Chapter 18
Gritting his teeth, Arran trampled through the halls on his way to the evening meal.
The memory of Lucy’s grief-ravaged, tear-stained face followed him.
Just as it’d done since he’d shown her the door.
“…there was so much confusion and someone mistook me for Campbell’s sweetheart… and I couldn’t get my thoughts clear or my words…”
Those were sentiments he now knew all too well. Arran dragged a hand through his hair. She’d turned him upside down and inside out in the process. “Christ!”
A young maid lighting the sconces for the night jumped and hurried the opposite way.
Scaring servants now too. Taunting Lucy. Why, he was becoming an all-out bully.
I will not feel guilty over Lucy…I will not feel guilty…
That mantra fueled each one of Arran’s sure footfalls. He ground his teeth at his molars so hard, it was a wonder they didn’t snap.
Why should he care about all the tears she’d wept in his presence, and then the wrenching sobs he’d made himself stand and listen to outside her door panel after he’d left her.
And a new mantra echoed in the chambers of his raging mind. The one he’d silently begged from outside her doorway.
Please, stop…Please, stop…For the love of God, please, just cease!
She’d wept with ferocity enough to break. He’d waged a herculean war to not storm inside and take her in his arms, despite all that’d come to pass.
He’d managed a restraint he’d not known he possessed.
Do not think about it…do not think about it…
And the devil had been making Arran pay the price since.
“…Madam, you are a damned stranger to me… I do not care what you like or don’t like about me or bloody anything…”
An anguish-filled gasp exploded from his lungs, staggering him.
“…You are nothing to me…”
Groaning, Arran shot his hands out, just managing to catch himself against the wall.
Stop!
“…you are even less than nothing…”
Why should he care about the tears Lucy had wept following their earlier exchange? The lass was a liar.
Did she really lie?
Arran jerked to a stop. Chest heaving and his breaths coming in short, jerky spurts, he stared blankly at the wall and forced himself to confront fully the truth he’d been running from all day.
Lucy had tried to tell him.
Numerous times.
She’d begged Arran to hear her out.
He knew that now. With a clear head, free of the initial shock, he thought back to all the moments. In the kitchens. In the greenhouse.
All the times he’d cut her off. She’d been trying to tell him something, but he’d not allowed her to do so. There’d been an interruption, multiple ones.
A different memory assailed him: Lucy, breathtaking in her cloak of Scottish pride and resilience.
“…Hate me for my mistakes and for wronging you, but I will not let you repaint the entire situation as some nefarious plot I constructed. It wasn’t.”
Longing for her, pure and all-powerful, compelled him back from the most acute memory he’d now be forced to carry of Lucy.
Arran continued to borrow strength from the wall. There was no going back for him. For them…
He needed to lay the memory of her, all of them, to rest. When he trusted himself to move, he gave his head a firm, clearing shake. “Let it go, man. It is done.”
The last thing Arran cared to do this night, after having shown Lucy the door, was join his family anywhere.
There’d be questions about Miss LeBeau’s abrupt departures, questions he alone would be required to answer.
Better to have done with it. Arran didn’t wait to be announced; he strode into the dining room.
The McQuoids and Smiths climbed from their chairs.
“It is just Arran,” Fleur’s announcement of the obvious rang with disappointment.
Cassia attempted to lessen any hard feelings. “We were waiting for Lucy.”
Lucy.
Just hearing her name sent a spear sliding into his stomach.
Good, you deserve that; you miserable bugger.
Arran did a quick sweep of the family who’d assembled and stopped in his tracks, thrown by the unexpected appearance of one member of the family—Campbell.
“…I’ve fancied Campbell half my life… He always visited…”
Wearing a relaxed grin, Campbell conversed, completely oblivious to Arran’s hate-filled stare. God, how Arran wanted to slam a fist through the other man’s good-looking face. Animal-like jealousy ravaged Arran.
She’d longed for Campbell.
And why shouldn’t she? Arran’s cousin was as witty and warm as bloody Beau Brummell himself. Arran growled.
Are you certain your rage in part today wasn’t a product of Lucy’s appreciation and regard for your bloody cousin? the devil in his head whispered.
“What your sister meant to say…” The countess attempted to explain away the girls’ rudeness. “Is we are very happy you—”
He didn’t give two shites.
“Why the hell is he here?” Arran snapped, bringing the table conversation still taking place to a stop.
Campbell appeared the last to realize he was the someone whose presence was being questioned.
“Thank you for your worry, cousin.” Campbell flashed a warm smile. “It is much appreciated.”
