Chapter 26
Hunter eyed a large, stuffed bird on the mantelpiece. It had probably been a pheasant once, but the stuffing had been done very badly, and now the bird looked more like… well, more like a chicken, if he was being honest.
All in all, Lady Pilbury’s parlor looked exactly how he’d imagined an English lady’s parlor to be. She’d assured him, as she showed him in here, that it was the good parlor, as if there was a sub-par parlor waiting somewhere for less illustrious guests.
Knowing the English aristocracy, there probably was.
Aside from the stuffed bird, the parlor was fairly neat and well-arranged. A sofa, chairs arranged around a fireplace, a window seat, shelves full of books. Pretty, pastel-colored, feminine, dignified.
Suitable, really.
He wondered briefly if it made Daphne feel as if she were being slowly singed, living in such a dignified space.
Then the door creaked open. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Steady, he warned himself. Ye might turn around and see Lady Pilbury standing there with an apology in her eyes.
He turned slowly, pacing himself, trying to swallow down hope.
Daphne. It was Daphne.
She stood in the doorway, her eyes wide, her jaw slack, staring at him.
He stared back.
“It’s ye,” she said simply. “It’s really ye.”
“Aye,” he answered. It seemed the obvious thing to say. “It’s me.”
Another moment passed. They eyed each other, neither one moving forward.
“Ye didnae write,” she rasped. “Ye didnae reply, I mean, to me letter.”
“We only just received it. I left straight away. Well…” He inclined his head. “Once I’d cleared up a thing or two.”
She coughed faintly, stepping into the room and closing the door behind her. The parlor seemed to shrink once the door closed, but neither of them made a move toward the other.
The world stayed as it was, just the two of them. The window was closed, letting in no birdsong or breeze from outside. The fire was made up, ready to be lit, but the wood stayed whole and silent. A faint scent of pine wood and mint hung in the air.
When he glanced briefly at the stuffed pheasant, he could have sworn it winked at him.
“Are ye settled in back here, then?” he heard himself ask. A pointless question, really. Polite small-talk, the kind of thing that English lords and ladies said to each other.
Daphne just stared at him for a long moment, then blinked, as if waking from a reverie.
“I havenae offered ye tea,” she babbled, abruptly turning away. “Did Lady Pilbury already offer ye some? If so, it’s probably already on its way. I could go and—”
“No tea, thank ye.”
She coughed again. “I could fetch Willow to see ye. It’s her ye have come to see, aye? She’s having lessons at the moment.”
“Lessons? Already?”
“Oh, nothing too strenuous. Just a wee bit of book-reading, some drawing. Lady Pilbury found a nice governess for her. Willow cannae wait to read books of her own. I reckon it’s time.”
“Well, it sounds like ye all have things in hand.”
Daphne flinched at that, and Hunter wished he hadn’t said it.
Was his tone resentful? Maybe. He’d gotten used to not thinking about his own words, or at least how he said them.
It didn’t matter how a laird said something; it mattered what he said.
He could snarl out an order and still have it obeyed.
In the real world, both mattered.
Daphne reached for the velvet bell-pull beside the door. “I’ll ring for one of the servants and have her brought here.”
Before he knew what he was doing, Hunter crossed the room and gently closed his fingers around her wrist.
“Nay, lass,” he said quietly. “I want to see Willow, that’s true, but I want to talk to ye first. It’s ye I came to see, Daphne.”
She froze, her back still turned to him. He longed to seize her shoulders and turn her to face him, but he forced himself to wait. Just a little longer.
Gingerly, he released her wrist, and she let her hand drop to her side.
“I kept dreaming that ye would come,” she whispered. “And then I’d wake up to the cold truth: that ye wouldnae come. It’s yer clan or me, is it nae?”
“Aye, I suppose so,” he agreed.
She turned to face him, her eyes heavy and tired. “I daenae resent ye, Hunter. If ye came to ask for me forgiveness, ye daenae need to. All I ask is that ye daenae disappear completely from Willow’s life. She adores ye, and I… I think she would be disappointed to learn that ye were gone.”
An ache bloomed in his chest. “I want to see Willow, I do. But I told ye, I want to see ye first. If ye are willing to talk to me, that is. Lady Pilbury thought that ye might be,” he added. “She mentioned that ye had guests, though.”
Daphne pulled a face. “Nae me guests. They’re gone, anyway. So, um, are ye sure ye daenae want tea? I can still get ye some. Laird MacCrimmon ought to be treated well after all, nay less than an English lord.”
