Taming the Scot by Eliza Knight

13

“Would ye care to take our punch to the balcony?” Euan asked, nodding toward the glass doors that had been opened at the back of the ballroom to let in a cool evening breeze, which was welcome given the ballroom had become stifling during the dancing.

He’d been waiting to ask her that since the second dance. With every minute that passed, his chest felt as if it were going to burst with the need to share with her his feelings and his desire to make her his wife. Since last night, he’d been trying to think of what the most special moment would be. And he’d concluded that there was no right or perfect moment.

But rather, now.

To put an end to this torment.

She kept reminding him they were here to find him a bride, and he’d wanted to burst out at least a dozen times in the last hour that he was no longer looking. That she was the woman he wanted for the rest of his days.

Giselle and Jaime exchanged a look with each other and then him. “Fresh air sounds like a splendid idea,” Jaime said, reminding him of their presence, which he’d nearly forgotten about. “If ye’ll excuse us, we are going to find our husbands and do the same thing.”

“Aye, it’s verra stuffy in here,” Giselle added, fanning her face.

Bronwen watched the two women rush away with a puzzled look, then glanced back at Euan. “It is rather warm in here. I could use some air too, I suppose.”

Thank the saints. Getting her away from the crowd had been easier than he anticipated. Euan offered her his arm, and they took their punch cups through the throngs of ballroom dancers and chatterers until they crossed over the threshold into the night air. The sun had yet to set all the way but cast a grayish-purple glow over the back garden.

Several other couples milled about in their own corners. Hushed whispers reserved only for each other, and his chest swelled with anticipation. He led Bronwen to a corner of their own, leaning his elbow against the stone rail to steady himself.

“How are ye enjoying the ball?” he asked, taking a sip of his punch and wishing it were whisky. Good heavens, but he felt as though he were a wee lad asking the first lass he’d ever met if she cared to dance. Only this was so much bigger than that.

She grinned, glancing back toward the dancers inside. “Quite a bit more than I anticipated.” Her gaze slid back to his. “But I must apologize, for ye’ve yet to dance with any of the other lasses. And it would seem the only one ye’ve had yet to talk to besides me was Lady Mary.” She shook her head and placed her punch cup on the railing. “And I dare say that was no’ what ye expected.”

Euan chuckled softly. “No’ at all.” He set his cup on the railing and then took Bronwen’s hand in his, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “Everything save for Lady Mary is exactly the way I want it.” Then, he raised her hand toward his mouth and pressed his lips to the fabric of her knuckles.

Bronwen sucked in a breath, her eyes wide as she stared at him. “Captain?”

Now. Now was the perfect time for him to confess everything. He had her full attention, and they were not in danger of being interrupted, at least not yet. If he didn’t do it now, he might lose the opportunity.

With a deep breath, he plunged ahead. “I do no’ care about any of those other lasses. And I do no’ want to talk to them. Ever since ye stormed my castle, Bronwen Holmes, ye’ve laid siege to my heart. I must confess how verra much I admire ye. And that I wish to make ye my wife. No’ anyone else. I want to spend the rest of my life with ye. Dancing with ye. Laughing with ye. I love ye. And I can no’ imagine feeling that way about anyone else. I do no’ want to feel that way with anyone but ye. When I think of my future, of my family, it is with ye there, right beside me.”

With every word he uttered, her eyes grew wider until they were twin moons peering back at him, glistening with tears. Her lips had parted in a small O, and she looked shocked at his confession. But she wasn’t saying anything. Her hands were trembling in his, and he had the sudden fear she might bolt.

“My sisters adore ye as much as I do. And I’m saying all of this now because Bronwen, ye would make me the happiest man alive if ye would agree to be my wife.”

She shook her head slowly at first, then faster. “I am flattered, sir, but I can no’ accept your proposal.”

Euan was stunned. She yanked her hands away from his grasp. This was not at all what he’d expected to happen. Certainly, he thought she might be confused, but a flat-out denial? A pain started somewhere in the middle of his chest.

Her words gutted him worse than any cannonball on the battlefield ever could have. “Why?” he managed to say.

Bronwen swiped at a tear that fell down her cheek. “There’s too much we do no’ know about each other. Too much ye do no’ know about me.”

“Then tell me,” he said earnestly. “There’s nothing ye could say that would make me change my mind.”

She shook her head all the more, biting her lip as tears spilled down her cheeks lovely cheeks. Recalling the lesson in the garden at Drum, he pulled out his handkerchief and handed it to her. Bronwen took the offer and dabbed at her eyes.

“Ye will be happier with someone else,” she said in a voice that was tight with emotion. “Someone who was born and bred to be your wife. I am less than common, Euan. Less than everyone. I will only sully your bloodline and your reputation. No’ to mention that of your sisters’, all of them.”

