Page 80 of Sweet Home Highlander
“Where is Niall now?” she asked finally.
The duchess looked horrified, her lips opening and closing, but no sound came from her mouth.
Julien stepped forward. “Perhaps, you should rest,chérie. You’re looking rather peaked. We can talk later, I promise.”
His evasive answer had all her senses reeling with worry. Where in God’s name was Niall? Was he hurt? Had he been injured at Dougal Buchanan’s hand? She pushed up onto her elbows, grimacing at the protest of her bruised and battered body.
Pauline rushed to her side, propping a pillow behind her. “Easy, my lady. The doctor said you should not exert yourself needlessly.”
But Aisla would not be deterred. Her eyes met the embarrassed faces of her friend, and her in-laws. “Where is my husband?”
Julien walked to the foot of the bed, his expression pinched.
“Aisla, please, trust me when I say that this is perhaps not the best time for us to be discussing such things,” he began, but she lifted a shaking palm to stop him.
“Don’t patronize me,” she said, aware of the pathetic, pleading note in her voice. “Where is he?”
Ronan cleared his throat. “She deserves to be told.”
Aisla felt utterly bewildered. Deserved to be told what exactly?
“He’s no’ here, Aisla,” Ronan said, holding her in a steady and steely glare.
She was almost afraid to ask the question hovering on her lips. “Then where is he?”
“He received word from Edinburgh,” he answered after an interminable moment, the expression on his face inscrutable. “He’s gone to finalize yer divorce.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Niall sat in the leather grasp of his study chair, his fingers lightly closed around the tumbler of whisky. He stared into the amber liquid, thinking of how much it looked like his favorite hue of topaz. It glowed like the jewel would, too, backlit by the fire in the hearth. But beyond their similar coloring, topaz and whisky were night and day for him.
One had brought him disaster and hell, and the other success and peace. One had helped to ruin his marriage, and the other had, at least recently, tricked him into believing he could fix it. Aisla had been genuinely impressed by his mines and his artwork; she’d seen clear through to the man he’d become, and he’d basked in her praise.
But it had all been for naught. He hadn’t fixed anything at all.
She didn’t want him.
He swirled the spirits with a few motions of his wrist, watching it whirlpool and lick the sides of the glass. He’d been back from Edinburgh for a few hours, his body still stiff and sore from the brutal pace he’d kept on the ride home. He wanted this over and done with, once and for all.
To the left of the glass of whisky was a slim black file, sealed with a toggle and tie. Inside was the marriage register his solicitor, Stevenson, had finally received from Inverness. The book, one of many poorly stashed away in the bowels of the church he and Aisla had been wed in, had been located at last by the register clerk and sent on to Stevenson. A letter from Stevenson’s clerk had arrived the morning after Niall had found Aisla in the abandoned mining shaft. And no more than an hour after Aisla had risen from unconsciousness, asking to see Leclerc, mumbling words about love and need. She hadn’t been fully awake, her words slurred, but the fact that she’d immediately asked for Leclerc had told Niall everything he needed to know: he’d lost her.
Or perhaps he’d never had her.
The timing of Stevenson’s letter had been fate, he supposed. Niall had left Tarben Castle, arriving in Edinburgh the next day, and had gone straight to the solicitor’s offices. Stevenson had tried to get Niall to sit and talk, go over the papers inside the register, but Niall hadn’t wanted to sit, let alone speak. He’d grabbed the register, thanked Stevenson for his time, and left.
Now, he stared at it, sitting like a coiled viper on his desk and ready to strike.
It was what she wanted. He’d lost both wagers. The brilliant arrangement that had turned into a race of seduction, of wits pitted against the other, had been a game neither of them were meant to win. Ronan had been right to make the bet—Niall had never had a chance. Not when her heart clearly belonged to another.
Leclerc had been surprised when Niall had fetched him from his vigil in the sitting room at Maclaren. It had almost destroyed him to search out the other man after hearing his name fall from Aisla’s lips, whenhe’dbeen the one to find her lying limp and bloodied in that blasted mine. Whenhe’dbeen the one driven practically delirious with fear and anguish that she might be lost to him for good. Niall had nearly died then. Everything else had ceased to exist…all the games and the wagers, the anger and the jealousy. He’d never prayed a day in his life, but he had prayed then. All the life had drained from his body at the sight of her, unconscious and frail. The only thing that had given him hope had been the faint rise and fall of her chest.
And then she’d refused to awaken for days more, and the misery of waiting and worrying continued. Doctor Stewart had been non-committal in whether she would survive such a severe injury to the head…whether she would even be capable of speech or understanding if she did overcome the odds and wake. Niall had almost come to blows with the man until Ronan had intervened and sent him away to cool off. And when she’d finally awakened, she’d asked for Leclerc.
Niall’s fingers clenched on the tumbler in his hand, and with one move, he downed the contents in a swift gulp. It burned on his tongue, in his throat, and in his stomach, the bite of it like a draught of hellfire. All he could think of was the glorious dimming sensation it would bring in its wake. The numbing oblivion. Even after so many years, his memory of the effects were sharp. With a shaking hand, he poured another, which went the same way as the first. The liquor wasn’t enough to tamp down the memories, and they surged to mind, lush and vibrant. Such beautiful demons.
Aisla with a bow and arrow, the first time he’d seen her. Aisla in a field of purple heather, spinning and dancing like a woodland sprite. Aisla in a ball gown at Montgomery, stunning and wild andhis. Aisla in his bed, caught in the throes of passion, which no ordinary words could describe. The blissful night they’d shared, when they’d held nothing back. She’d writhed in his arms, stared at him with her heart in her eyes, and come apart with all the fierceness of a falling star. So extraordinarily beautiful.
Incomparable, they’d called her in Paris. They were right. Nothing could hold a candle to his wife. God, he’d cocked it up good and proper. Niall poured a third glass of whisky, studying the swirling liquid. It was paralysis in a bottle, and that was what he deserved. He tossed back the spirits with a bitter grunt. His just deserts.