Hunter smiled tiredly. “But I’m nae Laird MacCrimmon. Nae anymore.”
She went very still, staring at him. Disbelief and confusion flashed across her face, and her jaw slackened.
“What?” she breathed. “They cast ye out?”
Hunter gave a short laugh. “Cast me out? Nay, nay, lass! Nay. I just assembled the councilmen and told them I couldnae continue as Laird MacCrimmon. Nae if it meant losing ye. Putting ye in danger because of them. I left. I’m just Hunter Brennan now. A nobody.”
Daphne stared up at him for a long moment.
“Maybe this is because of the English company I’ve been keeping,” she whispered, “but I think I might faint.”
He flinched, reaching for her. “Daphne?”
She shook her head, lifting a hand, and shuffled past him to the sofa. She plopped down, her skirts pooling around her.
“Ye stepped down?” she asked. “Ye are nay longer Laird MacCrimmon? Who will take yer place?”
He shrugged. “Nae me concern. It’s the council’s concern.
They didnae stop me when I left. Then again, I didnae give them a chance.
Perhaps I made it easy for them. I fear for the clan, of course.
I cannae just stop caring, much as I’d like to.
But I’m nay longer the Laird, and that’s that. ” He shrugged again.
Maybe one day he would feel as careless as he acted. Not today, though.
“So, ye are free now,” Daphne murmured slowly, her eyebrows knitting together.
He nodded. “I’m also yer neighbor.”
Daphne choked. “Ye are what?”
“Oh, I think ye heard me. Besides, I already told Laird Pilbury. I bought the estate next door. See, I’m nay longer Laird MacCrimmon, but I’m still an important man. Got money, too. Some, at least. Enough to buy the estate next door.”
Her eyes widened. “The estate next…”
“Aye. I said neighbor, did I nae?”
Daphne closed her eyes, leaning forward just a little. For a split second, he really was afraid that she was going to faint.
“Daphne?” he whispered, half-reaching forward.
He wanted to touch her cheek, to twist the soft locks of her hair around his finger, but was that too much? Maybe.
It seemed ridiculous to worry about that when they already had a child together. Already nearly got married.
He crouched before her, trying to look her in the eye. Eventually, she heaved a sigh and lifted her head, meeting his gaze.
“Yer vow, Hunter,” she whispered. “Ye broke it because of me.”
He dropped his chin. “I broke it because of me, lass. The fault is mine. And then I hid the truth from ye. The thing with the truth is that it’s painful, far more painful than a person might imagine. Hard to get over, hard to swallow.”
She bit her lower lip. “Tell me.”
Two words, so simple, so firm. A command and a plea all at once.
Hunter lowered his gaze to the close-knit carpet below his knees. It was a pretty pattern, all whorls and floral bursts.
“Me first wife was called Alice,” he began, the words coming out rough, like spitting up gravel.
“She came from a small neighboring clan. I was happy enough to marry the woman me father picked out for me. She, less so. Now, I would recognize the signs of a woman so unhappy and refuse to make her more miserable, but I was little more than a boy meself, and I didnae ken what I was looking for. I married her. I can still see her at the altar, tight-lipped, furious. She didnae even look at me, didnae take me hand when we said our vows. I put a ring on her finger, but it was too large. She flicked her hand deliberately, and the ring flew off, clattering across the chapel floor. I remember Skye crawling under the pews in search of it.”
He shook his head and gave a rough laugh.
“Now I ken that she was unhappy, desperately so. But I didnae ken it back then. I thought she hated me for me. Anyway, we were wed. Me inclination was to leave her alone, but me councilmen told me that I must sire an heir, so an heir I sired.”
“Yer first child,” Daphne whispered.
He nodded tightly. “Alice made it clear that I was to leave her alone, so I did. I never wanted to make her unhappy. We lived separate lives for a few months. Until…” He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Daphne was watching him, a furrow between her eyebrows.
“What happened?” she prompted. “Hunter?”
“His name was Arthur,” Hunter choked out. “Me son. A tiny version of me, everybody said.”
Oh, it hurt. Saying that name aloud was so painful, so much more painful than he’d imagined. It stuck on his tongue, as if his mouth were reluctant to actually say it aloud. His son. His little boy.
“What happened?” Daphne asked, her eyes wide. “I already ken it’s nae good.”