Euan was reeling from her words. Who would dare think she didn’t deserve to be his? “I do no’ care where ye were born or to whom, Bronwen. I’ve never cared about that sort of thing. I know I love ye, and I want no other.” It was as simple as that in his mind.

However, it seemed to go so much further in hers, beyond where he could fathom.

“Ye should care,” she insisted.

“Nay I should no’. That does no’ make ye who ye are, and it bears no weight on how I feel. I love ye.”

“Och, nay, Euan. Ye can no’. Ye must understand.”

But he didn’t. He stared at her, confused, hurt. She made no sense. All he could comprehend was that the woman he loved was refusing him because of what other people might think about her upbringing. God, it was so strange, but he realized how Bronwen worried much more about bloodlines than even he had.

“I’m sorry.” And then, she turned and fled down the wide stone steps of the balcony into the garden before he could pull her back or explain that none of that mattered.

Whispers buzzed like a horde of bees from those who’d witnessed her hasty retreat, but Euan didn’t give a damn about them. All he cared about was the woman running away from him.

And he simply couldn’t let her go.

Bronwen knew well how to stick to the edges of view in the streets, having raced through them before a hundred times. Escaping via the garden gate had been simple. Ignoring the sound of Euan calling her name as he searched the shadowed garden behind her had been harder but necessary.

Hiding from Euan, and anyone else he might send after her, was going to be easier than when she’d escaped from Prince’s henchmen because those aristocratic men didn’t know how to run the thoroughfares like those of lesser classes such as herself. Especially with the sun having finally set, casting the alleyways into deep, cavernous shadows.

Angry, bitter tears stung her eyes as she kept close to the walls and darkened passages. Disappointment tugged at her gut. Mostly at herself for giving him the impression that there could be a future together. She’d gotten too carried away in the moments. Enjoyed too much the forbidden fruit of his affection.

She should have left days ago. Weeks ago. In fact, she should have never come back to Edinburgh. The only thing on her mind right now needed to be her escape route. But of course, everything else was reeling inside her until she wasn’t watching where she was going, darting blindly through the closes.

How could Euan have asked her? How could he have expected her to say “aye?”

To marry him…to be his bride. To be lady to his castle, mother to his children. To be a part of his family. His large and frustratingly wonderful family.

The tears came then in a torrent, and she stopped for a minute, ducking in the doorway in one of the alleys so she could catch her breath and wipe the tears from her eyes that blinded her. Every teardrop she swiped with his handkerchief, which she still clutched, had her recalling when he’d undone his cravat and handed it her garden. How this time he’d had one on hand to give her. How easily he’d cared for her and how she’d thrown it away.

And with good reason.

Her parents’ debts were not a burden she could ever place on him. Nor the stigma of what marrying a woman like her would mean for his sisters. She was rubbish, and she knew it. To bring her into his fold as anything more than the hired help would mean terrible marriages for his sisters and going broke to pay off Prince. And the harm they would inflict. Oh my God, she couldn’t even imagine the danger that would befall them if Prince and his henchmen found out.

What if those ruffians and their boss decided that taking Bronwen and forcing her to do unimaginable things wasn’t enough? What if they wanted Euan’s sisters too?

She couldn’t risk it.

Even if she wanted to be with him so much that it hurt.

Even if every part of her heart screamed for her to turn around, to find him, to toss herself into his arms and say she’d made a mistake. That she wholeheartedly loved him and that she wanted to spend the rest of her days with him. That they could make-believe in the Highlands that no one cared about her past, her bloodline or the shame she’d bring his family when the rest of society found out who she was.

They could pretend that his sisters would forgive her for lying and causing a scandal that would ruin all their marriage prospects.

But that was all fanciful nonsense.

Nay, it was better this way. Better to simply tear herself away from them, allowing them to move on. A clean break now. They could find true happiness without the burden of all the rotten apples she brought with her. Euan could concentrate on what he should have been doing all this time rather than falling in love with her and…God, making her care so much about him, too.

Bronwen dabbed away the last of her tears as a plan formulated in her mind. She’d simply make her way to Leith, beg her cousin for one last act of charity, and then be on her way. Perhaps to London. City life, she knew. It couldn’t be all that different in London than it was in Edinburgh. She had some skills she could put to use there. Singing in a public house, serving ale. She could do well there. Maybe even find a shop to work in as a clerk. She knew her maths and how to keep books.

Best of all, Prince’s thugs wouldn’t think to look for her there.

“What have we got here?” The ominous voice coming out of the darkness, accompanied by a second pair of clomping boots, sent shivers of fear and dread skittering up Bronwen’s spine.

Nay…how?