Arran fisted his hands at his sides. “…He always visited…he made me smile…” The only worry Arran had was for his unholy, animal-like urge to take the other man apart.
Needing to move or else kill, Arran stomped over to the festive crimson and emerald set table. I know a pair of eyes green like the Scottish hills. Arran snatched the chair out and slammed himself into it.
“Arran,” his mother said gently, yanking his stare her way. “Your concern is warranted, however, the doctor believes Campbell well enough to join us for the night.”
“I say.” A confounded Oleander scratched his sandy blond hair. “He doesn’t appear worried.”
His unblinking gaze locked on a single vacant chair.
Arran didn’t tolerate deceivers. A person who lied would never find a place amidst the McQuoids. That is precisely what Lucy had done. She’d lied. She’d let him bare his blackened soul. She’d coaxed him back to the living. And for it, he’d sent her packing.
Strange how even that didn’t feel like any sort of consolation.
As Arran seated himself, his gaze continued creeping just as it had that morning towards where Lucy sat. Or where she’d sat.
He sucked in a ragged breath.
She’s gone. Remember, you sent her packing as she deserves…
Agony throbbed at the top of Arran’s ribcage. She’d fit as easily into the McQuoid family as if she’d been born to their table.
Not the damned family…just acknowledge the whole of it.
She’d fit like the other side of his soul.
“…I don’t like you this way, Arran…”
And through his fury-filled diatribe, she’d faced him, tears falling, eyes blazing, defiantly.
“…It was a misunderstanding…A lie of omission…Hate me for my mistakes and for wronging you, but I will not let you repaint the entire situation as some nefarious plot I constructed. It wasn’t…”
God, she’d been breathtaking in her defiance, and he’d been brutal in his barbarism.
“…Madam, you are a damned stranger to me. I do not care what you like or don’t like about me or bloody anything…”
My God, how easily he’d flung those hateful words at her grief-ravaged face. A heaviness settled in Arran’s sternum, a bloody, excruciating weight to crush a man—if he was lucky.
“…Are you talking to yourself again, or openly begging me, Lucy…?”
The vise around Arran’s chest cinched tighter.
The observant footman aside Arran’s chair came forth and poured Arran a sherry.
It’d been a gut punch to uncover the ruse Lucy perpetuated, and hurt and bitter and angry as he’d been—Or was? He couldn’t make sense of anything anymore—he’d viciously, unforgivably mocked Lucy.
Grief scissored through him. He’d taunted her with an adorable habit that’d endeared him.
Fingers shaking, Arran tossed back the rich, spiced contents.
It didn’t help.
His damned heart was attacking him. He rubbed that place where that organ rested. Rested? The traitorous organ thudded in a sick beat, an acrimonious laugh beginning deep in his chest.
Soused. He was going to get jug-bitten. Properly shot in the neck. Ape drunk.
To succeed in forgetting Lucy and his abominable treatment of her, he was going to need something a good deal stronger than sherry, and a whole bloody cask of it.
Arran angled his head and locked in on the footman behind him.
“Helmsworth, why don’t we try something more fortifyi—fortified than claret, eh? How about some rum?”
As the obedient servant went to collect a bottle, Dallin leaned behind his wife’s seat to secure some privacy with Arran.
“Hey, little brother,” he said quietly, “why don’t we save the stronger spirits for after?”
Ignoring him outright, Arran accepted the glass Helmsworth came bearing. He was all too happy to reach the state of mind-numbing inebriation as quick as he could.
Oleander and Quillon, recently inducted to polite spirits, exchanged a look. In unison, the pair tossed back their respective drinks.
With the countess scolding the youngest ladies and the earl staring pensively off, Arran’s brother-in-law, the Duke of Aragon, schooled the boys. “It’s meant to be sipped, lads.”
The recalcitrant Oleander and Quillon’s attempts to secure a second sherry were thwarted by Lord Winfield shaking his head once at the footmen stationed behind the younger gentlemen’s chairs.
Someone may as well be the responsible adult in the room. Lord knew it wasn’t Arran. Not after his bloody explosion that afternoon.
Arran was content to reach a state of mind-numbing inebriation as quick as possible.
For three short days he’d been happier than he had in the course of his miserable existence. He’d learned to laugh again. He’d spoken about life and…by God, he’d baked. He’d baked bloody gingerbread. And…Christ save his soul, Arran had fallen in love with the breathtaking Scottish lass.
The truth he’d resisted these past days for different reasons slammed into him with the weight of a cannonball to the chest.
There it was.