Page 225 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
Her hand moved once over the front of her cloak, smoothing it down, though it needed no smoothing. Then she folded both hands in her lap and sat straighter.
That frightened him more than anger would have. The composure settling over her had cost something. He could feel the cost of itbesidehim.
“Ava,” he said.
She did not look away. “Aye?”
There was no bite in the word. No heat. Only readiness. It sounded too much like the tone of someone who had already come to a conclusion and was waiting to see whether she would have to live by it.
Under the fading comet, beside the loch, with her shoulder near enough to brush his if either of them moved, Ciaran felt the moment slipping from him and knew with sick clarity that the next words out of her mouth would wound them both.
She drew one slow breath. “I have been too selfish, have I nae?”
The question struck him before he understood it.
“Ava,” he tried.
She went on as though he had not spoken.
“It is all right, husband.” Her hands stayed folded in her lap, neat and still, though he had seen those same hands clutch him with desire only moments before. “I shall speak to me father about the annulment. I shall tell him it is what I want.”
For one second, Ciaran heard nothing. The night around them went hollow. He stared at her and felt the words land in pieces. She had taken the knife he had put in her hand and was now using it on herself with courtesy.
“Nay,” he said, though the word came out too late and with far less force than was needed.
Ava looked at him. There was so much pain under her composure now that he almost could not bear the sight of her face.
It was quite obvious from the way she looked at him that she was protecting what little dignity she had left. She was offering him freedom as if it were a kindness she still had the power to give.
“I should never have made things harder for ye,” she said quietly. “Ye were honest from the beginning, and I kept hoping.” A small, sad breath left her. “That was me fault.”
Ciaran’s mouth went dry.
Ava leaned toward him before he could gather himself. He felt the light touch of her lips on his cheek, soft and brief and devastating. The kiss held tenderness still. That shattered him more than anger could have.
“Good night,” she murmured.
Then she rose.
He got to his feet too, but too slowly, as if his body had forgotten how to move at the speed required when the danger was a woman walking away in heartbreak and not an armed man crossing a yard.
“Ava.”
She did not stop.
The coat shifted in the grass where she had left it. Her cloak hung close around her while the comet still marked the sky above her as she started back toward the castle, and the sight of her moving through the pale light felt like a punishment carefully measured to fit his failure.
He could have gone after her. He knew that. He could have caught her arm and turned her back. He could have said the whole thing at last with no shelter left around it.
I daenae want freedom from ye. I daenae ken how to stop ruining what I love. Because I do, Ava. I love ye.
He remained standing where he was.
CHAPTER 28
Ciaran had not slept.
He had lain in the dark until it thinned, staring at stone and hearing the same moments repeat themselves over and over.
