Page 90 of Sweet Home Highlander
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Rain lashed the windows of one of Bramble Park’s many luxurious parlors, and Aisla, seated on a chaise, watched as the rivulets of water coursed down the glass. She couldn’t help recalling Niall’s face on that last day. The yearning in his eyes. It would have taken only one word from him for her to fling herself into her arms.
But he hadn’t.
And she’d left.
England wasn’t the same as Scotland, but this far north, it could still very well be. Until she crossed the Channel, she was certain she would feel a desperate, soul-shattering longing for what she’d left behind. Which was nothing…simply a past chapter of her life, now closed. That didn’t mean her heart was immune to the loss. She missed him. Each day felt worse than the last, not better. Time, the repairer of all wounds, wasn’t keeping its end of the bargain. Nor had distance, and now even nature had conspired against her.
It had rained every day since they’d left Scotland. Before they had left Maclaren, Julien had received the strongly worded summons from his ailing grandfather, the Marquess of Riverley in Newcastle. His estate, Bramble Park, was a short distance away from the Scottish border. In his own haste to get back to Paris and his mother, Julien hadn’t wanted to linger, but the messenger had been adamant that his lordship was on his deathbed. Since the marquess was Julien’s mother’s father, albeit estranged, he’d acquiesced for his mother’s sake. Though, Aisla noted, it was without his usual grace.
“Do you dislike him?” she’d asked when he’d curtly relayed the change in plans at Maclaren and asked if she would mind the short detour. In all the years she’d known Julien, he’d never spoken of any relations beyond his mother and seven-years-deceased father. “Your grandfather?”
He didn’t have to answer the question. Cold hatred had rolled over his features, his lips going thin and his eyes glinting with a hardness that made her recoil. It was a side of Julien she had never seen.
“He disowned my mother when she married a Frenchman who was below their glorified standards,” he’d said after several minutes. “It didn’t matter that he loved her dearly or that she loved him. They punished her for it, forcing her to choose between her family and her lover. She chose love, of course,” he added dispassionately.
Aisla knew that Julien’s father had died from a fever some years before. “Did they never reconcile after your father passed?”
He shook his head. “No. Why welcome such common blood into the illustrious fold?”
“You’re not common, Jules.”
“My father was the penniless third son of a viscount who made his living as an artist, Aisla.” He’d laughed. “Theirlovewasn’t enough to live on, it didn’t put food in our bellies, or keep either of them from getting sick. She survived, he didn’t.” His voice had deepened with emotion. “The man you see before you now is someone I built to keep my mother and myself safe after my father died and left us destitute. I took work as a footman and then a valet, and I listened when my employer made investments. I wouldn’t take a penny of the marquess’s money if you forced me to the gallows.”
Aisla had gaped at the confession that he’d once been part of the working class. He’d been born into the aristocracy, and yet he’d had none of the wealth or opportunity that usually accompanied such a blessing. Julien had never told her any of this before.
“Then why agree to go now?”
“Because I want to tell the old man that face to face,” he’d snarled. “That he and his bloody title can go straight to hell.”
They’d been at Bramble Park for a week now. Seven more days than Julien had intended to stay. And not because of his grandfather’s health. Aisla, in fact, had become too ill to travel. She’d convinced Julien that it was some kind of food poisoning. He’d been suspicious when no one else had become ill, and even went so far as to ask if she was only trying to draw out their stay so he that would reconcile with his grandfather. She’d denied it, and Julien had grudgingly agreed to the marquess’s offer of accommodation until Aisla felt well enough to leave.
Of course, she’d known the true reason for her debilitating nausea. Julien had been right—it wasn’t food poisoning. However, it didn’t have anything to do with him, either. She’d started to feel ill almost as soon as she realized she had missed her courses. It had been the same with the first, so many years ago.
She was pregnant.
There was no question as to the timing. She’d been with Niall just once—that final night at Tarben Castle. It was a miracle she hadn’t miscarried the next morning when she’d fallen at the mines, or in the days after, when she’d been slipping in and out of consciousness and fighting for her life. But human bodies were stronger than they looked. Or maybe this baby was different.
Pauline had known instantly, and not only because of Aisla being hunched over the chamber pot in agony most mornings, though that was a certain giveaway. No, she claimed it was because of her mistress’s bosom. Personally, Aisla could not see any increase in that particular area, but she supposed if one was constantly tightening corsets and adjusting bodices, such a change would be noticeable.
But bodily changes aside, the thought of a baby brought with it other concerns. Aisla was unmarried, and the baby had been conceived out of wedlock. If anyone found out, she would be well and truly ruined. She was of noble birth and carrying a bastard child. However, she still had one other option open to her, and given the circumstances, it was the only thing that made any sense.
“You wanted to see me,” Julien said, striding into the salon. His face was drawn and pale, his normally twinkling eyes dim. If a place could suck the life from a person, then this was it. Even his thick blond hair looked listless. Aisla stood, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Did you come from visiting him?”
He gave a brusque nod. “He’s no better. Insists on naming me as his heir presumptive. Apparently, all my cousins who could have inherited the title have all died, and I am the only one left of the old bastard’s line.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said, cutting her off and walking to the mantel where he poured himself two generous fingers of brandy. “I didn’t know any of my cousins to begin with, and I don’t care what happens to this heap now. He can rot before I claim any kinship with him.”
“Wouldn’t it make your mother happy?” she blurted out. “For reconciliation? It’s your birthright, after all.”
He didn’t answer, but his grinding jaw indicated that he’d heard her. “No.”
Aisla cleared her throat. She didn’t want to broach the subject with him in such a foul mood, but his answer would determine whether she went on to Paris or back to her parent’s estate in Scotland. “You said that you would still want to marry me…if I wanted it.”
