If she was going to be set aside on a shelf for the sake of convenience, she’d rather it be at Hawkridge Manor where at least the roof didn’t leak and she could put her hands in her pockets without fear of encountering something furry or slimy.
Things needed to change. Things were going to change, she thought with a renewed sense of determination as she donned a practical cotton dress and sturdy leather shoes capable of withstanding the quagmire of mud that surrounded the castle. Because she was going to change them.
After she changed the twins’ nappies, that is.
Something more than the weather had shifted over the past few weeks. Lachlan felt it as keenly as the wind in his hair and the loamy soil beneath his feet. While the air had gradually warmed and the trees had begun to bloom, a noticeable chill had overtaken the castle.
And it was emanating from Brynne.
Admittedly, the first five months of their marriage hadn’t been nearly as easy nor carefree as he’d anticipated. With planting season upon him and the entire fate of the distillery hanging in the balance–if the barley and wheat didn’t take, there’d be no grains to ferment to make whisky–he had practically been living in the small lodge on the other side of the hill. Trudging home at the end of a long day to eat, bathe, and collapse into bed beside a wife that was already sleeping.
Sometimes, he didn’t even make it that far.
Then there was the state of Campbell Castle itself. When it was only him and his brothers, he’d known that the grand old lady was in need of repairs…but seeing the shock in Brynne’s gaze as their carriage had rounded the turn and the full scope of the castle had come into view–leaning towers, cracked windows, entire sections of roof clumsily patched with cheap tin shingles–he’d been forced to open his eyes to the fact that a complete restoration was needed. Which he’d be able to afford…once the distillery turned a profit.
It was a vicious circle. The faster it spun, the further he and Brynne were pushed apart. Sometimes it seemed as if she was all the way back in London…or she was wishing that she was in London, which was even worse. Not that he blamed her. Why would she want to be here, in the mud and the muck, when she could be sailing about a ballroom without a care in the world?
In his desperate desire to have her, he hadn’t fully stopped to consider what the devil he was going to do with her once he did. The truth…the hard, difficult, unavoidable truth…was that he should have waited. A year, two, even three, and he’d be able to provide her with the life she was accustomed to. The life she deserved. But he’d run when he should have walked, and there was nothing to be done about it now but to keeping moving.
Well, almost nothing.
“I sent a firmly worded letter tae me dear stepmother,” he informed Brynne as they engaged in a rare walk together through the orchards that wrapped around the edge of the fields where he and a crew of lads from the village had finished planting another seven acres of barley just that morning. “She and me father will be here tae collect the hellions before the week is out, and take them tae Kintore Manor.”
Rather like the state of the castle, he’d vastly underestimated the sheer wildness of his siblings. From Callum to baby Eara and every brother in between, they were no more housebroken than a litter of wolf pups. He’d believed he was doing them a service by letting them roam the grounds without rules or regulations to abide by, both of which he had despised when he was a boy, but it was clear they’d benefit from more structure than he was capable of providing them at Campbell Castle.
Brynne stopped short. “You’re sending them away? All of them?”
Taking note of the faint hint of censure in her tone, Lachlan leaned against the gnarled trunk of an apple tree and lifted a brow. “I assumed ye would be pleased.”
“While I do think children should be with their parents, I would have liked to be consulted.” She crossed her arms. “This is something we should have decided together.”
And here he thought he’d been doing her a favor. “They’re me siblings.”
“Yes, but we are a family. And while I will hardly miss finding snakes in my undergarments, this was a choice that I’d have liked to discuss with you before you made it for both of us.”
“Ye’re angry,” he observed as she resumed walking, albeit with a noticeably stiffer gait.
“I am,” she tossed over her shoulder.
“Why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Because if I wanted important decisions to be made without anyone bothering to ask for my opinion, I would have remained in England!”
Ah, there it was.
He’d been waiting–no, expecting–this to happen.
It was only a matter of time.
Or so that little voice in the back of his head had whispered when shadows crept and owls cried. That it wouldn’t be long before his bride began to yearn for the luxuries she’d left behind. That he’d never be able to give her what she needed to stay.
A piece of him had been preparing himself for this moment since Gretna Green. It was why, without fully realizing what he was doing or why he was doing it, he’d been keeping her at arm’s length. Because you couldn’t be hurt from losing what you didn’t have.
And he did not have Brynne.
Not all of her, at any rate.
Six months of marriage and a part of her remained tied to the ton.
A tether waiting to reel her in.
A net ready to cushion her fall.
This wasn’t a marriage to her, he thought with a surge of resentment. It was a bloody experiment. If it failed, she’d fly back into her gilded cage with nary a feather ruffled while he bled out on the ground.
And he had the means to prove it.
“Have ye written tae yer brother yet?” he snarled as anger filled him. Tangled up with his own shame, it pulsed hot and heavy through his veins, driving up his temper from a place of fear and desperation as his nostrils flared and his jaw clenched.
“I…” She gave a bewildered shake of her head. “What does he have to do with this?”
“Just answer the question, Bry. Have ye told Weston that we’re married or not?”
