chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as Sorcha spotted Westfield Manor through the coach window, she took a calming breath. More than anything in the world, she wanted Elspeth to wrap her in comforting warmth. She wanted the healer to ease all her pain. She wanted to feel happy. Or to feel nothing at all.
Nothing was preferable to the dull ache that slowly constricted her heart.
The carriage rumbled up the stony drive and Sorcha closed her eyes, feeling every bump until the conveyance finally came to a stop. The coachman opened the door and offered Sorcha his hand. Worry lined the man’s face, and she tried her best to assure him with a smile. “Thank ye for everythin’, Renshaw. Ye should probably head back ta Mr. Macleod’s. I think I’ll be here a while and then I’ll return in Lord Benjamin’s carriage.”
“Is everything all right, Miss Ferguson?”
Oh, she wished he hadn’t asked that. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids. “Aye. Just please doona mention any of this ta Lord Eynsford.” Cait would know anyway, and that was awful enough.
Reluctantly, the coachman nodded. Then Sorcha scurried past him up the stone steps to the large oak door. Before she could even knock, the Westfields’ young butler opened the door. “Miss Ferguson! I had no idea ye were back home.” He held the door wide. “Come in, come in, lass.”
She crossed the threshold and tried to smile at the exuberant butler. “Please tell me Lady Elspeth is in, Burns.”
It would be just her luck to show up here and have Elspeth aiding a midwife on the other side of town.
He winked at her and shut the front door. “Her ladyship is in the nursery, Miss Ferguson.”
The nursery. Thank heavens she was home. “I ken the way, Burns. I’ll surprise her, if ye doona mind.”
Burns nodded; warmth and cheer nearly radiated from him. “I think she would like that, lass.”
Sorcha climbed two sets of stairs and wound her way down one corridor and then one more before finally reaching the massive nursery. One would think Lord Benjamin planned on raising an entire pack of Lycans from the sheer size of the room. Thus far, he had only filled it with a fiery-haired witch-to-be, a tiny one at that. From the doorway, Sorcha heard little Rose Westfield’s childish giggle, and the sound nearly brought her to tears, though she wasn’t certain why.
She must have made some sort of anguished sound because an instant later, Elspeth stood just inside the nursery, concern etched across her brow. “Sorcha!” she wailed, her red locks bouncing about her shoulders.
“Havers! I thought ye were in Kent.”
Kent, where all her plans for a Lycan-filled future had gone awry. Sorcha couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, not when she was standing so close to the one witch who had always seemed like more than a coven sister. Sobs so deep that Sorcha didn’t know where they came from threatened to cleave her in two. Elspeth caught her and held her close.
“Oh, Sorcha! What is it, love?” the healer crooned.
“Surely it canna be this bad.”
But it was every bit as bad as that and worse. Sorcha couldn’t even speak. She wanted to, but words just wouldn’t come. All she could do was sob.
Then the baby started to cry too. A second later, quick footsteps pounded up the staircase. “Ellie!” Lord Benjamin called from somewhere below. “What the devil?”
“It’s Sorcha,” Elspeth called back, smoothing a hand down Sorcha’s back. “I think Rose is cryin’ sympathetically. Come and take her, will ye?”
Havers! Sorcha didn’t want Lord Benjamin to see her like this. She tried to stop her own crying, which only made her hiccup loudly. It was one thing for Elspeth to see her like this. Elspeth was like the older sister she’d never had. The healer was the kindest, most caring soul Sorcha knew.
Elspeth could heal her broken heart. But Lord Benjamin was a man. A Lycan man at that. And Alec MacQuarrie’s oldest friend, or ex-oldest friend. Either way it didn’t matter.
She just didn’t want to see him. Not right now.
Before she could even semi-compose herself, Lord Benjamin Westfield stood behind her. “Good God, Sorch!” he breathed. “Are you hurt?”
Oh, she was hurt more than she ever had thought possible. But she didn’t want to tell him that. He sounded so concerned, which only made her humiliation that much worse. And she hated it when he handed her a handkerchief. She must look a sight.
“Stay with Rose and let me see ta Sorcha,” Elspeth suggested, and she began to tow Sorcha down the corridor.
