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“I’m already obliged for tomorrow evening,” she interrupted. “A reception.”
“Can you not bow out?”
“The dockmaster is hosting it. It would not do to insult him when our family business depends on timely shipments.”
“I see.” Green anger flashed in his eyes and silence fell again. He said not another word until they stopped before the door of her shop. “I’ll bid you good night then,” he said flatly.
“Aidan.” She could not keep the weariness from her voice. “We must say farewell. There is no point to this.”
She expected an argument, but what she got was worse. His eyelids dropped slightly. His jaw hardened to steel and edged forward. His eyes glinted cool fury.
When she’d known Aidan, he had not often lost his temper, but when he had, he’d become intractable. And he’d looked exactly like this.
Kate sighed. “Good evening then,” she murmured. “And . . . please do not mention me to anyone. I am not Katie Tremont anymore. I no longer know my family and I do not wish to. Please.”
He nodded and she turned to unlock the door. Her fingers were clumsy. It took her a moment to even find the keyhole. Just as her hand slipped off the key, she felt Aidan’s large presence draw close to her back, felt his warm fingers slide over her gloved hand.
“Here.” His voice rumbled just inches from her ear as he guided the key into the lock. Kate twisted it, quick with panic, and pushed the door open. She moved to escape him, but before she’d shifted more than a few inches, before she could get free of his heat, that voice touched her ear again, impossibly soft. “I am so glad I found you.”
A shiver slid up her spine, icy, feather-light. She closed the door behind her, not daring to even glance in his direction.
Chapter 5
The third glass of whisky went down more quickly than the second. Aidan didn’t notice the subtle taste of peat and oak. All his subtler senses had deserted him hours before.
Katie was not only alive, but she was here. Here, in his reach. He didn’t know what to feel about it. The strong veil of anger that overshadowed his other raging emotions surprised him. He actually felt angry that she was alive, ridiculous as it was. Angry that he’d been tortured by grief when she had been alive and well in India.
Perhaps the well rankled most. It seemed as though she’d settled in nicely to her life on a coffee plantation, married to some faceless man. Surely, if she’d wanted to, she could’ve avoided the marriage. She could’ve turned to Aidan. She’d claimed to love him. She’d given herself to him.
He chastised himself for the anger even as he gave in to it and raised his hand for another drink. She’d only been a child. Well, not quite a child perhaps, but at most a very, very young woman. She hadn’t reached her majority, and her father had refus
ed Aidan’s offer. They could not have married, not for three years, at least.
A curse escaped his lips. These thoughts were meaningless, futile, and yet they seemed unstoppable.
He pictured Katie as she had been—confident, mischievous, daring. She had dazzled him, had even been slightly overwhelming in her exuberance. The very first time he’d seen her he’d been enchanted, captured by the contrast of her demure white dress and the sharp glint of humor sparkling through her eyelashes. She hadn’t even been out yet, had only been allowed to attend dinner at her family’s ball before being forced to bed before the dancing. But she’d been confident enough to smile in his direction and exchange a few pleasantries over dessert. And when her mother had ushered her quickly out at the end of dinner, his fate had been sealed. What young man could resist forbidden fruit?
But how different she was now. She seemed to have grown into stillness. She was beautiful though; still lovely in a quiet way.
Beautiful and married. Did she love the man?
The question stuck in his mind, a barbed thorn, irritating and painful. Did she take her husband to her with the same breathless excitement she had Aidan? It was maddening to think so, despite the dozens of lovers he himself had entertained in the past years.
Aidan snorted at the comparison. His nights with women had little enough to do with love. Nothing, actually, to do with it. That was the point—to keep as far away from love as possible.
The fourth glass of whisky succeeded where the others had failed and actually quenched his thirst. Aidan stared at the last drops of amber liquid, at the dim light wavering through the thick glass. What did he really feel, underneath the anger and jealousy? The emotion was familiar in a vague, distant way, and he thought that perhaps it was relief.
Setting the glass against the tabletop with a distinct thump, he pressed his fingers hard against his eyelids and watched lights dance against the black with exhausted fascination. His tired mind drifted for a long moment, floating with the blurry peace liquor provided. The anger softened, the pain lost its edge. Ten minutes of time not revolving ’round Katie.
Unfortunately, he’d used drink to dull his mind once too often in the past, and his brain ground slowly back to life, eager to remind him of the damage being inflicted to his eyes. Reluctantly lifting his face from his hands, Aidan stared blindly at the stained oak of the table.
It was only eight, according to the distant chime of the inn’s clock. He’d planned to see her tomorrow but now had to fight the urge to rush back to Guys Lane and toss rocks at her window. She wouldn’t appreciate it; the woman obviously wanted him gone. Why the reluctance to see him? Given a choice, he would have clung to her side and stared at her for days.
“Idiot,” he muttered darkly. She had a husband. Little wonder she didn’t know how to react to the unexpected appearance of an old lover.
Restlessness twitched his limbs with sudden urgency, pressed at his head. Aidan surged up from his seat, wincing when the chair tipped and hit the floor with a loud clap.
“Sorry.” Ignoring the curious stares of the few other patrons, he righted the chair and stalked out the door, moving with determination, as if he actually had some destination in mind. The need to take action clawed at him, but there was absolutely nothing to be done except stalk and glare at people. There was no changing what had happened. The past could not be corrected.
