Page 97 of To Wed a Wild Scot
“But I do, my lord.” She reached into the bag she’d brought, pulled out some papers, and dropped them on the table on top of Benedict’s vowels. “I have Rosemount.”
Juliana couldn’t hide the quaver in her voice when she said it. She and Fitzwilliam and Jonathan had spent so many happy times there when they were children. Jonathan had taken Emma there after their marriage, and later, after Grace was born, they’d all gone together as a family. They’d wandered in the tiny garden admiring the wild roses, and lingered on the bridge to throw stones into the stream below.
So many of her happiest memories were tied to Rosemount. It had always felt like more of a home to her than Graystone Court, perhaps because it was her only connection to the mother she’d never known. She’d wanted so badly to take Grace there, and make a home with her.
To lose Rosemount to Benedict—to think ofhimin that beautiful place, poisoning it with his presence—was enough to make her gasp with pain.
That, of course, was the reason Benedict wanted it.
He didn’t have any use for Rosemount. He had a dozen or more other properties, some of which he’d never even bothered to visit, many of them much grander than Rosemount. In monetary terms, the estate was no more valuable to him than the carpet under their feet, or the fine porcelain vase resting on the end table.
In emotional terms, however, it was priceless. Benedict knew it would break her heart to give it up, and that was why he wouldn’t be able to resist taking it from her. He’d always been that man—the one who gloried in taking what he had no right to, for the sheer pleasure of keeping someone who loved it from having it.
“Rosemount?” Benedict looked shocked. He hadn’t expected she’d offer him Rosemount. “You’d actually give up your mother’s estate for some remote patch of scrub brush in the Scottish Highlands?”
No. She’d give it up for Fitzwilliam, who’d treat Clan Murray with the respect they deserved. For Logan, and for the people he loved.
She didn’t tell Benedict that, however. She simply stared at him and waited, until at last he shook his head. “I accept your offer, Lady Juliana. Indeed, how could I refuse?”
For the first time since she’d entered his house, Juliana smiled. Hecouldn’trefuse. Perhaps another sort of man could, but not Benedict. She’d known that before she crossed the threshold.
Benedict studied her for a moment, then his lips curved in a mocking smile. “You love him, don’t you? The Scot. Ah, my lady. I thought you were smarter than that. Indeed, I pity you.”
He pitiedher? Juliana flicked her gaze over Benedict’s face, then looked away. How predictable he was. “That’s just what I’d expect a man like you to say.”
Half an hour later she was riding away from Benedict’s estate, the deed to the land in Perth tucked safely into a saddlebag. She cast nervous glances over her shoulder the entire way back to Graystone Court, but no one followed her. Not Benedict, and not his knife-wielding manservant. Perhaps there was a line even a villain like Benedict wouldn’t cross. Perhaps he did retain a meager shred of his humanity, but Juliana wouldn’t wager on it.
Benedict would never be able to comprehend the kind of love that would make a person give up something they cherished, something it hurt them to lose, for another person.
There was nothing she had she wouldn’t give up for Logan’s sake.
Not even Logan himself.
Once he had the deed to the Perth land in his hand, there would no longer be anything keeping Logan in England. As soon as he was healed enough to travel, there was every chance he’d leave Surrey behind.
And with it, Juliana and Grace.
She given up Rosemount today, but that wasn’t the loss that was tearing her heart to shreds.
It was that she might also have given up Logan.
Chapter Twenty-five
It took Logan half an hour to struggle free of the heavy sleep that had held him pinned to the bed all afternoon. When he managed to drag himself into consciousness at last, he made several unwelcome discoveries.
He was in a bed in a darkened room, his arm was screaming in pain, and Juliana was gone. He sat up and dragged a hand down his face as his sluggish brain fought to process all these mysteries at once.
Something was wrong. He felt as if someone had beaten him with a fireplace poker. His ear stung, his jaw throbbed, his chest was burning, and his arm…Mo Dhia, what was wrong with his arm?
He twisted in the bed to get a look at it. A low groan left his lips as pain sliced through him, setting every inch of skin above his elbow on fire. He blinked down at the blood-stained bandage wrapped tightly around his upper arm, confused.
Blood. There’d been blood, hadn’t there? He remembered being surprised at how much of it there was. He’d been covered with it, his shirt soaked in it. He hadn’t wanted Juliana to see him, but she’d been there, her low, sweet voice in his ear, her fingers stroking his hair, caressing his face—
Cowden.
Logan struggled for breath as memories of last night and this morning crashed down on him. The wager, the brawl with Cowden’s manservant, the ride back to Graystone Court, and Juliana, always Juliana…the horror on her face when she’d seen him, her hands holding him gently against the bed, his crushing sense of helplessness…
She’d had the doctor in to dress his wounds, but that had been hours ago. Why was it so dark? He couldn’t have slept the entire afternoon and into the night. He squinted at the window, and saw Juliana had drawn the drapes closed before she left him alone.