He cleared his throat. “I was faithful to me wife. I could have had any number of mistresses. I was Laird, and nae a bad-looking man, people said. But I was married, and that was that. I didnae think much about her, though. She didnae want me company, and I didnae force it on her. A few months after me son was born, however, I noticed that her demeanor changed. Me… Me friend visited more often, too. I’ll nae speak his name, if ye daenae mind.
It doesnae matter much anymore. He was from a neighboring clan, and his father often sent him to us on diplomatic missions, kenning that he and I would work out a good solution, what with us being friends. ”
Daphne briefly closed her eyes, and Hunter smiled tightly. She was clever enough to know where the story was heading.
“I caught them,” he continued. “Me friend and me wife, in bed together. I’ll never forget the shock on their faces.
I guess I wasnae supposed to ken about it.
I remember that Arthur was crying in the next room.
Screaming, really. Alice had insisted that there was nay need for a wet nurse to care for him, that she’d manage him herself.
At the time, I thought it was because she loved him, but I ken now that it was because she wanted her lover to enter without anybody seeing.
I said… I asked her if she was such a bad mother that she couldnae even hear our son howling next door.
Me friend leapt out of bed, but she just sat there, clutching at the blankets, staring at me.
I daenae think she thought she’d get caught.
I told her that I meant her nay harm, but she would return to her father’s house the very next morning.
That our marriage was over. And that I would deal with me friend. ”
A lump formed in his throat. He felt sick, genuinely ill to the point he thought he might vomit.
Then a gentle hand landed on his shoulder, fingertips brushing his collar.
“Ye daenae have to tell me if ye daenae want to, Hunter,” Daphne whispered, her eyes glistening.
She already kens how this ends. She guessed.
He closed his eyes. “I have to say it.”
She said nothing, and so he plowed on.
“I turned away from her and went to the nursery next door. I found me friend standing by an open window, holding me bairn in his arms. I remember how the wind tugged at his shirt and how Arthur stopped crying, probably because he was cold.”
He opened his eyes and lifted them to Daphne’s. She was crying now, tears rolling down her cheek.
“I suppose ye ken what happened,” he breathed. “Me friend told me that me son was just as annoying as I was, and he… he… the window…”
There was a long silence.
Daphne pressed her hand over her mouth. “The bairn,” she whispered.
Hunter nodded. “I killed that man. I was too late to save me son, but I dragged him away from the window. He fought me, and I bashed his head against the floor until he was dead. Didnae take long. Alice ran in. She must have heard the screams, mine and Arthur’s.
She wasnae a cruel mother,” he added, on reflection.
“She only made a mistake, I suppose. I can still hear her cries. She stood at the window, looking down. To her credit, she never glanced at her lover. She only had eyes for our bairn. ‘This is what yer lover did to our child’, I said. She kept saying nay, nay, over and over, as if that would fix it, and I…” He paused, shrugging.
“I told her she would leave in the morning, as I said, and everybody would ken what had happened. I’d barely made it to the door when she jumped, too. ”
A long silence ensued.
“Ye see now why I didnae want to tell ye,” he whispered.
“Me friend’s father declared war. He didnae believe what had happened to Arthur and only kent that his son was dead.
There was war, of course. Bloodshed. Misery.
Death. The usual things that accompany war.
We lost many men, and women too. I was furious.
I couldnae be stopped until I’d burned the bastard’s whole clan to the ground. As if that’d bring me son back.”
He shook his head. “At last I accepted the other Laird’s surrender and terms. The man went home and mourned his son, much like I should have done.
I swore to me people that I’d never wed again, nor have a child, since it was a wife and baby that caused so much pain.
And at the time, I meant it. I never wanted anyone near me again. ”
He breathed out slowly.
“And then I met ye.”
She swallowed thickly. “Hunter…”
“Daphne, I have loved ye since we first met. I didnae ken it at the time. I am nae sure what I thought it was. Desire, maybe. Obsession, or just a lust for something better. But it was always ye in the back of me mind. I searched for ye after we parted. I’d all but given up finding ye.
And then I found ye, and I… I found the wee lass, too. Willow.” His voice cracked.
Rising on his knees, he cupped her face in his hands.
“I love ye,” he whispered. “I gave up me title for ye. If ye daenae feel the same way, I willnae pressure ye. I’ll simply go to me estate next door and content meself with being part of me daughter’s life. But make nay mistake, Daphne, it’s ye I want. It’s always been ye.”
She stared back at him, her eyes misty with tears. He hardly dared breathe.
Then, abruptly, she rose to her feet and moved to the door.
“We cannae talk here,” she whispered. “Come upstairs. I’ll show ye me room.”