Sorcha let her friend lead her into a softly lit private parlor and dutifully sat on a comfy chintz settee. Elspeth settled in beside her and grasped Sorcha’s hands. “Take a deep breath, love.”
Sorcha nodded and did as her friend asked. Her jagged breathing started to smooth out, and she began to feel like the most foolish idiot in all of Scotland.
“Can ye talk now?” Elspeth leaned close, looking into Sorcha’s eyes.
She thought she could talk, so she nodded. “I-I need ye ta heal me, El.”
The worry didn’t vanish from Elspeth’s face, and she just squeezed Sorcha’s hands tighter. “I doona feel any sickness in ye.”
Sorcha closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see her friend’s face. “My heart is broken, El. I need ye ta fix it. I just want ta be myself again. I want ta start over.”
Elspeth sighed heavily. “Oh, Sorch. That’s no’ somethin’ I can do. Matters of the heart are beyond my powers.”
Sorcha’s eyes flew back open. Elspeth had to help her.
She just had to. “But—”
“Who broke yer heart? Was it one of Eynsford’s scurrilous brothers? Which one was it? What did he do?”
Sorcha choked on a sob. How she wished she’d stuck to her original plan. “Nay.” She shook her head. “Lord Radbourne or one of the others would have been better. One of them could have at least fallen in love with me. Why did I lose sight of my goal?”
Because she’d stupidly, foolishly, shamefully fallen for a man who could never be hers. Not in the way she needed him to be.
“What happened?” Elspeth’s calm voice floated over Sorcha like a warm blanket.
“It doesna matter. I just need ta be healed. I want ta be whole again. There must be somethin’ ye can do. Please, El.”Elspeth smoothed a tear from Sorcha’s cheek. “If there was somethin’ I could do, Sorch, I would have done it for myself when Ben broke my heart.”
“Blasted men,” Sorcha grumbled. “Always breakin’ hearts. They ought ta be drawn and quartered, the lot of them.”
Elspeth’s eyes grew wide, and she shot out of her seat.
“Havers!” she cried, rushing toward a potted iris in the corner of the room. At least it used to be a potted iris. Now it was a cloud of black smoke. “I’ve never seen ye make a plant burn up like that before.” Elspeth fanned the smoldering plant, as though to air out the room. “Ye better tell me what this is about or there willna be a flower, shrub, or tree that is safe in yer presence.”
It was hardly the poor iris’ fault that men were such feckless creatures, but Sorcha was afraid to try and even help the poor plant for fear of making it worse. “What did ye do, El? How did ye get over the heartache Ben put ye through?”
The healing witch looked toward the doorway as though she expected her once-feckless husband to appear. “I had ta forgive him.”
“Forgive him?” The last person she wanted to think about forgiving right now was Alec MacQuarrie. He could rot with his friend Mr. Browning and the two English whores for all Sorcha cared.
“I had ta make peace with the situation,” Elspeth explained.
From the doorway, Lord Benjamin cleared his throat and Sorcha turned a scathing glare on the man she normally adored. He bounced little Rose in his arms, though concern still clouded his eyes. “Rose was worried about her godmother.”
“Ben,” Elspeth chided, “we are talkin’.”
He pointed to his left ear with a look of sarcasm on his face. “And I can’t help overhearing, so I might as well join you.” Then he glanced again at Sorcha. “Am I to take from the tears and damaged iris that your Lycan hunt didn’t go as planned?”
“Ben!” Elspeth hissed. “Ye are no’ helpin’.”
Lord Benjamin shrugged, stepped into the room, and then dropped into a chair across from Sorcha. “Tell me your problems, lass. I may have a different way of looking at them.”
Meaning he was a man. Her eyes dropped to her lap and she said nothing.
“Come now,” he said softly. “I know you had your heart set on one of Eynsford’s brothers. But you wouldn’t want to be a relation of his.”
Elspeth returned to the settee and resumed her spot beside Sorcha. “Ben, ye’re no’ helpin’,” she said again.
“Besides Cait has told her more times than I can count that a Lycan is no’ in Sorcha’s future.”
