in on itself—and wanted to—just so he would not feel this…
Squeezing his eyes shut, Arran shot both palms out and gripped the brocade wallpaper.
He’d cut off all his limbs to keep Lucy from suffering.
But the realization…the implications…
Arran would bear witness to her union with Campbell.
His heart knocking against his rib cage, he forced himself upright.
Arran would stand in the pews as she marched past him, down the familial aisle all other McQuoid-Smith women had walked for generations.
He’d partake in a wedding breakfast as the McQuoids and Smiths toasted the beaming couple.
And he’d die inside. Not bit by bit. But all at once. A violent, blade-to-the-heart kind of death that he’d suffer over and over again.
But the agonizing moments continued to play out in his mind. Unrelenting. Unforgiving.
For there would come a time when Lucy’s supple waist—the one he’d spanned and gripped in his hands hours ago—would expand with a babe.
Lucy and Campbell’s babe.
Arran curled his fingers so sharply the recently installed silk wallpaper shredded under his hands.
Their child would be a forever reminder Arran wouldn’t be able to look away from—that Campbell would have laid claim not only to Lucy’s heart, but to her body as well.
The harsh rasp of his own breathing filled his ears, deafening. But not so powerful as to distract from the images continuing to parade across his mind.
Lucy, sprawled as she’d been under Arran in the kitchen—except this time, with a feather-tick mattress and silk coverlets beneath her back as Campbell came down over her.
Stop. Stop.
He silently pleaded with the devil in his head to cease his torture.
But the devil found cruel delight in exacting the worst misery upon the pitiable.
Campbell’s hands on her hips—where Arran’s had held her fast.
Campbell’s mouth descending to the soft places Arran had tasted first.
Lucy’s body yielding—not to Arran, but to another man.
The strangled groan of a wounded beast echoed from somewhere distant.
Arran clamped his hands tight over his ears to blot the sounds.
Me. It is me.
I am that savage beast.
And yet, even in this moment—alone in the hall, licking his wounds—he thought only of himself.
Arran wrenched himself out of his misery.
He was done indulging fear.
He was done letting her run from him.
He would find her. And he would not let her bolt a second time.
He took off running.
After he cleared the hall, with no sign of her, Arran gripped the nearest footman by the shoulder.
“Miss LeBeau,” he said harshly. “Have you seen her?”
The tall, slender, bewigged gentleman gave a slight nod. “The young lady was for the outside.”
Arran’s heart thumped harder. This time, he took the servant by the lapels of his gold brocade jacket.
“Which outside?” he demanded, giving the fellow a slight shake.
“Saw her take off through the nursery, Captain McQuoid.”
Arran released the servant abruptly and turned.
The young parlor maid, Hannah—the one who’d made that soft announcement—pointed.
“Thank you, Hannah.”
Arran bolted the rest of the way there.
He staggered into the nursery. The frosted windowpanes distorted the snowy grounds outside.
And yet it took a single glance for his eyes to find her.
His gaze had a way of doing that.
She possessed the same pull as a compass arrow, leading him true when he was at sea.
On silent treads, he approached. His eyes remained locked on her. She stood immobile, devoid of a warming cloak amidst the snow.
In nothing but her festive crimson riding dress, she had the look of a fairy queen. Flakes drifted about her regal, warrior-princess shoulders. Not so much as a chill shook her proudly held frame.
And yet, for all her grace and strength, one wrong sound from him would send her into flight like a skittish doe.
He knew it. Because he’d come to know this woman.
And for it, he would never be the same.
And this time—he would not let her slip through his fingers.