Chapter 13
Lucy knew the moment Arran entered the greenhouse.
With the winter wind gusting about her, she hugged her arms tightly to herself.
Silent though he may be, she felt his presence.
Just as she’d known he would come for her.
She had spent so many years looking after others. Strangers at the inn and tavern. The regular village patrons. Then, when her da began to show signs of his age, and then decline completely, her father.
Aunt Nettie.
Uncle Tasgall.
Lucy wasn’t one to complain. She loved her family. And family cared for their own. And being in the business of inn keeping, well, an innkeeper cared for everybody.
She hadn’t been looked after in so many years. She’d become so accustomed to carrying the mighty weight of her small world upon her shoulders and existing as a servant, Lucy had forgotten how wondrous it was just being seen.
And Arran saw her.
With him, she didn’t have to silently beg for his attention. She didn’t have to go out of her way to earn his notice.
He saw her as a living, breathing woman. A desirable one.
He didn’t dismiss her or see her differently because the great class divide between them.
She bit the inside of her cheek.
Why, he even rolled up his long sleeves and joined her in baking.
He saw her as a woman to confide in, and not in the way the fellows who drank too much at The Spotted Elk did. He spoke to her on life and things that mattered. He inquired about her and her life. He actually wanted to know something about her.
Aye, at first, it had been a result of his suspicions. That had changed in the span of a single night.
Now, she would never be the same.
Lucy hugged her arms more tightly to herself.
The winter wind carried the deep rumbling of Arran’s voice, along with the faint shade of amusement. “Are you going to keep pretending you don’t know I’m here?”
Somehow, even on the cusp of losing him, she managed to smile.
How effortlessly it came with him.
“That depends,” she said huskily, casting a glance back.
“On?” As his powerful strides brought Arran nearer, his gleaming black leather boots churned up the white snow beneath his feet.
“On whether you intend to keep pretending you aren’t there.”
Chuckling, Arran shrugged out of his jacket. “Well, since I took it upon myself to announce my presence, it is fair to say I’m no longer going to skulk in the shadows.”
Already anticipating the gentlemanly intent, Lucy protested. “It is cold. You shouldn’t—”
Arran scoffed. “Do what?” He swept his richly made garment around Lucy’s shoulders, instantly blanketing her in warmth. “The gentlemanly thing and see a lady warm?”
Her eyelashes fluttered closed. The heat of him and the rich, masculine aroma of sandalwood emanated from his jacket. And she melted within the fabric.
God, how she loved him. It’d happened so fast.
Now, she understood the tale her father shared at the end of each night and the bards journeying through who’d read poems and sonnets.
When Lucy opened her eyes, she discovered something had shifted in his eyes. His expression was solemn as the grave.
And she wanted to cry at the loss.
She wanted to call him back to a place of bantering and stay in that world just a moment more, so she didn’t have to step into the present and the end of this.
This? What exactly did that even mean? He desired her. He spoke freely with her.
But he’d given no indication the passionate feelings she developed almost overnight were reciprocated.
Arran passed his sober, searching gaze along her face.
And the breaking of something fragile she had stolen for herself in the form of a lie with this man threatened to break her.
It had gone on too long.
They started at the same time.
“Lucy—”
“Arran,” Lucy began, her voice thick with tears and regret. “I need to say s-something.” Her teeth chattered, not with cold but the misery of what was to come. “T-to te—”
“Shh,” he whispered. The exquisitely crafted planes of his face contorted into a paroxysm of grief so great her heart broke for the hurt he suffered. “I owe you the greatest apology. You were not to blame for what transpired in the kitchens, Lucy. I knew what I was doing—”
“I did too, Arran,” she cried softly. Lucy slapped a hand against her chest. “I chose to embrace you. I wanted to be in your arms last night.” And always… “I knew what I was doing then, just as I’ve been fully aware of my decisions since coming here.”
Desire darkened his eyes, replaced too quick with anguished guilt.
I did this… This is all my fault…
The warm wash of her tears dampened her cheeks.
“Ahh, God, Lucy.” The laugh he let out, a short bark, laced with a like misery—but his suffering was for reasons far different than her own. “I cannot tell if you’re speaking to yourself as you do, or whether I’m following your thoughts now.”
Oh God, if he could, there’d be none of this tenderness. None of this compassion.
More tears fell. And she despised herself for letting them.
“Don’t do that,” he begged. “Please don’t.”
His anguish-filled voice only made Lucy cry harder.
On a guttural groan, he looped a single, strong arm about her body and drew her in. “Ah, God, Lucy, your tears are destroying me.” Arran pressed her close, while half his body remained turned from hers.
His were the efforts of a man fighting to be honorable.
She had done this to him.
She continued a deception that would only further break his heart.
This was no longer about her. It never had been.
Somehow, Lucy found a way to push herself free of his embrace.
Arran instantly stiffened. His proud shoulders drew back. His naval captain’s spine somehow went even more erect. “My apologies,” he said stiffly.
“I should not have—”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she blurted. “And…you were right when I arrived. I’m a stranger. And you were right to be wary of me.”
“Lucy—”
“S-stop.” The soft, trembling cry tore from her lips.
Blanching, Arran stumbled back away from her.
Oh God. Breaking apart inside, Lucy covered her face with her hands.
When she let her arms fall to her side, her stare collided with an immobile, ashen-faced Arran. He stood formidable and proud amidst the wind battering his frame.
Selfish once more.
“Let us go inside,” she urged. Her plea threaded through her voice and her eyes. “Let us talk in there.”
She turned sharply and hurried in.
Coward.
The word echoed with every step she took.
Such a coward that, for a fleeting, reckless moment, Lucy almost kept going—straight past the room. Arran. Past everything she didn’t have the strength to face.
When the door clicked shut behind them, Lucy’s unsteady fingers went to his jacket. She attempted to shrug herself free.
“No,” he murmured, soft but so steady she dared not challenge him.
Unlike before, when he’d insisted on going first, now he simply stood there, waiting. Waiting for her.
Strange. Moments ago, she’d had words; clumsy, frantic things, but at least they’d existed. Now, her tongue refused to shape even a single sound.
Lucy’s gaze skittered desperately about, hunting for a beginning. But how did one begin when every path led to the same cold, agonizing ending?
Her eyes snagged on the thick, dark mahogany table.
Her legs moved of their own volition, carrying her toward the boughs of holly and evergreen and ivy.
Lucy skimmed her fingers along the crafts. They felt abandoned, left mid-joy, mid-celebration, cut short by some calamity.
She sank her teeth hard into her lower lip. Me.
She’d been the calamity.
Knowing them as she now did, they would have been laughing and at peace before Lucy came in and ruined everything.
Her fingers quaked harder. Lucy forced herself to set the mistletoe down before she dropped it.
She drifted then, aimless, hollow; trailing her fingertips along petals, ribbons, decorations. All the while aware of Arran behind her. His breath, his heat, his unwavering stare tracked her every movement.
Where to start?
Lucy froze.
Her fingers came to rest beside…white heather.
Emotion threatened to overwhelm her.
It was a sign. From her mom and da. A sign that maybe Arran could—and would—understand, and that whatever feelings he’d developed for her were strong enough to withstand a tangled web of misunderstandings.
The only place to begin, the only place she could think to begin, was the beginning.
The very beginning.