Surrender to Me (The Derrings #4)(47)

He fell silent, his gaze returning to the mesmerizing dance of flames. And she knew he was talking about himself now. Knew that he was running away from something…running to something. Even if he didn’t know what.

Just as she was. She’d come to Scotland looking for a second chance. A chance at…

Staring at his face, realization struck her full force. Her lungs squeezed, chasing the breath from her body. A chance at this. Him. Freedom. Love.

She swallowed down her last bit of jerky, not tasting it as it settled heavily in her knotting stomach. Why should she want to return to her old life? When she had sampled freedom with him? As crazy as it sounded, this journey had been the most liberating experience of her life. Because of him.

She was more like her adventuresome mother than she ever realized.

“So you’re here to find your family,” she said, regaining her breath, eager to resume talking, to behave as though she had not just discovered a new, unwanted facet to herself.

His gaze cut to hers, hard and fierce in the muted light. “I had a family.” He flung the twig toward the fire with a vicious swing. “I don’t know why the hell I’m here.”

She dropped her chin back on her bent knees. “I thought I knew what I was doing here. Why I came to Scotland. Now…” her voice faded and she shrugged lightly, the careless gesture so at odds with the turmoil she felt.

He snorted. “I thought your motivation perfectly clear.”

“Yes. To stop Bertram,” she uttered, frowning as she faced a truth she had tried to ignore. “I’ve never held any influence over my husband. Why did I think I could convince him to do the right thing?” A deep sigh rattled from her chest. “In the few moments I had with him before…before he was killed, nothing I said swayed him to cease his charade. He actually offered to pay me if I would simply disappear and pretend I had never seen him.”

“Bastard,” Griffin growled.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought I could accomplish in coming here.”

“At least you did something. You tried. I imagine it’s more than some ladies would do. It took courage.”

She winced. “Courageous, I’m not.”

“Nor kind. Or so you’ve said.” His look turned speculative. “I’ve never met a woman so resistant to hearing herself praised.”

She fixed her gaze on the flames. “I don’t deserve praise.” She drew a ragged breath and confessed, “There’s much you don’t know about me. I’m not a very nice person.” She announced this without self-pity.

“Well, I’ll confess you’ve been a pain in my ass on more than one occasion since we met.”

Her gaze flew to his, astounded that he would speak so plainly. But that was Griffin, she realized. Plain-speaking. No mincing words.

“And,” he continued, “you can freeze a man with a look.” He leaned forward, capturing her gaze. “But I wouldn’t say you were an evil person.”

She smiled half-heartedly.

“But you think so,” he pronounced. “Why?”

She closed her eyes in a slow blink and shook her head. And then she said the words she had not spoken to another soul. Not even to Jane and Lucy…too afraid to see the disappointment in their eyes.

“When Bertram first left, things were…bad,” she explained, at a loss for a better word. “He took anything of value with him. I didn’t know what to do. His grandmother lived with us and she was ailing.” She grimaced. “We could not even afford a physician. Can you imagine? A Dowager Duchess swallowing down Cook’s remedies…I don’t even know if they helped or not.” She paused, wetting her lips. “And then there was Bertram’s sister.”

She gulped down a breath. “She agreed to marry a wealthy merchant. I thought our problems were solved.”

Griffin nodded.

She bit the inside of her cheek, coming to the hard part, the part where she sold her soul for the promise of security and comfort. The part where Griffin would look at her differently.

“Portia backed out.”

“With her own grandmother ill?” He frowned. “Rather selfish of her.”

“That’s what I told myself…how I justified what I did next.”

“Which was?”

She spoke quickly, as if spitting the words out made her actions less dastardly. “I drugged her and helped smuggle her into the merchant’s carriage so he could take her to Scotland and force her to marry him.” She shook her head. “I thought she merely suffered a loss of nerve. That she would come around.”

“Rather desperate,” he commented, his voice mild, lacking the judgment she expected to hear.

She looked at him sharply, expecting to see censure there and finding none. “I did a terrible thing.”

“Perhaps,” he allowed. “But someone needed to be sensible and save the family. It wasn’t as if you could marry the man yourself.” He broke another twig. “It must have baffled you that your sister-in-law did not share your sense of responsibility.”

Blinking, she gave a single jerky nod, wondering how he understood her motivations so well. “Indeed. I would have married him myself if I could have.”

“So what happened?”