Page 83 of Sweet Home Highlander
“Aye, lass, I hear ye, and I ken everyone heard ye for at least five miles.”
Her fingers gripped the marble railing, her legs already threatening to give out when he turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Oh God, he looked tired and drained, but so incredibly handsome that she wanted to weep. His russet hair was uncombed, the start of a beard on his jaw, and those blue eyes took her breath away.
She steeled herself and shoved the offending note in his face as he came within two steps of her. “What, pray tell, is this? What are ye sorry for?”
“Did ye read it?”
“Nae.”
He smiled and she nearly melted. “Yer brogue is back.”
“I’m angry.”
“I gather that.” He stepped closer and reached for her arm. She was close to snatching it away when he murmured, “May I? Perhaps yer room will afford us some privacy.”
Only then did she realize that they were the center of dozens of curious stares. Including her mother-in-law, and Makenna, who stood beside the hapless footman at the entrance to her bedchamber. He still held the salver with the black file. Aisla did not know what was in there, but she had the strongest urge to see it sunk to the bottom of the loch.
“Bràthair,” Makenna said with an anxious glance at Aisla, who smiled tightly for her sister-in-law’s benefit. “I’ll leave ye two alone.”
Niall took the folio from the man and escorted her back into the room to her bed. She sat, clasping her hands together to keep from shaking. Or doing something rash. All she wanted to do was throw them around his neck and never let go.
“Ye’re looking better,” he said eventually. “How are ye feeling?”
“Fine.”
Her husband drew a deep breath, the long fingers of his right hand drumming on the face of the black case. “I suppose I was being a coward, aye, but I could no’ face ye.” He nodded to the black file. “’Tis done as ye wanted.”
His voice was grim. Nothing in it gave her any hope that he might feel any different. That there was something between them worth saving.
“Is that it, then? The divorce?”
Niall’s eyes met hers, then dropped away. “Aye and nae.” He stood and unwrapped the toggle from the slim file and set it in front of her. “Turns out our marriage was never official. There’s no’ a record of it.” He raked a hand through his tangled hair. “That bloody, sotted priest never filed it.”
“What are you saying?” she whispered, hearing the words but unable to make sense of them.
“That ye are free to find a husband who will make ye happy, Aisla. That ye are free to go back to Paris and have the life ye deserve. Ye have what ye came for…freedom from me and a life ye loathed.”
“I didn’t…” She broke off, her breath coming too fast. Her body felt like it was encased in ice. “Is that what…you want?”
“I want ye to be happy,” he said eventually, moving toward the window, his arms folded across his chest. His voice was calm and his expression gave away nothing. “I want my clansmen to be happy. Perhaps ’tis a blessing in disguise. This way we can both move on. Perhaps we’ll both have the chance to get what we want.”
What she wanted was him.
The strength that had been buoying her spirits suddenly flagged as delayed understanding hit her. There was no divorce. No second chances. They’d never evenbeenmarried. There was nothing left between them, not even the idea of marriage that had kept them in each other’s lives. Aisla felt a keen sense of loss, that the only thing tethering them together was finally gone. But then again, she’d never had him in the first place.
“Niall…”
He turned, slowly. “Dunnae make this any harder than it has to be.” He stopped at the door, his eyes shuttered. “Be well, Aisla.”
The first of her tears hit the note still clutched in her hand. The one he’d meant to leave her with. She should have listened. He’d hoped to be kind, to avoid the crippling devastation she now felt, as if her heart was being torn from her chest and minced to pieces. More tears joined the first, drenching the paper and the ink upon it.
Dearest Aisla. Dearest Aisla. Dearest Aisla.
The letters blurred into unrecognizable shapes.
Aisla wept her heart out. She wept for the girl she’d been and the love she’d lost. She wept for all those years they’d spent apart and the circumstances that had brought them back together. She wept for having hoped that things could have been different. She wept for an ending equally as tragic as Shakespeare had written for Romeo and Juliet. She laughed, hollowly, through the wretched sobs at the irony.
The scratch of a pen, or lack thereof, had ended them all.
