Page 31 of A Bride for the Wicked Highlander (Daring a Highland Laird #2)
“ A re you sure you won’t leave something here, just in case?” Grace asked, watching as Maddie heaved the last of her luggage across the entrance hall to join the cases that waited on the front steps.
Pausing to mop the sweat from her brow, Maddie cast her friend a warning look.
“There would be no point in it,” she said, for what felt like the hundredth time.
“He has made his position perfectly clear. Besides, I need everything that I brought with me from my fruitless endeavors at the universities.”
“Perhaps, I could get Hunter to talk to him,” Grace offered.
“There would be no point in that, either,” Maddie replied, her temper fraying.
If there was a solution to be found, did Grace really think that Maddie wouldn’t have discovered it yet? She’d gone over and over it through the night, between bouts of sobs that she didn’t plan on telling anyone about, not even her dear friend.
But the certainty, the stubbornness, the immoveable nature of Oscar’s words were undeniable: there was nothing that could change his mind.
And I won’t beg for affection. Pleading for him to touch her, to kiss her, to taste her, to pleasure her was a thrill, all part of the game of seduction. Pleading for affection and to be welcome somewhere was just pitiful.
“Besides, this is all for the best,” Maddie went on.
“I will be closer to Edinburgh, so Mr. Fallow is certainly happier with the arrangement. I have my books and collections at Horndean, so there will be no need for the hassle of sending them, and potentially losing valuable work on the way. I will be nearer to you and Lilian. It is ideal, in truth. If I’d known I could have this arrangement from the start, it’s what I would have asked for. ”
She grabbed the handle of the trunk—the only large piece of luggage she’d traveled with—and resumed dragging it to the front steps.
A carriage waited in the spitting rain, bearing Hunter’s crest. Oscar had offered the use of his, but with Hunter and Grace eager to return to Castle MacLogan and Ellie, it had made more sense for Maddie to travel with them.
Nor did Maddie want to accept any token from Oscar; she wanted nothing from him now.
So, this is it.
The sight of the carriage struck Maddie in the chest, winding her for a moment. As soon as she got into that carriage and departed, she knew that would be it; the dream of having everything she’d ever wanted, and everything she’d never known she wanted, would be over.
He won’t reconsider in two years. He was just saying that.
“This is what happens when intelligent women allow themselves to be distracted,” she muttered to Grace, the two women tucked into the shelter of the archway that curved above the steps. “This is what happens when you panic instead of thinking rationally; you end up in a bad marriage with a rake.”
Grace expelled a soft sigh. “Won’t you tell me what happened last night? You seemed so comfortable here, and now...”
“I did tell you,” Maddie replied. “I told you everything I have a right to.”
“What does that mean?”
Maddie shook her head. “It means there’s part of it that I have no right to tell.
All you need to know, dear Gracie, is that this experiment hasn’t worked.
It happens. It is the life of a scientist. I had a theory that I could be happy here, that I could make a place for myself here, but it has been disproven. ”
“Doesn’t that mean you should go back over your theory and find out where it went awry?” Grace pointed out, rather too cleverly for Maddie’s current mood.
“Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, the conclusion is so irrefutable that there is no going back.” Maddie puffed out a breath. “This is the latter.”
But what made it all so much worse was that, although Oscar had wounded her terribly, her anger was laced with the most heartfelt, aching sympathy.
His theory of himself was innately flawed, yet he wouldn’t allow someone with an outside perspective to show him the holes in his argument. He wouldn’t let her show him.
I didn’t know whether to slap you or embrace you.
Even now, she wanted to do both: to smack him for being such a stubborn fool, to embrace him for all he had suffered when he was younger. She was no stranger to the effects of a parent upon a child. She understood how that shaped a person, but it didn’t have to define a person.
As she stared at the carriage, she wished she could come up with an experiment that would show Oscar that obsession wasn’t an inheritance.
There were plenty of testimonies of generational afflictions and madnesses, but she highly doubted that insane jealousy was part of that.
Clearly, his father had just been a greedy pig, insecure and weak-minded. Oscar was none of those things.
“I’m sorry, Maddie,” Grace murmured, stepping forward to wrap her friend up in a tight hug. “I had such hopes for the two of you. You seemed to fit so well together, despite the circumstances.”
Hugging Grace in return, Maddie allowed herself to whisper, “I thought so too, for a little while.”
“You never know,” Grace said, giving her a squeeze, “you might find yourself back here in two years, and whatever has caused this might have passed. You might yet be happy together.”
Maddie scrunched her eyes shut, so no stray tears could escape. “I do know, Gracie. I will never return here.”