“Cait can go hang,” Sorcha grumbled, which earned her twin gasps from both Elspeth and her Lycan husband. But Sorcha wouldn’t take it back. She didn’t want to hear another word about Cait or her visions. No, there were no Lycans in Sorcha’s future, according to Cait. The only man she could look forward to was a vampyre who could never love her. It wasn’t fair! “If I want a Lycan, I doona think I should let Cait’s vision stand in my way. Besides…”
“Yes?” Lord Benjamin sat forward in his seat, shifting Rose from one arm to the other.
“I ken what Cait has seen for me, and I doona want any part of it.”
“She told ye?” Elspeth gasped. Everyone knew it was unspeakable for Cait to share the futures she saw. It went against the very principles of her gift.
Sorcha turned back to her coven sister. “Do ye ken what she saw for me?” It would be beyond the pale if Cait had told others, but never her. Elspeth simply blinked at her, which really didn’t answer Sorcha’s question in the least.
“Well, it doesna matter. I willna marry a vampyre who canna love me. Ye healed a wolf who was broken, El. There’s got ta be a way ta mend my heart. Tell me ye’ll try.”
“Vampyre?” Benjamin echoed. “Caitrin says your future is with a vampyre?”
“It doesna matter what Cait says. I’ll make my own future. Just as soon as Elspeth heals me.”
“For yer heart ta be broken, ye must have fallen for this creature. Perhaps ye should listen ta Cait.”
“Perhaps ye should just—”
“Alec,” Benjamin muttered.
Sorcha sucked in a breath and stared at the Lycan. How had he figured that out so quickly?
He shook his head as though he hardly believed the story. “It is him, isn’t it?”
Tears sprung to her eyes again. “I doona want ta talk about him.”
~*~
Alec paced back and forth at the foot of his bed, trying to decide how on earth he’d gotten into this mess. One minute, he’d had Sorcha in his arms and very nearly had her in his bed, and the next, she was gone, leaving him with a rakish vampyre and two whores, one of whom appeared to be suffering from that vague human affliction called love, or perhaps it was simply jealousy. He scrubbed his forehead in frustration.
When Sorcha left, she’d taken everything that was bright in his life with her. His passion. His happiness. His future.
She’d walked right out the door and taken it all with her.
Now he had to get it back. He just had to. The utter look of devastation on her face would have broken his heart, if he still had one. In his case, it just worried him. It worried him to no end that he’d messed up his only chance with her. He worried that he’d somehow hurt her. And that was just intolerable. He’d kill anyone who dared to wipe the smile from his witch’s face. Here he’d gone and done it himself.
A scratch sounded at his door. “Go away,” he groused at the noise.
“Mr. MacQuarrie,” Gibson called out hesitantly. “I’m sorry ta bother ye, but ye have a visitor.”
Alec opened the door with such force that the old man tumbled into the room. “Haven’t you let enough people into this house for one day?” he snapped.
The butler adjusted his jacket and squared his shoulders.
“I admitted the others a few days ago,” he amended. “Mr. Browning assured me that he and his sisters were great friends of yers from London. And that ye’d be highly irritated if I didn’t see ta yer wishes and allow them ta stay until yer return.”
Alec shot Gibson a look of incredulity. “You know good and well that those women are not his sisters,” he scolded.
“You let a couple of whores into my house.”
“I dinna ken that at the time, sir. But I do ken it now. That’s why they have been removed ta the Thorne and Rose for the duration of their stay. I assured them ye’d be most happy ta pay for their lodgings.” The butler looked supremely satisfied with himself.
“I thought it would be more difficult than that,” Alec muttered, scratching at the day’s growth of beard stubble that itched his cheek. Then he narrowed his eyes at his butler. “I’d have sacked you if you hadn’t figured out how to do that.”
“I can be crafty when necessary, sir,” Gibson said, still smiling a satisfied grin. “But ye have another guest in the parlor, sir. Lord Benjamin has come ta visit.”
“You can tell Lord Benjamin to go straight to the devil,” Alec said. That overgrown dog was the last person he wanted to see. Now or ever.
Alec sniffed at the air. He could already smell the Lycan’s stench inside his home. Bloody perfect. All he needed to make the evening a complete disaster was a meeting with Ben Westfield.
