Page 61 of This Laird of Mine

“Injured animals are the most dangerous of all. They have nothing to lose.”

“She’s not after you and the girls anymore, Claire. She wants me to suffer. Me.”

Claire could not argue with that. “How will you protect yourself?”

“That’s what I want to talk with you about. It is time to say good-bye.” He took her hand and lifted it to his lips and kissed it. “It is time for us to stop hurting each other, and quit while we are ahead.”

She gazed at him wordlessly as he turned her hand over and lingeringly pressed his warm lips to her palm.

Intimate. Warm. Tender.

And final.

He was saying good-bye. Forever.

“Jules, I don’t want us to—”

“There is no us.”

He dropped her hand. “Good-bye, Claire. I wish you well.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond but turned toward the door. A heartbeat later he was gone.

Claire couldn’t breathe. He was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and now he was gone. She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her fist in her skirt. She had known when all this began that she risked everything, including her heart. And at first she had tried to protect herself, to keep herself from falling in love. But the moment he had looked at her by the loch with both pain and desire in his eyes, she had done it anyway.

Now there was no going back, no way to fall out of love with him. He had made it perfectly clear he did not want her.

It was time to return to her old life. She fingered the edge of the oil painting next to her. She had to convince herself it was what she wanted, even though she knew it was not.

She turned away from the painting and grabbed an already-prepared canvas and her charcoals. She set to work on the initial lines of the painting, letting her fingers guide her instead of her brain. She drew a sweep of a shoulder. A powerful arm. Soon a shape emerged. The shape of a man. It was the image of Jules standing in her studio, looking powerful and unforgettable.

Her fingers stilled. How could she do it? How did one forget a man like Jules MacIntyre?

She picked up the canvas and threw it across the studio. It was pointless to torture herself. It was over between them. He would soon petition for a divorce. She would be alone again with her painting and her girls. The thought made her chest tight and brought tears to her eyes.

She was a fool to fall in love with him. And yet, despite it all, she loved him still.

He was gone. It was what he wanted.

She could still hear the sound of the door closing in her mind. And she wondered if she would ever forget that sound or the feeling of emptiness that followed.

On the seedier side of town, Agatha lay in a narrow bed while a sawbones she had bribed out of his bed with gold coins cauterized her wounds with a hot knife. The pain should have knocked her senseless; instead she gathered it around her heart, allowed it to fuel her need for revenge against Jules and his little bride.

A glow of warmth that had nothing to do with the scalding blade in her wounds settled over Agatha. Comforted her. She should be angry that fortune had robbed her of the chance to kill Jules, but that was not the case. Now her precious stepson knew he was hunted, and every last moment of his life would take on a new importance. He would most likely hold those he loved closest to him, protecting them from harm. And she would be there watching and waiting.

When the end was finally near, and she took every last loved one from him, as she had his brother, it would be in a dazzling explosion of pain and grief, sorrow and panic.

It was that thought that soothed Agatha’s pain and frustration and caused her to smile in pure joy as the scent of burning flesh filled the chamber and her spirit was once again restored.

One week after he’d returned home, Jules said good-bye to Jane, Nicholas, Margaret, and Hollister. Since he had safely returned to Kildare Manor, his friends were eager to return to their own homes to await the births of their children.

Alone in the suddenly empty halls of Kildare Manor, Jules tried to purge Claire from his mind and tear her from his heart. He knew he was losing the battle when he found himself upstairs in the room he once hated for so long. Suddenly it seemed to be his favorite chamber in the house. He would stop in the center of the ballroom and lose himself in Claire’s painting for hours on end.

Claire stood in her studio, staring into empty space. Jules. She closed her eyes and pushed the thought away, just as she had done every day since he’d left her behind a week ago. She had tried cleaning her studio at first in an effort to forget him. She’d scrubbed every splatter of dried paint from the wood floor. She’d walked through the streets of Edinburgh with the girls. But every time she saw something beautiful, something inspiring, she wondered what Jules would think if he looked at it with her. How he would respond?

And she always ended each day right where she stood now. In her studio. In front of the half-drawn image of Jules she had started when he had left. A frisson of excitement shivered along her skin as she gazed at the image. Her fingers curled at her sides, and before she could stop herself, she grabbed her palette and her paints and set to work. Perhaps if she put him on the canvas, she would be free of him in her mind.

Or at least that was the hope as she lost herself in painting.