“Have I ever pretended otherwise?”
Sabrina flinched. “No. And I have never pretended to care. I’ve told you often enough, you are free to indulge your illicit pursuits elsewhere.”
He leaned casually against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his powerful chest, his countenance stark and unyielding once more. “I do not recall requiring your permission, mouse.”
“Indeed, you do not. I doubt you will miss me, in any case. I’m certain the Widow Graham will be glad to offer you solace in my absence.”
“I suspect she will.”
“She is welcome to you,” Sabrina retorted, ashamed at how her voice quavered. “Of course, you need not limit yourself to her. With me away, you can take the opportunity to bed every wench in sight.”
“Mayhap I will.”
She would not cry. His callousness rammed into her like a fist, but she would not let him see her pain. She would not give him the satisfaction.
Summoning every shred of dignity she possessed, Sabrina turned on shaken limbs to fully face him. “Well then, there is nothing more to be said, is there?”
Niall regarded her narrowly, knowing he was to blame for the bruised look in her eyes, for the suspiciously bright moisture that gleamed like tears. Beneath his savage anger, guilt knifed at him.
Mrs. Paterson rapped on the door just then, to say Colm was ready to escort Sabrina to the waiting horses.
Her spine rigid, Sabrina brushed past Niall without a word.
He did not accompany her below. Nor did he watch as she reached the yard and collected her dog and then mounted her horse.
Instead, he stood with his back to the wall, his jaw clenched, as she rode away, out of his life.
His foul temper did not improve with Sabrina’s absence. Colm returned to Creagturic, reporting her safe arrival in Edinburgh, but although Niall vowed to resume his life without her, he couldn’t quite manage it.
He couldn’t stop thinking of her, remembering the taste of her. He missed Sabrina, and not simply for the carnal pleasure she brought him. He missed arguing with her, missed her stubborn defiance. He missed her gentleness, her courage, her wry humor, her scathing wit.
The slightest things reminded him of her. He could find nowhere in the Highlands to hide from her memory. No refuge where he could forget.
More damning, his savage humor was taking a toll on his clansmen, and proving a danger as well. Several days after Sabrina’s departure, Niall was engaged in a practice fencing match with John in the yard, when he parried a thrust and struck a return blow too fiercely.
With a grunt of pain, John dropped his rapier and gripped his arm, blood dripping from beneath his fingers.
Niall swore darkly at himself and took a step forward, intending to inspect the wound, but John waved him away, scowling.
“Ye’d best find yerself a willing lass to soothe yer temper, lad. Ye’re like a wildcat with a burr under yer arse. Till then, I’ll thank ye to keep away from me. ’Tis for cert, I’ll no longer act yer whipping post.”
Turning, John stalked off, leaving Niall to run a hand raggedly down his face as he cursed himself roundly. He had no right to punish his kinsman for his own misery.
Venting another oath, he retreated inside the house, upstairs to the drawing room, where he poured himself a generous tumblerful of Scotch whisky and flung himself into a chair.
Fiend seize it, he did need a lass. The trouble was, he wanted a certain lass he couldn’t have, one who wished him to perdition.
Niall stared morosely at the cold hearth as Sabrina’s damning words from their last bitter argument echoed in his mind.
I did not ask to wed you. I was duped into it…
We need not endure each other any longer…
You cannot claim that you want me as your wife. I am merely an encumbrance to you…
Niall squeezed his eyes shut. Sabrina was utterly wrong on that score. She might wish to be free of him, but she meant far more to him than any encumbrance. He was reconciled to their marriage now. Perhaps he’d been compelled by honor to wed her, but he was no longer interested in gaining his freedom. For reasons he couldn’t comprehend, she had become increasingly precious to him.
Niall took a long swallow of the potent liquor, welcoming its fierce burn down his throat. He didn’t know how many women he had made love to in his lifetime, but he knew Sabrina was different from them all. With her he’d felt an intimacy, a connection, that he’d never felt with any other woman. She filled a loneliness he’d never even realized existed.