Not even if he begs.
Oscar watched from the window of Maddie’s private study, still populated with the trunks that Mr. Fallow had brought from Edinburgh.
The tutor was to return home tomorrow, still too weary from his first journey to consider another one so soon.
But he’d seemed pleased by the change of arrangement, which was more than could be said for Oscar himself.
She didnae even seek me out to say goodbye.
He squinted as a sharp pain ricocheted through his chest, his vision blurring at the edges as Maddie climbed up into the waiting carriage. Grace got in after her, though Hunter was nowhere to be seen.
A knock at the door made him jump, cursing under his breath as he turned to see who it was, ready to rebuke them for the interruption.
“I thought I’d come to say farewell,” Hunter said, grim-faced in the low light of the study. “And to buy ye a few minutes to come to yer senses and fetch yer wife out of me carriage.”
Oscar’s reprimand died on his tongue. “Farewell to ye, then. I hope ye have an easy journey back to Castle MacLogan.”
“Farewell me arse,” Hunter shot back, tutting. “Ye cannae be serious about this, Oscar. I dinnae ken what went on yesterday that has prompted this, but it cannae be so insurmountable. It’s what ye do in a marriage, lad—ye talk, ye overcome, ye learn somethin’ and ye move on together.”
Oscar smiled bitterly. “Ye’ve kenned me a long time, Hunter. If I’m retreatin’, then ye ken it’s somethin’ worth retreatin’ from.”
“Aye, and I’ve kenned ye long enough to ken that ye’re also stubborn as a donkey,” Hunter replied.
“That lassie out there is fond of ye and, more than that, she’s good for ye.
And I ken ye’re fond of her too, far more than ye’ll admit to me.
If ye let her leave, ye stand to lose the only lass I’ve ever seen ye care for. Ye’ll stand to lose her completely.”
Oscar shrugged his shoulders. “Better to lose her like this, while she’s still herself, than to be the reason her light is snuffed out. It doesnae matter that she’s good for me, because I’m nay good for her.”
Understanding seemed to dawn across Hunter’s face, his mouth opening as if he’d just heard something shocking.
.. or very stupid. “ That’s what this is about,” he said quietly, for he knew the twisted tale of Oscar’s parents.
“Oscar, that’s ridiculous. Since yer weddin’, I havenae seen any shortage of light in her.
In truth, I’d say she’s glowin’ brighter thanks to ye.
Grace was tellin’ me that Madeleine has never been as giddy as she was yesterday, when ye brought that tutor. ”
“I won’t explain what ye won’t understand,” Oscar said stiffly, tired of repeating himself.
The effects of obsession weren’t immediate; they soured and twisted and corrupted over months and years. By then, it would be too late to send her away to safety.
“Well, let me explain somethin’ that I hope ye will understand,” Hunter replied in a blunt tone.
“Ye wouldnae hurt her because ye’re nae a weak bastard like yer faither was.
Ye dinnae get a thrill out of treadin’ on others, makin’ them feel small.
Ye dinnae get a thrill out of control and wieldin’ it however ye please.
I’d wager he showed signs of the beast he was long before he ever met yer maither, strikin’ servants for nay reason or breakin’ lasses’ hearts to amuse himself, little cruelties that showed his true nature. Ye havenae ever been that way.”
Oscar turned his face away, staring out of the window to the shadow of the carriage door. It stood open, but he couldn’t see inside to where his wife was.
Is that true? He thought of Betty-Ann, who’d been at Castle Muir since the dawn of time. Would she be able to remember what his father was like before he was ever married?
“Now, I dinnae doubt ye’d burn the world to the ground for her, but ye’d never burn her,” Hunter continued. “So, dinnae be a fool, Oscar.”
“I am doin’ this for her,” Oscar tried to protest, but his friend’s suggestion about his father was shaking the walls of certainty that he’d built around the notion that he had his father’s madness.
Hunter rolled his eyes. “Dinnae act the hero. Ye’re afraid of feelings ye dinnae understand, that make ye feel like ye have nay control over yerself or yer heart.
Ye’re afraid because ‘love’ has always been a cruel word for ye.
Ye cannae imagine that maybe, just maybe, it can be somethin’ so good.
But ye’ll find that it’s worth it, if she takes ye back when ye finally wake up.
” He expelled a strained breath. “I pray ye do. Now, if ye dinnae mind, I have me wife and a sad soul to take home.”
With that, Hunter turned on his heel, leaving Oscar to watch as his wife departed Castle Muir. Perhaps for good.