A voice roared from belowstairs. “If Gibson tells me to go straight to the devil, I’ll put him in a cupboard until the morning, and then I’ll come and find you myself!”
Gibson’s jaw dropped open. There had never been any love lost between his butler and Ben Westfield.
“He would do no such thing,” Alec assured the old man, though he wasn’t so certain himself.
“Yes, I would!” Ben called from belowstairs again. “Try me and see, MacQuarrie.”
“How did he hear that, sir?” Gibson asked, lowering his voice in surprise.
Damn Ben’s Lycan hearing. He could hear a pin drop in the house next door. Of course, he could hear Alec’s and Gibson’s mutterings.
“Sound carries in this house,” Alec replied.
“No’ that well,” the butler contradicted.
“It won’t be the only thing being carried if you don’t get your arse down those stairs and come talk to me!” Ben bellowed, his voice growing louder and louder. The damn neighbors would hear him at this rate.
Alec glanced at his astounded butler. “Lord Benjamin was dropped on his head as a bairn. It obviously affected his hearing. And his common sense.”
“My common sense is fine!” the irate Lycan belowstairs bellowed again. “It’s my house that’s in a state of upheaval. An enchanting lady who normally has a green thumb is destroying every plant and flower I possess. And I am fairly certain she would be most pleased with me if I buried your lying arse somewhere on Arthur’s Seat!”
Sorcha was at Westfield’s? Alec shot out the door and down the stairs so fast that the old butler could only stand and stare. Alec’s oldest and dearest friend leaned casually in the doorway of the parlor and glared at him with a look of bemusement. “Finally got your attention, did I?”
“Sorcha’s at your home?” Alec managed to choke out.
“So nice to see you too,” Ben drawled as he crossed his arms over his chest.
“I wish I could say the same.”
Ben started down the corridor toward Alec’s study.
“Where are you going?” he called to his friend’s retreating back. Then Alec followed. Damn, who was the dog here? Him or Westfield?
“I assume you still have whisky, even though you can no longer imbibe,” Ben mumbled as he shuffled through Alec’s sideboard. He grinned broadly as he found the decanter he wanted and poured himself a tumbler full of the amber liquid. Then he dropped into a wide chair across from Alec’s desk.
“Do make yourself at home, why don’t you?” Alec groused as he dropped into his own chair behind the desk.
“I believe I will, since my own is in a state of upheaval. And it’s all your fault.” Ben took a slow swallow from his glass. Then he leaned forward and speared Alec with a glance. “I quite like sleeping with my wife.”
“I don’t need to know about your bedroom proclivities, Westfield,” Alec said as he tried to look affronted by the mere suggestion.
“I like sleeping with my wife for a lot of reasons, though the likelihood of that happening this evening diminishes each moment Ellie tries to soothe Sorcha, and all because you had the stupidity to bring your mistress into the sight of your intended. Now tell me, what kind of a fool does that?”
“You’re a fine one to talk about being foolish.” If they were to tally up each of their mistakes, Ben’s list would stretch from here to Aberdeen.
Ben shrugged. “We can discuss my sins if you’d like, though I hardly see the point as doing so won’t help you with Sorcha.”
“I don’t need your help with Sorcha.” He didn’t need anything from his old friend, other than to have the man turn tail and depart his home.
“Oh, I beg to differ. You need all the help you can get.”
“My situation is none of your concern.” Alec tried to sound arrogant and unconcerned himself, but he’d failed miserably, he was afraid.
“But it is,” Ben countered. “Ellie and Sorcha are connected, and therefore my wife’s state of mind is very much my concern.”
That damn harmony thing again. Alec nearly groaned.
“Now who installs their mistress in their home?” Ben pressed. “Does this woman mean something to you?”
For the love of God! “She’s not my mistress. She’s a whore. Nothing more, nothing less.”
Ben drew in a deep breath and leaned back in the chair.
“Don’t ever let Ellie catch you saying that.”
Whatever the devil that meant. “Just leave, Ben.”
His onetime friend sighed. “I know you detest my kind, Alec.” He held up a hand when Alec would have interrupted.
