He remembered the feel of her hand in his, the promise of a future that had been stolen away. His father had seen to that.
“Occupied with what?” the woman pressed, leaning forward, her gaze intense as she showcased her cleavage. “Surely not with that sad ale.”
“It is fine company,” Hugo said, a sharp edge to his voice.
He wanted her to leave, to disappear so he could return to the numbness. He did not want to see Mary’s ghost on this woman’s face. He did not want to be reminded of the past he had so desperately tried to escape.
She reached across the table and placed a delicate hand over his. “You look like a man who needs cheering up. I can be very good company. I am told I have a way with melancholy men.”
He flinched at her touch, pulling his hand away as if burned. “Please, leave me be. Do you have any idea who you are speaking with?”
“Too fancy for a bit of fun?” she asked, pouting her lips. “Are you waiting for someone? Another woman who is keeping you all to herself? Lucky lady.”
Hugo’s mind immediately conjured an image of Elspeth. Her curly, dark hair, her emerald-green eyes, the taste of her.
“She is too far above me,” he muttered, more to himself than to the woman.
“So, you are waiting for someone,” Maria said triumphantly. “And she is not here. What a waste. A waste of a lovely evening, and a waste of a lovely man. I am here, right now.” Her fingers brushed against his again, and he had to fight the urge to recoil from her.
“Nothing compares to her,” he forced out. “You are wasting your time. Be gone.”
“Oh?” she murmured, a hint of challenge in her voice. “Is she so very different from me? So very beautiful?”
Hugo looked at her, at the face that reminded him so much of a woman he had once loved, but the resemblance was only skin deep.
Mary had been a whisper, a fleeting dream. Elspeth was a force of nature, a gale that had swept into his life and rearranged everything.
Elspeth was real. She was alive. She was passion and stubbornness and compassion all rolled into one. She was the one who had seen past his walls, who had not been afraid of his darkness.
“She is more beautiful than you could possibly imagine,” he said, the words coming out as a choked confession.
He dropped a few coins onto the bar and walked out of the inn and into the cool night air.
Oh, Elspeth, will you ever forgive me?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Welcome back, Lady Inverhall,” Abby greeted her at the door. “I hope you had a lovely afternoon. The weather is quite well, isn’t it?”
“Aye, Abby,” Elspeth said with a smile. “I went to visit Lady Wrotham, and it was most lovely. There is nothin’ like a visit with a good friend.”
“I could not agree more. Shall I fetch afternoon tea for you before dinner? Perhaps a scone?”
“Tea would be grand, but I fear I ate me weight in macarons earlier,” Elspeth said, her voice a little weary as she made her way to the drawing room.
She lowered herself onto the settee, the plush cushions a welcome embrace, and remembered a recent acquisition—Verity’s latest novel.A Highlander’s Happily Ever Afterwould be a great diversion, indeed.
With a newfound purpose, she rose and glided up the grand staircase. The house was quiet, the day’s light fading from the windows, casting the hallways in a soft, dusky glow. She entered her bedroom and picked up the novel, feeling the familiar anticipation of a new story.
She made her way back down to the drawing room and sank back onto the settee, propping a pillow behind her for comfort. The soft lamplight cast a warm circle around her, illuminating the pages as she opened the book. Abby left the tea for her, and she enjoyed a warm sip of Earl Grey.
The first few paragraphs were a gentle current, pulling her into the world of windswept moors and ancient castles.
Oh, how she missed Scotland. The heroine, a feisty lass named Isla, was everything Elspeth was not. She was bold and adventurous, a warrior on a white horse.
As Isla navigated the treacherous politics of the Scottish clans, Elspeth felt her own worries begin to fade away, replaced by the twists and turns of the plot. She was no longer on her settee. She was riding alongside Isla, the cold Highland air whipping at her face, her heart pounding with the thrill of the chase.
She lost all sense of time, her only companions the rustle of the pages.
