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Cowan gasped and dropped whatever it was she’d had in her hands. “Rowena Kinnaird, mind yer tongue!”

Now was not the time to correct the name, nor the fact that a lady’s maid oughtn’t to be using it. He didn’t even glance Cowan’s way. Instead, he covered the rest of the distance between him and Rowena, stopping just near enough to reach over and tip up her chin. Just near enough that she’d be able to see the fire in
his
eyes too.

“Look at me, Rowena.” He waited for her to obey, though she did so with a clenched jaw and rebellion in her eyes. And that was his fault too, wasn’t it. His wife shouldn’t have to wonder whether he was in love with another. His wife should be secure in his affections. But she wasn’t—and how could she be? He may have spoken of finding love at some point in time, but then he had let this diamond business remain always between them.

No longer. It was time to realign his focus. To fall in love with his wife, and to convince her she could trust him with her heart too. “I have
never
, either before her marriage or after, been romantically involved with Brook. Look me in the eye and believe me. She is a dear friend, as is Stafford. Nothing more.”

She averted her face, knocking away his hand. “It doesna matter.”

Pressure built up in his chest. “Of course it matters.
You
are my wife, Rowena. You, no one else, and that is just as it’s meant to be.”

She tugged off the ruby-and-diamond ring that matched the necklace and threw it to the tabletop. It bounced, slid, shot off the table and onto the floor, where Cowan scurried after it. “What does that even mean to you, Brice? That I must obey you, even when ye insist on something that everything within me screams is false? Does it mean I must fall in love with you just because ye compliment my eyes and hold my hand in public? Ye dinna trust me, ye dinna believe me, yet ye seem to think that ye’ve only to deliver a few lines of flattery like ye do with every other woman in Britain and have me falling at yer feet with the rest of yer adoring throng.”

She slashed a hand through the air, her cheeks going pink over the pale. “Well, ye’ll not find me there.”

His determination sizzled into frustration. “I don’t want you at my dashed feet, I just want you to give me half a chance to be something to you other than a stranger.”

Rowena fisted her hands and looked ready to stomp. “Maybe I dinna
want
ye to be anything but a stranger! I dinna
want
to get sucked down into yer infernal charm, unable to see anything but what ye want me to see. I’ll make my own decisions, my own friends, be my own person—”

“Good! If you recall, I told you weeks ago that I
wanted
you to be your own person. So why in blazes you now think otherwise, I cannot discern!”

Her color rose still more. “Because ye willna accept me for who I am! I can only be the Duchess of Nottingham now, not permitted to wear wool or speak with a burr or believe what I have spent my whole life believing. I canna turn around without your oldest friend lecturing me on superstition or you calling me daft for believing in curses.”

His usual gut reaction beckoned—spin away, refuse to engage in what he deemed a ridiculous argument. Hold tight the explanation, the understanding he was content with. But a quiet
Stay
resonated within him, and this time he didn’t think he was misunderstanding. He shoved his hands in his pockets to anchor himself. “I love to hear you speak. I care very little what you wear, so long as you have what you need and are happy in it.”

She snorted. “Your society disagrees.”

“Yes, they do. And you can either conform to their expectations or defy them. Whatever your choice, I will stand beside you. But I think it the other that really bothers you, and that
is
my fault. My failing. Your opinions and beliefs are worth no less than mine.”

“Dinna—” She loosed a laugh that sounded half sob. “Dinna agree with me—when we both know ye dinna really—just to sound . . .
perfect
.”

Stay
. He clenched his hands within his pockets. “I know well I’m not perfect.”

“But ye
are
, and I hate you for it! For yer perfect life and yer perfect faith and yer perfect plans. I hate you for yer perfect friends and yer perfect confidence and—and I
hate
you, and I wish I’d never met . . .”

The color drained from her cheeks, her shoulders hunched forward, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. A second later she was dashing toward the lavatory attached to her dressing room. The sounds of retching soon filtered through the door.

Brice sighed as the need to stay built, pressed upon him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and motioned Cowan to follow her mistress as she so obviously wanted to do. “Go ahead, see to her. Help her change. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

“Yer Grace.” Cowan, frown etched in her forehead, slid the ring onto the table. “She didna mean what she said. She doesna hate you. She just . . . She has so many years of hurt stored inside.”

Though it took effort, he forced the strain from his countenance, forced a partial smile. “I know that—I assure you. And I’m not returning to argue with her more. I’m returning to prove to her she’s wrong. That I’m ready to listen.”

He was going to stay.

Nineteen

N
ever, in a lifetime of humiliations, had Rowena ever felt as miserable as she did with her head hanging over the toilet and the bitter taste of her words to Brice overshadowing the sickness. Tears trickled down her cheeks as her stomach heaved again, and the cool, familiar hands that smoothed the curls away from her face did little to bring comfort.

“There now, lass. It’ll be over soon.”

No, it wouldn’t. The vomiting, perhaps, but not the bigger problem. She squeezed her eyes shut and sagged against Lilias, spent. “I’m a fool.”

“Aye.” Lilias was never one for indulgence. “But he’ll forgive you for it. And ye need to let him. Rowena . . .” Letting out a long breath, Lilias held her tight and rested her cheek against Rowena’s head. “Dinna be like yer mother, lass. Dinna let yerself be so eaten up by regrets that ye do something glaikit.”

Mother . . . foolish? Rowena could barely even call her mother’s face to mind anymore, but for when she pulled out the old, faded photographs. Nora had been beautiful, once upon a time. The enchanting American heiress out for an adventure, visiting the land her grandparents had fled in the clearances. By the time Rowena left for school, Mother had been as faded as those pictures.