“But I can’t change what I am any more than you can.”
“You could have told me,” Alec muttered.
“No, I couldn’t. There are covenants that prevent that.” He shrugged his shoulders. “And Simon would have had my head if I’d even tried.” He looked so directly at Alec that he wanted to look away, but he refused to do so. “I did want to tell you more than once throughout the years. It just wasn’t possible.”
“But now I know.” Alec wasn’t certain whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Just as I know what you are,” Ben retorted.
“At least you like what you are,” Alec said quietly.
But Ben heard him anyway. “Not always. There was a time when I detested what I was. It made me feel out of control. I even hurt Ellie because of it. Thank God, she forgave me. I couldn’t live without her.”
Alec made a gagging sound that brought a smile to the Lycan’s face.
“You are not immune to love, my friend,” Ben informed him.
“I have no aspirations of love,” Alec scoffed. But something within him ached, like a piece of him was being torn in two. He rubbed at his chest absently.
“Something wrong?” Ben asked, his face etched with concern.
“No.” Alec waved the Lycan’s questions aside. “Where is Sorcha now?”
“She was at the Manor when I left, begging Ellie to heal her broken heart.” Ben took another sip of his whisky. What Alec wouldn’t give to taste that again, to feel numb from it.
“She has cried until there are no tears left. I can’t tell you how painful it is to hear her profess how much she loves you, even being willing to settle for someone who can’t love her back. But she’s not willing to settle for someone who can’t be faithful to her. She’s a smart lass, that one.”
Alec hurt again. He hadn’t hurt since he’d been turned.
What the devil? “Will Elspeth help her?” All things considered, Sorcha would be better off if she didn’t love him. Of course, he’d be utterly destroyed if she stopped, but it would be in her best interest.
“She doesn’t have that kind of power.” Ben took a deep breath. “But you do.”
“I don’t know what to do.” The pain of separation between him and his old friend began to ease somewhat, and Alec felt calmer than he had in quite some time. The only person who made him feel better than this was Sorcha. His Sorcha.
“You know, there’s an old saying that we Lycans live by.”
“And I assume you’ll burden me with it?” Alec quipped.
“It speaks of the fact that a Lycan cannot love another until he learns to love himself. I know you hate what you are now.” When Alec would have interrupted, Ben held up a hand. “I know you do. I can see it all over your face. But you can’t change it. You can either continue with this futile selfloathing, or you let that lass love you and give her the best life she could have ever dreamed of.”
“She deserves better than a life with me. But I’m just selfish enough to keep her from having it.” He hated that about himself. But the thought of sleeping in a cold and empty bed for the rest of his life made him feel hollow inside.
“As things stood when I left home, she wouldn’t have you if the Regent ordered her to do so right now. So, I’d suggest you dust off your courting clothes and get to work on persuading the lass, not to mention her father, that you’re the right one for her.”
“What if I’m not?”
“Then you’ll have to work on that.” Ben shrugged.
“Besides, there’s obviously something about you Sorcha fell in love with, MacQuarrie. You just have to remind her of what that was.”
Remind her of the passion she felt in his arms? That wasn’t likely to happen, not if the scathing glare she’d cast him as she’d escaped his doorstep was any indication.
“Men like me don’t court women,” Alec muttered, though the man he had once been would have done so.
“They do if they want to win them, you dolt.” Ben launched himself to his feet and laid his empty tumbler on Alec’s desk.
“You needn’t call me names,” Alec murmured.
“The next time that lass comes to my house in tears, I’ll do worse than call you names.”
“As though you could take me,” Alec taunted.
“I’d have a damn good time trying,” Ben admitted. “Then I’d tell Wallace Ferguson that you bit his sister and sit back and see what happens.”
“She told you that?” Alec couldn’t believe she’d divulged that information.
“She had your scent all over her when she got to my house.” Ben shrugged. “The rest was easy to figure out.”
“I keep forgetting about that blasted nose of yours,” Alec said.
“And I keep forgetting you’re an idiot. Then you remind me all over again.” Ben shrugged. Then he sobered and stared directly at Alec. “Make it right, old friend.”
Alec nodded absently. If only he knew how to go about doing that.