Page 106 of Highland Spy

And, like Connor, they had never returned her affection, no matter what she did to please them with her wasted life.

Isabel was right. Ariana had been stuffy, boring. She’d lived her life by the rules set for her and received nothing for her efforts. Not a husband and children, nor a household of her own, nor even the slightest show of affection.

Connor slowed his horse to be side by side with her. “No’ much longer now, lass.”

Ariana forced a smile. He shifted in his saddle and the low creak of leather made the silence between them all the more apparent.

Isabel rode several feet ahead, too far away to hear a quiet conversation. This was the closest they’d come to being alone since Ariana had convinced him to bring Isabel to Kindrochit.

Whatever he’d approached her for, the air seemed to thicken with his obvious discomfort.

“That night.” His brow creased. “Between us.”

“What happened at Urquhart need stay only between us.” The words fell from her mouth with all the decorum of a polite dinner request—a beautiful facade for the ugly wrenching emotion tearing through her.

“I canna—” Connor raked his fingers through his hair and scrubbed at the back of his head before dropping his hand. Never had she seen him look so unsure of himself, so regretful.

A fresh dagger of pain sliced through her chest.

“I dinna want anyone to know.” His gaze was almost pleadingly apologetic.

“I understand.” She said it quickly, as if doing so might make his words hurt less.

And she did understand. She’d assumed as much from the start. He’d acted on lust, nothing more.

Hadn’t she done the same?

Wasn’t it she who had so selfishly continued on the night she’d killed the guard? She’d wanted his comfort and had reveled in it.

This was the price she paid.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke softly. He reached out and settled a hand over where hers clutched the sodden reins. Somehow his palm was warm despite the wet, bone-freezing chill, and yet it brought her no comfort.

Anger chipped away at her control. Anger at herself for having given him her innocence, and anger at him for having taken it only to cast her aside. She had been a fool, gambling for high stakes when she didn’t have a good hand.

When she didn’t even have a card hidden up her sleeve.

Once she’d had a respectable name and her innocence. Now she had only her respectable name, however scuffed it might be.

Her heart dragged and scraped on the hard reality of her situation.

If there’d ever been a chance to go back to King James’s court in London, there was little hope for it now.

Connor removed his hand from hers and the air bathed her skin with a refreshing chill.

“Thank you,” he said.

His gratitude only fed the flames of her anger, and it flared with greedy force.

Perhaps anything he’d said then might have done the same. Silence passed between them, long and awkward enough to make her feel as though she ought to say something more.

Before she could, however, he returned to Isabel’s side and left Ariana alone to wade alone through the deepest pits of her dark thoughts.

A knot fisted in her throat, ugly and aching.

She’d felt like this too often before—when her constant attempts to please her parents had resulted in the continuation of their cold indifference. When her fragile hope for a new life with her brother had wilted under the reality of that same lack of affection their parents had afforded her.

And so there was nothing to do but hide, as she’d done then.