Was that her future, too, if she stuck to this course? “I’d never kill myself, Lil. Ye needna worry.”

“’Tisn’t the leap from the cliff I fear you taking—it’s the years of waste leading up to it. The decision yer mother made to blame her husband for her own choices.”

Rowena sat up, though it made her stomach roll again, and turned to see Lilias’s face. “How can ye speak so? My father suffocated her. Took the life from her long before she took her own. He beat her—”

“I ken what he did, and I’ll make no excuses for him. But yer mother was no saint, Wena. That summer when he first lost his head with you both—it wasna just the visit to the duchess that set him off so. ’Twas who
else
was at Gaoth that year.”

Else?
Try as she might to send her mind back, Rowena could remember no one but Ella, Charlotte, and an eternal parade of guests that were all faceless to her. “Who?”

Lilias pressed her lips together and shook her head, but then she sighed. “An old beau, from the States. He came to Scotland with the Carnegies, and when the Nottinghams and Brices paid their obligatory visit to Skibo, he came back to Lochaber with them. Because he kent yer mother was Lady Lochaber and wanted to see her again.”

But Mother wouldn’t have . . . She wasn’t so foolish that . . . Surely not, under Rowena’s very nose, with Lilias—her husband’s own cousin—attending her . . .

She lunged forward to retch again. All those times Mother had sent her to Gaoth, all those days Rowena had happily skipped along at Ella’s side—what had Nora been doing? Rowena spat out the last of the acrid bile. “Why? Why would she do that? Father doted on her then. On both of us.”

Lilias passed her a washcloth and stood to run water into a glass. “She was never happy in the Highlands, lass. Not after the first year or two—after the romance of it wore off. She wanted her home. Her family. Threatened time and again to go back to them. That’s when yer father started cutting off communication. She pushed him for years, and then when he came home that summer and found the Nottinghams there . . . When he realized her old flame had been in his castle . . . Well, ye know the result of that.”

“Aye.” She could still remember the utter shock the first time his fist struck her, when she heard Mother sobbing in pain from the other room.

Taking the glass from Lilias, Rowena held it for a long moment as the older woman turned her to pluck pins from her hair. She stared into the clear water. “But . . . why did he take it out on me?” The words emerged as the barest whisper.

Lilias dropped a hand to her shoulder and squeezed. “He was blind with rage, Wena. And then . . . then he wanted to make you stronger. Wanted to ensure ye were like
him
, not yer mother. And that’s how his father taught him.”

“But I’m not like him.”

Lilias sighed and plucked out the last of the hairpins, her fingers then moving to the buttons down Rowena’s back. “Well and good. But dinna be like her either, lass. Dinna blame yer husband for everything wrong in yer life. His Grace is a good man. Better than yer father ever was. And he’d never betray you as ye accused him of doing. As yer parents did each other.”

Cold air snuck beneath the silk. She shivered—and couldn’t seem to stop once she started. She set her water down and nearly tripped as she stepped out of her gown. Her fingers fumbled the hooks on her corset.

“Poor lass. Ye look ready to fall over. Here, put on yer nice, warm flannel.”

She did—though it did little to warm her. Praying her stomach remained steady, she headed for her toothbrush and powder.

Lilias paused in the doorway with the silk in her arms. “Rowena . . . yer husband’s coming back in a few minutes. When he does, remember . . . ye’re not yer parents.”

Coming back?
Her stomach roiled, though thankfully it didn’t heave again. She brushed the bitterness from her mouth and hurried as much as she could back to her chamber. Turned off the electric lamp and crawled into bed with only the fire in the grate for light. Perhaps if she pretended to be asleep, he’d go away. She couldn’t face him now, with those words still echoing in her ears.

“I hate you
.
I wish I’d never met you.”

Her chest hurt as much as her stomach. It wasn’t true, had never been—certainly not in the moment when he stood there and apologized for all she had resented these weeks. Why had
that
pushed her to say such terrible things? Why could she deal better with his disregard than with humble attention? Nothing made sense anymore. Not her marriage, not her life . . . not what she thought was a budding friendship. It was all a muddle. Reasons and motives and goals all mixed up and as confused as Ella in the maze.

It had seemed clear for that one moment, that day at Whitby Park. When Brice had told her to spite them all by being happy. By thriving. By discovering who she really was. But Malcolm would gloat if he could see the distance between her and Brice. And Father—Father would probably agree with her. Father would say she shouldn’t trust a Sassenach not to disappoint her.

But since when did she think her father’s thoughts?

The door clicked open, shut again. Lilias? No, the step was too heavy. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to regulate her breathing. She didn’t want to give Malcolm reason to gloat . . . but she needed time. She couldn’t face Brice yet. Not yet. Just a few more hours—a night between her cruel words and seeing their effect in his eyes. That was all. In the morning she would face him, and the consequences. In the morning, she’d be ready to talk through it all with him. Settle things.

The mattress shifted, and her spine went tight, despite her attempts to remain relaxed. He would know she was awake. She needed to stay calm. He wasn’t going to insist on any marital favors tonight. He never had before, and he certainly wouldn’t with her having just lost her dinner a few minutes before. He wouldn’t. She could—
must
—stay calm. She would simply ignore him, and he would eventually be content that she was well enough and go away. He would . . .

A touch on her shoulder, so soft she barely felt it. And her tension eased. A brush down her back, back up, around, and peace edged out the mounting panic. The darkness that she hadn’t realized was pressing closer slid away. Breathing became easier.

Tears pressed against her closed eyelids.

“Shh. You’re all right.” Why did the whisper, as soft as the touch, settle into her mind like the refrain of an old hymn? “Rest, my darling. Just go to sleep. I’m right here.”