Two large men stepped in front of her, blocking her exit—the same men she’d been running from the day she’d first visited Emilia at the docks weeks ago. Prince’s henchmen. The T carved into their beards was unmistakable as were the scar and tattoo. How had they found her? They smelled of sour whisky and unwashed bodies. One look about, and she realized she’d somehow gotten very close to Tanner’s Close. Och, but why hadn’t she paid more attention to where she was going rather than the thoughts and feelings tumbling around inside her?

Heaven help me. With her mind a jumble, her feet had taken her on familiar footpaths until she ended up here, right where she’d never wanted to go again? Right into their waiting paws…

“Leave me alone,” she said, straightening and using the same authoritative voice she’d employed with Euan when she first stepped into his house. She tucked his handkerchief into her bodice, wishing she were still wearing her boots inside of these flimsy slippers. She’d stopped carrying her knife when she’d changed clothes, never thinking she’d be in this situation.

What an idiot she’d been. She’d barely escaped from them last time. How would she handle it now?

“Och, lass, but we’ve left ye alone for weeks. Or rather, ye’ve made sure of it. Where have ye been?” The larger of the two cracked his knuckles and then his neck as if he were preparing for a fight that she was certain was coming.

Bronwen ran her tongue over her chipped tooth. Well, she might not have a knife, but she wasn’t going down without inflicting a little bit of pain of her own on these two.

“’Tis none of your business.” She raised her chin and made a move to step around them, but they blocked her path, arms out.

“On the contrary, everything ye do is our business,” said the smaller one. “And it’s a good thing we had wee Angus hanging out at the docks, looking for ye. Took us a while, but then, there ye were. Walking down the gangplank and back into our hands.”

Bile rose in Bronwen’s throat. They’d known she’d returned from the moment she got off the ship. She should never have agreed to come. All of the trepidation she’d had about doing so had been true. And now, her nightmare was coming alive before her eyes. But it had been so hard to say no to Euan, to his sisters. To the life that she wished to live in for a little while longer.

“So here’s how it’s going to be, lass. Ye either can come with us willingly, or we can tie ye up and drag ye back through the streets. But either way, ye’re no’ leaving here unless it’s with us.”

Every inch of her body grew cold then. She knew what they said was true. Her tongue ran over the chip in her tooth again, back and forth. It’d been their gift to her as a warning the last time.

To go willingly into the nightmare went against her nature and promised worse than a broken tooth. Bronwen stiffened, readying herself for the fight of her life. She tightened her fists, wishing she had a weapon.

“Och, but the lass wants to play it rough,” said one to the other. Their toothy grins glinted in the little light afforded by the stars and moon and a few candles in windows.

Her stomach tightened, and she worked hard to swallow the bile in her throat. This was not going to be enjoyable at all.

“We like it rough,” said the big one.

The smaller brute balled a fist and reached back. She anticipated the blow, prepared to block it as best she could, maybe even dodge his meaty fist—but it didn’t come. Instead, the bastard was yanked off his feet and tossed somewhere into the darkness. The sound of his body smacking into the ground echoed in the alleyway. The other man whirled to fight whoever had come.

That was when Bronwen saw him.

Euan.

The rage on his face was intense and powerful. There was no hesitation as he punched the larger ruffian in the nose. His head snapped back, and he teetered on his feet for a second before collapsing onto the ground. A scrambling sound came from somewhere in the darkness as the other lout crawled to his feet and lurched forward as if to tackle Euan.

But the captain dispatched him with a blow beneath the chin, sending him sprawling backward, his consciousness snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

Neither of the men moved, knocked out by a single punch from Euan. Bronwen stood blinking, stunned, and then her entire body started to tremble.

“Are ye all right?” Euan gathered her in his arms, and she could feel and hear his heart pounding beneath his clothes as she sank gratefully into his embrace, clutching to him.

“Ye found me,” she said breathlessly, amazed.

“Aye, of course. Ye think I was going to let ye run off into the night?” He tipped her chin up, so their eyes locked. His face was full of concern. “I said I loved ye, Bronwen. And I meant it.”

He bent to kiss her then, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him back with all the passion she possessed. This man loved her, had saved her from her nightmares—not once, not twice, but multiple times now.

And she knew he loved her, because she could feel it every time he looked at her. Felt it in the way he held her now, the way his harsh breath fanned over her face as he claimed her mouth.

Her heart reached from within her chest to grasp on to his because she loved him too. Desperately. Wanted to be with him. Walking away from his proposal, his love, had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. And it would be harder still.

Because it didn’t matter that he loved her, and she loved him. What mattered was the implications of what a union between them would bring. As much as she wanted to bask in this moment, to give in, nothing had changed.

So, this had to be goodbye.

But blast it all. Why did it have to hurt so much?