Page 77 of Reclaimed By Her Scottish Duke

There was only one thing left that mattered.

He started toward the horses, moving faster with every step. Rosaline would be awake. He knew her well enough to know that she never slept when the house was troubled. If he rode hard, he could reach her before fear or pride found another reason to keep him away.

Pain tore through his side, but he kept going. He could bear a few cold miles for his wife. For his love.

He would hold the wound closed with one hand and the reins with the other. He would reach her tonight and finally say the truth, so she could hear it. Then he would do what he should have done in the garden—he would put the choice in her hands and let her make it.

Magnus swung himself up into the saddle, turned the horse west toward home and his wife, and took off.

CHAPTER 36

“Good God! Look what the gutter spat out on my carpet.”

Samuel rose from his chair by the fireplace with a glass of port in his hand. His expression was full of fastidious disgust as he looked over Magnus from the dirt in his hair to the bloodstain spreading along his side. He did not even bother to ask what happened to him.

Magnus stood in the doorway and caught his breath. Every part of him hurt, and he had stopped trying to staunch the blood around the second mile of his ride. He was here for one reason and one reason only, and it certainly wasn’t to see this smarmy, fastidious man sitting in front of a warm fire. He was at the last frayed edge of his patience, and he felt it giving.

He had ridden home to Greythorne Hall first. He had been half out of the saddle before the horse even stopped, ignoring the wound in his side.

He had dashed into the house only to find the great rooms cold and empty and Rosaline nowhere in them; a frightened footman had stammered out that she had gone to visit her sisters and hadn’t returned yet.

So, Magnus climbed back on his horse and rode through the dark streets to Darton House, bleeding and single-minded in his purpose to see the one person who could ease the pain in his chest.

He had stridden past the butler, who had been too astonished to stop him, and followed the lamplight to find his wife. Instead, he found the one man in London whom he had no desire to lay eyes on.

“I have had a tryin’ evenin’, Darton.” His voice came out rough. “I’d appreciate it if ye stepped outta me way.”

“Your way?” Samuel set down his port. Cruelty settled over his features like a familiar coat. “You come into my house bleeding, stinking of the docks, and looking like something dragged out of a Highland ditch—which I suppose is your natural state—and you think you can simply walk through it? My sister has been a fool ten times over, but I confess even I do not think her foolish enough to be beaten by a husband who⁠—”

Magnus punched him.

He had not decided to do it. Instead, his body decided for him with the energy of the entire cold, dark night behind it. His fist caught Samuel cleanly in the face with a crack.

Samuel went down over the arm of his chair. The chair rocked hard on its legs and struck the little table beside it, and the port he had set down went over with it, a dark arc flung across the carpet and the glass ringing away over the floorboards. He reached up to clutch his nose, blood spurting between his fingers.

“I’ve never beaten her. Her only misfortune was to be born yer sister.” Magnus towered over him. He was not shouting, and that made matters worse. “Yer sisters deserve better than ye, Darton. They always have. Rosaline gave every hour of every year to keep this house standin’, and ye never once saw her worth, because ye’re a wee, petty man, and her soul was too bright and beautiful for ye to hold.” He flexed his hand. “That’s for three years of it. There’s more where that came from if ye’d like.”

“Magnus?”

He turned.

Rosaline stood in the doorway with Beatrice by her side. The sight of her went through him like sun through water. It made him feel cleaner than anything had in the past two weeks.

Then her eyes caught the blood on his shirt, his filthy hair, and his split knuckles, and the light went out of her, leaving only fear.

“You’re injured!” She ran to him, this woman who had walked out of his life and rightly so, given that her fears had almost come true. Her hands went to his face, then his side, hovering over the wet, dark stain, not quite daring to touch it. “Magnus, you’re bleeding. What has happened?! Who did this to you?!”

“It’s done.” He caught her hand in his and held it tightly. In that moment, he could think of nothing else to say. “It’s over, Rosaline. All of it. I’ll tell ye all of it, I promise ye I will, only⁠—”

“Of course. Of course you run to him.” Samuel had dragged himself up against the chair. He had one hand clamped tightly around his nose, and his voice came out thick and nasally and filled with venom. “Look at you. Look at what you have chosen over your family. You threw everything away. Your name, your sisters’ futures, and every advantage I sacrificed to give you, and for what? For this… this Highland animal who cannot even enter a house without leaving blood and filth behind him. You have brought a beast into my home, Rosaline, and you fawn over it. Well, I hope you are proud of yourself. I hope that Mother, wherever she is⁠—”

“Don’t.”

Beatrice was already drawing breath to let loose something scathing that would wither Samuel’s soul. Magnus saw her small shoulders square, but it was not she who spoke. It was Rosaline.

She let go of his hand and turned slowly to face her brother across the wrecked parlor. There was something in her face and the set of her shoulders that Magnus had never seen before. Not in the maze, not in the garden, not in all their months together. He understood with a jolt that he was watching something break loose inside her that had been chained her entire life. And she looked glorious.

“No,” she bit out. “You do not get to speak of our mother. Not one more time. You have used her memory as a whip against me since the day we buried her. It ends tonight in this room. You are going to stand there with your broken nose, and you are going to listen to me, Samuel. I have been silent in this house too long, and you will not say a word until I am finished.”