“No,” she said after a long pause. “Not yet, but–”
“Goddamnit,” he cursed, throwing his arms wide as he started to stalk away, only to whip around to confront her with glittering eyes and a bitter heart. “Was that yer plan all along, then? Tae have a laugh in Campbell Castle for a while, and then jaunt back tae Hawkridge when ye grew weary of playing the poor lady wife in a castle ye despise?”
Her hazel eyes widened. “What? How could you say such a thing? I didn’t write to Weston because our wedding was too important to tell him about in a letter. And I don’t despise Campbell Castle. I just…” Her hands lifted helplessly. “It isn’t what I was expecting.”
“Aye, I should have told ye there’d be no butlers tae wait on ye hand and foot.” A part of Lachlan acknowledged that he was being a right brutish bastard. But that was the problem with shame. More than any other emotion, it twisted a person up inside. It made them defensive when they didn’t even know what they were defending against. And it made them lash out when they’d be better served to retreat to their own corner until cooler heads prevailed. But there was no calm to be found here. Not when the woman he loved had all but admitted she was too embarrassed of him to tell anyone they were married.
Oh, not in so many words.
But silence, pauses, hesitations…they spoke volumes.
And it was past time he started listening.
“I can do without a butler,” his wife snapped back, lifting her chin. “I am not helpless. If you hadn’t noticed, while you’ve been gallivanting about your precious fields, I’ve been taking care of four children!”
“Gallivanting?” he repeated incredulously. “Gallivanting? I’ve worked meself intae the bluidy ground. For ye!”
It was all for her.
It was always for her.
And it cut–it sliced t
o the bone–that it wasn’t enough.
That no matter what he did, she would always be Lady Brynne Weston, granddaughter of a duke…and he would be Lachlan Campbell, the second-born son of a man who’d inherited his title because some dobber fell off a ladder.
“Well ye dinna have tae bother yerself with the boys and the twins any longer,” he said when her lips flattened and her gaze went to the tree beside him. “Me father will collect them tomorrow, and they’ll go tae where they should have been tae begin with. Callum’s soon for Eton, with Blaine not far behind. Lady Heather can manage the two little ones and the twins easy enough with a few nannies tae keep them from toddling off.” His mouth hardened. “Then ye willna have tae concern yerself with them.”
Brynne’s eyes cut to his. “While I do believe their needs will be better met at Kintore Manor, sending them away is a decision that should have been made between the both of us.”
He gave a snort. “Dinna pretend ye ever wanted them here.”
“I won’t lie and say I haven’t been overwhelmed, but that is only because I don’t know the faintest thing about being a mother to four children! If you had bothered to tell me how many there were, and that we hadn’t the resources to afford a nanny or a governess–”
“Ye never would have come,” he said flatly.
“That’s…that’s not true,” she argued.
But all Lachlan heard was another hesitation.
“Then let’s talk about what’s true. The second ye saw the castle, ye wished ye had never married me. That’s true, isna it? Aye, that’s what I thought,” he sneered when her cheeks pinkened.
“If you’d just told me the state of things–”
“And what was I tae say?” His shout was loud enough to startle a pair of nesting warblers. Chattering in disapproval, they swooped low overhead before disappearing further into the orchard. “Leave yer fancy manor tae live in a place that’s a stiff breeze away from tumbling over?”
“At least I would have known to bring an extra bucket for rainy nights!” she cried. “How could you think so little of me? My love for you is not conditional, Lachlan. I would have followed you anywhere. To a castle in the Highlands, or a cottage by the sea. The destination was never important.”
Would have.
Would have.
“Then why havena ye told yer brother, or anyone else for that matter, that we’re married? I’m not a fool, Bry. I know that ye are ashamed of me. Ashamed of us.” Just speaking those words aloud caused a reddish flush to spread across the front of his chest and up his neck. He felt as if he were being boiled from the inside out, like a salmon tossed into a pot.
“That’s a despicable thing to say, and hurts you as much as it does me.” She stabbed her finger at him. “This winter has been difficult, I won’t deny it. And the spring hasn’t started off any better. I don’t like fishing tadpoles out of my bath, or waking to sheets soaked through with rain. I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would find pleasure in such things. But they were bearable because of you. Because of the vows we took and the love we were supposed to have for each other.”
He wondered if Brynne was even aware that she was speaking in past tense.
“Supposed tae have?” Snatching her by the wrist, he yanked her against him. Their bodies collided and the sparks were immediate; a burst of fireworks shooting off across a dark and turbulent sky. But then, they’d never lacked for physical attraction. Perhaps he’d let the burn of it blind him to what he should have seen all along.
“I love ye with every fiber of me being,” he said hoarsely while she stared at him in defiance. “With every breath I take. With everything that I am and hope tae ever be. It’s not me love that is in doubt, Bry. So I’ll ask ye this one last time, and then let it rest.” His grip tightened. “Why have ye not told Weston that we’re married? I dinna claim tae know everything, but I do know one thing, and it’s that people dinna keep secrets out of pride.”
