If she lived out eternity, Nora would never forget the look on his face as he heard Ryan’s declaration.
She wanted to curse at his timing.
“Ewan? What are you doing up?”
He didn’t speak. He just turned about and started back for the stairs.
Nora rushed to his side.
Ewan handed her the embroidery cloth she’d left in his room. “I thought you might have need of it,” he said simply, his voice and eyes empty.
“Let me help you back to bed.”
He curled his lips at her. “I don’t need any help. Go back to your betrothed.”
“Ewan,” she said insistently, “Ryan has agreed to release me if you want me.”
He glanced back at Ryan.
“It’s true,” Ryan said as he joined them. “I will not stand between the two of you.”
Ewan wanted to laugh at those haunting words.
Fate was indeed mocking him.
Instead, he heard the sound of his mother’s shocked gasp as she came into the room and heard words that were almost identical to the ones Kieran had once said in this very same hall.
“Take her, Ewan, if she’ll have the likes of you. I willna stand between the two of you. But know that if you leave with her, I will never again call you brother.”
He wondered if Ryan was as sincere as Kieran had been when Kieran had spoken those words to him.
Or would Ryan ride home, gather his men and then start the feud he’d promised?
In his mind’s eye, Ewan saw the death and destruction that had reigned over the MacAllister lands as they fought with the MacDouglases.
Wincing from the pain of the memory of then and the reality of now, he turned away from the face of the only woman he would ever really love.
“She belongs with you, Ryan. I have no need of a wife.”
Nora felt as if Ewan had slapped her. Nothing had ever hurt her more than his cold announcement.
“I was wrong about you, Ewan MacAllister,” she said, her voice breaking on his name. “You are heartless.”
With a dignity she didn’t feel, she lifted her chin and returned to her parents. “I wish to leave.”
“Now?” her father asked.
“Aye. I’ll go with you or on my own, but I willna stay in this place another instant.”
Ewan couldn’t breathe as he heard her words. She was leaving him.
You told her to go.
Aye, he had. It was kinder this way.
Why then did he feel as if his stomach and heart were being shredded?
Fight for her, damn you, fight!
