Lady Charlotte looked at the scrap she held in her hands. Then she set it down and walked out of the room. Ines stared after her, confused. Since she appreciated the lace, Ines would make a gift of it. It was the least she could do to thank her for feeding and sheltering her while they waited for Draven to arrive.
“She dinnae want tae like ye, lass,” Duncan said.
Ines had not forgotten he was there. It would have been impossible to ever forget he was in a room with her. He was not a man one could ignore. Ines started the second cuff, her movements slow, as usual at this beginning stage. “I wanted very much to like her.”
“She’s nae an easy woman tae like. She scares most lasses. Christ, she scares grown men. But she doesnae scare ye.”
“She does not scare me. You forget I am a shopgirl.” She yanked the lace a bit too tight and had to maneuver the bobbins to compensate. “I serve the upper classes day in and day out. Most of the ladies are accustomed to being treated as though they are the only people in the world.”
To her surprise, Duncan laughed. The sound was warm and throaty, and her body seemed to heat in response to it. “That is a good way tae describe them.” He stood and started toward her. Ines wanted to keep her hands moving, but her fingers fumbled, and she dropped one of the bobbins.
Duncan stopped. “Do I distract ye?”
Distract was too mild a word. Ines bent to retrieve her bobbin then began to untangle the threads that had gone awry. But her fingers shook, and she seemed to make no progress. In frustration, she looked up at him. “What do you want, senhor? Two days ago, you would not speak to me. Now we are friends again?”
“We were never friends, lass.”
She nodded, her gaze on his. “I never wanted to be your friend.”
“And friendship is all I have tae give ye.”
She waved a hand. “Give it to someone else. Now leave me. I wish to finish my cuff and present it to your mother as thanks.”
He gave her an odd look, and she would have sworn there was a tinge of sadness in his gaze. But she looked away before she could be certain. And then he murmured that he would take his leave, and he was gone. Tears swam in her eyes, blurring the threads before her. But she swiped at them and willed them away, and went back to work
STRATFORD
Stratford saw the way Emmeline’s expression went from anguish to confusion. She’d told him she loved him, and he’d told her it was futile. He hadn’t told her he’d loved her back. There was little point in saying those words. He could not act on them, and they would only hurt them both more.
He wished he could tell her. This seemed the ideal setting, here on the grass in the shadow of the Highlands. Looking about, it seemed the whole world was laid before them and went on and on, an endless wave of green and brown and, above, blue. He would have liked to lay her down on the grass, spread out her hair, and kiss her. He would have liked to run his hand over her body and feel her soft skin under his fingertips again.
But this was good-bye. This was the end because Draven would be here in a day or so, and then Stratford and the colonel would escort Emmeline to her grandmother’s. Her mother could retrieve her from there. Emmeline would be safe, and that was what mattered.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard,” Emmeline said, shattering the lingering image of her naked on the soft grass. “How are you unworthy of me? If you do not want me, just say it. Don’t give me silly excuses.” She began to rise, but he caught her arm.
“It’s not an excuse. I am unworthy.”
She crossed her arms. “You are the son of a baron, and my father was not even titled. He was a gentleman, yes, but if rank and status are your gauge, then I am the one who is unworthy.”
“I am not the son of a baron,” he said.
Emmeline’s tight expression softened slightly. “What do you mean?”
But the way she’d said it—he knew she had heard the rumors. “Don’t pretend you do not know. You have heard and you are clever enough to put things together. I am not the baron’s son.”
“Are you certain?” she asked.
“Yes. My mother admitted it, and my father has always made sure I knew it.”
Her hands fell back to her sides. She reached for him, but he moved away. She swallowed and seemed to consider her words before finally speaking. “I often wondered if the rumors were true, and if that was why he treated you as he did.”
“I wondered as well and when I came of age, I hired an investigator to look into it.” He stared, unseeing, at the mountains towering in the distance. “The rumors are true.”
“Who is your father then?” she asked. He did not think many people would have come straight out and asked. But then this was Emmeline, and she almost always said what she was thinking.
“The Marquess of Wight.”
She shook her head. “But he—no one has seen him in more than twenty years. Everyone says he is—"
“Mad?
She pressed her lips together. “I was about to say eccentric.”
He gave her a rueful smile. “Now you want to be tactful? Say it like it is, Emmeline. I’m the bastard son of a madman. Your mother surely knows it. Half of Society knows it.”
“And why should they care? How many of them have by-blows walking around?” She put a hand on his arm. “I know that is not the point.”
“No, it’s not. Not only am I not legitimate, if I am anything like my father, I may go mad.”
She gave him a long look. “A little madness might be an improvement.”
He gave her a horrified look, and she squeezed his arm. “You will not go mad, Stratford. You are as sane as the day is long.”
“You can’t know that.”
She lifted her hand from his arm. “No, I can’t, but that is not the real issue, is it? The real issue is that you are illegitimate, and all of your life you’ve been made to feel less than.”
It was as though she had shot an arrow straight into his heart. Her words pierced him, and the pain bloomed, spreading throughout his body. He’d felt so much shame his entire life. He’d done all he could to hide the truth from everyone, even though he knew, every time he walked into a room, that some of the whispers were about him.
“That is why you went off to war, even though your uncle willed you that property, and you could have lived off the income. You had to prove yourself.”
He’d never thought of it that way, but it was true. He had felt the need to prove himself.
“Do you know the terror I felt, we all felt, when we learned you had joined Draven’s troop? By then Lord Jasper and the Duke of Mayne had joined—not that he was the duke yet—and we all knew it was little more than a suicide mission. And when you joined, no one could understand it. I couldn’t understand it. How could you have so little regard for your life?”
The hills in the distance became something of a blur as he stared at them, harder than ever. “Perhaps I valued my country above my life.”
“Or perhaps you felt so unworthy that you needed to do something extreme. Oh, Stratford.” She put her arms around him, but he could not seem to return her embrace. His limbs felt paralyzed. “You are not unworthy. You do not have to jump every time your parents say up.”