Page 90 of All Scot and Bothered

“Ye owe me no explanation,” he replied shortly.

Now, there was a fine turn of events for you. Cecelia puffed a little, forced to trot behind him on the brambly path. All this time he’d demanded nothing but endless explanations, and now when she was dying to give one, he’d have none of it.

They each waved to Phoebe on their way inside, pretending all was well for the darling little girl.

Cecelia’s smile died the moment she crossed the threshold. “But things have changed between us, have they not?”

“Aye.” He ran his fingers through his hair, darkened to the color of sand by sweat and dirt as he searched the small room for something, still refusing to look at her. “They’ve changed irrevocably.”

“Shouldn’t we—explore that? Perhaps come to some sort of comfortable understanding?”Please, she wanted to beg.I can’t stand the silence.

“We will.” He finally looked at her, or rather, looked through her. “Just not now.”

“Why?” she asked, trailing him still as he turned and tromped across the kitchen floor.

“There isna time.”

“Why not?”

Stopping before the fireplace, he took up his bow, quiver, and several of the arrows he’d been making the night before. “I have to hunt.”

“To hunt?” She echoed, looking back at their pile of food and sundries, both dried and fresh. It would keep them for a great while. “Hunt what?”

“Deer,” he answered gruffly. Clomping back toward the door.

“Deer?” She was beginning to sound like an annoying, monosyllabic parrot, even to herself. But he was acting strange, and her nerves were so shot she could hardly string a thought together, let alone absorb and analyze his strident behavior. “Where… where will you go to hunt deer?”

He turned around in the doorway and thrust a hand toward the forest. “In the direction of deer.” His obtuse answer combined with his impatient intonation smothered her fear with frustration.

“Why are you angry?” she demanded, doing her best to keep her voice reasonable. “What did I do?”

“I’m not angry, Miss Teague.” The harsh note in his voice belied the claim, but his features gentled from barbaric to merely austere. “Not at ye, anyway.”

Miss Teague? Why did his respectful moniker sound like a punishment? Cecelia stepped forward, reaching out to him. “Then talk to me.”

He flinched away from her touch, putting a hand out to stop her. “I am not myself today,” he offered by way of explanation. “I canna be trusted with discussions or decisions. Not now.” He looked up at her, his eyes both beseeching and bleak. “Just… do what ye can to figure out the codex so we can go back to our lives, aye?”

Cecelia pressed her lips together, biting her cheek hard enough to draw blood.

She managed a nod, and he turned away and tromped toward the tree line.

Go back to their lives. Their separate lives. Was he in that much of a hurry to be rid of them? Of course he was. He hated this place, almost as much as he detested her company in it. He might desire her, but he didn’t want her. There was a difference. He’d made no compunctions about that.

She didn’t fit into his life. Not in Scotland, and surely not in London.

However, as a man so vehemently against any moral turpitude, he must be panicking. Because he’d absconded with her, performed sexual acts with her, and if anyone were to find out about it, society would dictate they marry with all due immediacy.

They neither of them desired a spouse.

Was he so upset because he, as a self-proclaimed honorable man, was now obligated to propose?

She’d turn him down, of course she would. She was no one’s obligation. Furthermore, her family belonged nowhere near the office of the Lord Chancellor. She’d be his ruination; they both knew it.

Cecelia made certain his broad back disappeared into the forest before she sank to the table over which they’d shared wine the previous night.

Burying her face in her arms, she finally succumbed to her tears.

CHAPTERFOURTEEN