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Griff charged—naked, a shock among all the other shocks—from the direction of the castle, a dark bundle in his arms. A blanket? A cover. The fur cover from her bed.
Emma’s jaw dropped.
He ran barefoot over the rocks, muscled legs flexing, broad shoulders gleaming, until he reached the edge of the sea. His strong feet gripped the rock. His arms extended over his head. Just for a moment, his gaze met Emma’s, his eyes dark and fathomless, churning with emotion.
The fur swirled over his shoulders.
The air shimmered with mist.
And on the beach where he had stood, a gray bull seal reared on the rocks.
Shock slammed through Emma, exploded in her chest, burst in her
head. Her vision dimmed. She cried out in loss and denial.
No. Dear God, please, God, no.
Una wriggled in her arms.
Shuddering, Emma glanced down—at the whiskered face, the round, brown eyes, the fat, sleek form of a young seal.
No, no, no, no, noo….
She sat helpless, stunned, as a wave washed up and wet her skirt, as the children crowded around her, as the bull seal herded the young cow into the sea.
Leaving Emma kneeling on the shore, clutching the tatters of Una’s gown and the shreds of her own illusions.
A candle burned, quiet against the dark. A single yellow flame against the starless night outside Emma’s window, against the smothering numbness of her soul.
She had already cried—well, bawled, really—as she had not cried since that night in Griff’s arms. The memory of his tenderness nearly set her off again.
But eventually her tears were done, gone, leaving her wrung out and hollow, and there was nothing left, not shock or sorrow or fear or pride. Only this cold emptiness.
How could she not have known? How could she not have questioned? Blinded by happiness and her own desires, she had seen only what she wanted to see. She had made assumptions about Griff. About their future.
Just as she had with Paul.
She was a fool. But how could she possibly have imagined…this?
She shuddered and closed her eyes.
There were legends around the islands of Scotland and the Cornish coast, stories of beautiful creatures with powerful sexual allure who took the form of men and women on land and the form of seals in the sea, tales made up to while away a long winter evening in front of the fire—or justify an unexplained pregnancy.
Any village girl reluctant to name a married man as the father of her baby could claim she had been seduced by a stranger from the sea. Of course, everyone in the village knew such girls were foolish, deluded. Mad.
But now…
Emma had proved herself as foolish, as deluded, as any one of them. She could be the girl abandoned onshore while her belly swelled with…what?
She had seen with her own eyes what Una had become. And Griff.
She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She would almost have preferred to be crazy. Instead, she was bereft, betrayed. Alone in the dark.
Alone.
Griff had deceived her. The man she loved—had trusted with her body and her heart and her future—was not really a man at all.
The door whispered open behind her. She felt his presence before she opened her eyes, like a rise in the temperature of the room or a weight pressing on her chest.
