Page 66 of The Scot is Hers
The doctor had murmured about it being justice served and then marched off with his bag of coin.
Alec hesitated outside the parlor, knowing that the rest of their guests would be inside, worrying over what happened on the moors—especially Giselle.
“I can no’ and will no’ marry him! He’s a beast!” Giselle’s voice cut through his sluggish brain and stabbed him right in the chest.
My God, the timing of him overhearing such an outburst. Alec pressed his hand to his chest, feeling as if he’d been shot, the ache was so potent. Her words had been filled with anger, vitriol. Incredibly bitter.
She didn’t want to marry him. This had all been a ruse. And now he wished Keith’s gun had not backfired but instead hit its mark. He stumbled back a step, trying to find the balance that seemed to elude him more and more where Giselle was concerned.
The door to the parlor burst open then, and he came face to face with her. She looked as crestfallen as he felt. Alec started to turn away, but she grabbed him by the hand.
“Ye’re alive.” Her voice sounded completely different. The Giselle he knew, but brighter. Was this yet another act?
Alec shook his arm from her grasp. “I release ye,” he said, his words sounded bitter and hurt, the opposite of what he wanted to show her. He wanted to be strong, to pretend her words hadn’t wounded him. To pretend that nothing that had happened between them mattered. But it did. All of it fucking mattered.
“What? Release me?” Giselle shook her head, having the audacity to sound flummoxed. “What are ye talking about?”
Alec held up his hands as if to ward off whatever spell she’d been able to cast over him and he took a step back. “I heard what ye said in there, and I’ll no’ make ye wed a beast. I’m no’ a monster, even if I look like one.”
Giselle looked thoroughly confused, hurt even. Her hand fluttered toward her neck, where her skin flushed. “Alec, ye misunderstood.”
“I misunderstood nothing. My ears work fine.” He marched toward his library, intent on drowning his sorrows in the decanter of whisky he had there. Probably would ask for a refill as well.
She trailed him. The clomp of her riding boots clipped against the wood floor behind him.
Again she tried to touch him, but he kept out of her reach, pushing through the doors of his library, and trying to close them behind him.
“Do no’ follow me,” he said, without bothering to look behind him.
She ignored him, coming inside and shutting the door behind her, with anyone who’d witnessed their exchange seeing that too.
“Stop right there, Lord Errol.”
Alecdidstop at the tone of her voice. He’d never heard it before, and it made him feel oddly young. Turning slowly around, he took in her rigid stance, her hands at her hips.
“Ye’re incredibly stubborn and hardheaded,” she said.
“And ye’re verra observant.”
“Aye, and ye’re clearly no’.”
Alec narrowed his eyes but said nothing. He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down at her in a way that would have had one of his subordinates melting into the carpet.
“As I said before: ye misunderstood me. Could ye no’ see my relief at finding ye alive? Ye left without saying goodbye. I feared never to see ye again. My mother told me my engagement to Sir Joshua Keith would stand if he returned, and ye did no’. That is what ye heard me talking about. No’ ye, ye lackwit.”
Alec raised a brow at the insult but acknowledged that she did appear to be telling the truth. And he felt immediately contrite for his behavior. His arms fell from where he’d crossed them, and the tension in his body eased, but not all the way. He was fairly certain after the events on the moors, he’d be stiff for weeks, months even.
Her hands lowered from her hips, and her features softened. “What happened?”
Alec blew out a harsh breath and approached the sideboard, pouring himself a dram of whisky and expecting her to ask if it were necessary so early in the morning as his mother would, but Giselle remained silent, unjudging.
“His weapon backfired. He shot himself in the face.” He slugged back the whisky and set the cup down on the sideboard.
Giselle was quiet long enough that he was able to pour and drink another glass.
“Is he…” She didn’t finish the question.
Alec nodded. “Dead.”
