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And yet Aidan found himself kneeling here, waiting for the sun to rise.
Waiting to speak to Clarissa.
Waiting for his future to be decided.
He’d dreamt last night that her father had come to Highgate End, demanding to take her back to England. When Aidan awoke, he had, for a brief moment, thought the dream real. The very notion of Clarissa falling into that man’s clutches again made him nauseous.
“’Tis early, my son.”
He’d heard the noise of footsteps behind him, but he’d assumed it was their priest. On a different day, he would have been relieved to see Father Simon instead.
“Good morn, Father,” he said as the priest knelt beside him. “Did you sleep well?”
Mayhap a foolish question considering the early hour, but Father Simon surprised him by nodding.
“Very well indeed.”
“But the hour—”
“Is the one I enjoy most,” he said, looking around the chapel. “None but myself and God to speak to. It reminds me of my time in the monastery.”
“The silence?”
“Aye, and peace that comes from spending the dawn of the day with your own thoughts.”
Aidan had always disliked being alone, so to him, such a life seemed more like hell than heaven. But the priest evidently disagreed.
“I would ask what brings you here at this hour, but I believe I already know the answer.”
“How much do you know, Father?”
Those knowing eyes met and held his gaze. “Well, son, I know you are in love with a woman who has decided to pledge her life to God.”
Aidan blinked.
“Or at least, one who considered doing so before her path crossed with yours.”
Of course . . . he knew everything. He always seemed to know everything, even when they and Clan Kerr had been at odds over Lady Catrina. The priest had been the first to suggest a meeting between their clans after she’d married the Englishman rather than Graeme.
“But you came anyway—”
“The nuns agreed to take her.”
“You could have sent a message.”
“Allie would not allow me to do so.”
Allie. The same woman who had urged Aidan to go to Clarissa at Sutworth. Why was she pushing her toward accepting a place at Burness Abbey? It made no sense.
“She urged you to come here? To convince Clarissa—”
“Not to convince, Aidan, but to offer the lady what she asked for, an alternative to the life her father had predestined for her.”
Aidan did not want to get angry with the man who tried to help them, in a chapel of all places, but his words were an unwelcome reminder that Clarissa was not yet his. Even as he knew the final choice was, of course, hers alone to make.
But still. “I am her alternative,” he said.
“Hmmm.”
