Chapter Twenty-Four #2
“The lady,” Edgar said, “will listen to me. We have been courting for a time, sir. Please do not be so crass as to interfere. If I may be so bold as to hope, the lady will soon consent to be Lady Neaves. And she is already listening to my counsel.”
He touched Christina’s elbow in a proprietary way that sent unpleasant shivers through her. Frowning, she stepped out of reach.
“May he be so bold as to hope?” Aedan asked mildly.
“He may hope all he likes. It has nothing to do with me,” she snapped. “I am staying to finish what I began here.” She felt irritated with both of them suddenly. One loved her and had admitted it, but pretended otherwise. The other was incapable of love despite his grand proclamations.
She turned to snatch her walking stick from its position against a rock. “I’m going back to Dundrennan. You two can stay here and sort this out.” She walked away.
“Wait.” Moments later, Aedan caught up with her, reaching for her arm even as she pulled away. “Christina, tell me you do not intend to accept that blatherskite fool.”
She snatched her arm out of his grasp and stopped to glare up at him.
“Which fool should I be with?” she said between her teeth.
“A man I love, who wants me, but not for a lifetime? Or a man with a lofty opinion of himself who would take me for a lifetime, but treat me as if I’m invisible?
I am leaving. You and Sir Edgar can stay here and lob rocks at each other, for all I care. ”
She strode away without looking back, suppressing the sob that rose in her throat.
She was done waiting and wondering. Her feelings for Aedan were deeper each day, and though he had said what she wanted to hear, he had set it aside again.
As for Edgar, any respect she had for him had diminished.
And she dreaded seeing the inevitable confrontation that would come between Aedan and Edgar over the matter of Dundrennan. And perhaps over her as well.
Her choice was clear, but she still did not know if Aedan could accept what she most wanted to offer him—her heart, her love, her life.
*
“Beast and behemoth are here, lad,” Hector told Aedan, pointing to the ox-drawn cart lumbering toward the earthen slope with the steam shovel on the flatbed. “Rob is setting another charge of black powder.”
Aedan nodded. The raw-cut road, now grubbed free of undergrowth, was marked by wooden stakes that zigzagged up and around the shoulders of Cairn Drishan. High on the hill, Rob Campbell stood with a few of the men. Aedan lifted a hand to acknowledge them.
“We will clear out of the way when Rob gives the signal,” Aedan said. “Tell Kenneth Gowan to keep the behemoth at the foot of the incline, out of the way of debris.” Hector nodded and hurried off to give the orders.
Sighing, exhausted after a couple of long days and nights, too, working on the road, Aedan set hands on hips.
He surveyed the road, able to see from this vantage point how far they had advanced in just a few days.
Lately, he stumbled to his bed late at night, and was up before dawn to go at it again.
Last night he had worked into the wee hours and had slept beside Effie MacDonald’s hearth, too tired to ride back to Dundrennan.
He had hardly seen Christina since the day she was with Neaves on Cairn Drishan, the day she had stomped off, upset with him again.
He wanted to straighten it out, tell her his feelings, his new plan, but he had neither time nor focus.
Not yet, not with Edgar Neaves here mucking up his plans every time he turned around, or so it seemed.
Three times he had gone to the excavation site to consult with Hector and the Gowans about the roadwork—Neaves was demanding their time and Aedan had tried to accommodate in consideration of treasure trove requirements and whatnot.
He had seen Christina once or twice on the hill, but Edgar Neaves had always been with her.
Aedan had greeted her, and she had returned it, looking distracted.
And looking pained, to be honest, though Aedan suspected it had naught to do with him.
Edgar Neaves was a pest, that seemed clear; Aedan wanted to plant his fist on the man’s long nose, but had no time for that, either.
What he truly wanted was time alone with Christina. More than once, fielding her somber, beautiful gaze, he had wondered what was on her mind. But it was always just as he hurried away to attend to one task or another.
Had he made a mistake in letting himself fall deeply in love?
Was Christina tempted to return to her own life, her arrogant boor of a suitor?
If he was being honest with himself, Aedan had to consider the notion that it might be time to retreat into his safely guarded heart again.
But those locks were broken open. He had set himself free—and what now?
For a little while, he might be free, but had forgotten he could not risk falling in love. For Christina’s sake especially, he could not.
Edgar, for all his flaws, was wealthy, socially prominent, handsome enough, and willing and able to marry Christina if she wanted the advantages of that life.
Aedan’s inheritance had dwindled with the vast expenses of an aging house and vast estate.
But he loved Christina. He could not detach from that draw, that urge and need now.
He loved her, and no matter the outcome, change had come into his life.
And if she was willing to take a risk, he might have found a way through this.
The afternoon was warm, damp, stifling. Aedan wiped his brow and drank from a silver flask.
Lemonade laced with whisky, he discovered—Effie’s remedy for a long workday that might once again go deep into the night.
He stuck the flask into his jacket pocket and looked up at the sky, which was growing ominous yet again.
“Damn this rainy luck,” he said as Hector returned. “This highway will never be finished if we are continually plagued by water and mud.”
“Maybe the queen can float to Dundrennan,” Hector said. “Then we’d need no road.”
Aedan laughed. Just then, Rob shouted that the fuse was about to be ignited, and Aedan ran with Hector toward the steam engine, a handy bastion of protection. Moments later, Rob and others joined them, hunkering down.
Then he felt the rock shudder under his feet as the powder ignited, far enough away to be safe, though dirt and stones spewed a fair distance outward. Aedan thought of the blast weeks ago that had torn open the other side of the hill, exposing the ancient wall.
That blast had sent everlasting shocks into his very life. He knew he would never be the same. For an instant, he wondered what upheaval this explosion would create.
Not much of an upheaval, he realized a few minutes later when he went with the others to inspect the hillside. A massive rock, newly split, was surrounded by little debris.
“Looks good,” he said.
“Looks perfect!” Rob said. “Shall we continue?”
Aedan sighed. “Let the dust settle here. I have not been back to the house for a day or two. I should put in an appearance, but will return later. Tell the men to relax. You too, lad. Good work.”
He walked away, realizing it was nearly teatime, and Edgar Neaves was likely to be there. But a stop at the house could bring the chance he needed to talk to Christina.