She struggled for an instant and then subsided, her eyes flashing with brilliant shards of green as she tossed back her head to glare.
“Is this some–some sort of test?” she exclaimed furiously.
Another non-answer.
Another evasion.
His shoulders slumped as his anger abated, leaving him empty and achingly hollow.
“Aye,” he said heavily as he let her arm slip through his fingers. “And ye just failed.”
Chapter Eighteen
Robert Campbell was a large man with an even larger voice. From the instant he stepped onto the grounds of Campbell Castle, his gravelly baritone infiltrated every inch of the castle. And that was even before he entered the stone foyer.
Apprehensive to meet her new father-in-law, a man whom she’d already unconsciously judged and found wanting for both his affairs and abandonment of his kin, Brynne lingered behind the children as they threw themselves into Robert’s enormous arms.
They were, she noted with some relief, happy to see him. Even the twins stopped their squalling to stare at him with big, wondrous eyes. After doling out candy from a paper sack, he settled Tavish on his left side, Eara on his right, and beckoned Brynne over with a laughing shout.
“Aye, let me have a look at me new daughter!” he roared, leading her to question if he wasn’t a tad hard of hearing. Dressed in a kilt and leather vest with his red hair, several shades lighter than Lachlan’s deep auburn and peppered heavily with gray, loose and flowing over his shoulders, he was the very picture of a Scottish warrior of old…and not at all what she had expected.
Certainly her father had never dangled his children off his hip or bribed them with sweet treats. When the Marquess of Dorchester had seen fit to visit–despite it being his home as well as theirs, it had always felt like a visit–he was cold and contained. Brusque, even. And he’d never shown them any sort of physical affection.
Brynne gasped aloud when Robert wrapped her in a hearty embrace that stole the breath from her lungs and lifted her onto her tiptoes. It was like being hugged by a giant! Giggling, Eara and Tavish pinched her cheeks and stroked her hair as Robert rocked all three of them back and forth.
“Pwetty,” Tavish gurgled, closing his chubby fist around one of Brynne’s curls, and Lachlan’s father gave a shout of laughter.
“That’s me boy!” He tossed his youngest son into the air and caught him in the crook of his elbow as Brynne gave a tiny squeak of alarm. “Already flirting with the ladies, are ye? A Campbell rite of passage, tae be sure.”
Unsure of what to make of the Marquess of Kintore, Brynne darted a glance at Lachlan, but he was little help. Standing off by himself in the far corner of the foyer, her husband gave her as much acknowledgement as he had this morning after joining her for breakfast. Which was to say, none at all.
After their argument yesterday, he’d gone off to the distillery and had spent the night there while she’d laid awake staring at the ceiling, replaying his words over and over again in her mind as she struggled to make sense of his rage.
What had begun as her attempt to communicate that she merely wanted to be included in important decisions had quickly spiraled into something else. In all the time they’d known each other, she had never witnessed such anger. Such animosity. Such…such fury. The things he had said to her, coupled with the way he had said them, had revealed a side of his personality that she’d never witnessed before.
The Lachlan she knew–the Lachlan she had married–was sweet, and endearing, and charming. But the Lachlan in the orchards, the Lachlan who had unleashed a torrent of barbed accusations that she’d been helpless to protect herself against, was abrasive, and callous, and hostile.
She wanted to be as angry with him as he was with her.
But she couldn’t.
Because he was right.
About her reluctance to tell Weston she was married. About her dismay at the condition of the castle. And while she wasn’t ashamed of their marriage, she was self-conscious of it. Of what others w
ould say once it became public knowledge. Of what they would think. Of what they would do.
She knew that she shouldn’t have cared. And maybe she wouldn’t have, if she hadn’t learned at her governess’ knee that the ton’s opinion of her wasn’t just one thing, it was everything.
Who was she, without the approval of her peers?
She’d prayed that the answer would reveal itself when she came to Campbell Castle. Or disappear entirely. Instead, all she had were more questions…and a husband who refused to look at her. Biting the inside of her cheek in an effort to quell the unease in the pit of her belly, she turned her focus to the other red-haired Scot in the foyer.
“I’ve light refreshments in the parlor if you’d care for some, along with fresh lemonade,” she offered, bestowing upon Lachlan’s father the same smile she’d used when she’d met Queen Victoria. By her estimation, making a good impression on one’s father-in-law was just as beneficial as impressing England’s reigning monarch.
“Och, and are not ye a sweet lass tae offer such a warm welcome?” Robert boomed. “Ye have married a fine lady, Lachlan. A far sight better than that witch yer brother stuck himself with.”
“Ye didna think she was a witch when ye asked her tae marry ye,” Lachlan said mildly.
“Aye.” Robert gave an unapologetic grin. “That’s the truth of it. A good thing she said no, as I wouldna have wed me Heather, and she wouldna have blessed an old man with these two bairns.” This time, he tossed both Eara and Tavish high into the air and they let out matching squeals of delight while Brynne cringed and clapped a hand over her eyes.
Seduced by the Scot Page 19
