Page 23 of To Winter at Wildsyde

In other circumstances, his horrified expression might have been amusing. Now, it just made her furious.

“I’m not crying,” she snapped back, swiping away the tear with a quick, angry motion, but it was swiftly followed by another.

“Ruth,” he said, an anguished sound to her name that was the last straw.

“Get out!” she said and snatched up a silver-backed hairbrush from her dressing table, throwing it half-heartedly at him.

He laughed a little as the hairbrush missed him by a mile and hit the bed curtains before thudding to the ground.

“Ach, lass,” he chuckled, smiling a little which only added to her humiliation. He could smile when he was breaking her heart? “Ye are gonna have to try harder than that—”

“Get out, get out, get out!” she screamed at him. He stiffened, glaring at her.

“Fine,” he retorted, heading for the door, which only infuriated her more.

“Coward!” This was flung after him in concert with the china pitcher, which was mercifully empty now and took two hands to wield.

The door was already closed but Ruth’s heart was in pieces and she felt like the rest of the world ought to join it. The pitcher exploded like a starburst against the heavy oak. The shards scattered far and wide, sharp pieces skittering over the polished wood floor and sliding to a halt at the edges of the tasselled carpet.

Ruth stared, aghast at the damage she’d wrought, her chest heaving. Suddenly she could not draw enough air into her lungs and she backed up until she hit the cold stone of the wall. A sob escaped her, wrenched from somewhere deep inside and quickly followed by another and another until she was crying in earnest, big, ugly, howls of utter misery that she could not stifle or hold back. She slid down the wall, put her head against her knees and let herself grieve for the loss of her dreams.

***

Gordy closed the door uncertain of what to do next. Something crashed against it, shaking the wood with a violent smash that made him jump. His wife had a temper to match his own, once lit. Heaven help him if she ever learned how to fire a gun. Gordy resolved never to teach her.

He stood, breathing hard in the silence which rang in his ears. It had to be done, he assured himself. Cruel to be kind was the best way. A sharp pain now to avoid worse misery in the future, and then he heard her crying. The wrenching agony of the sound tore at his heart, and it was the hardest thing not to open the door again and run back to her. He could take her in his arms and beg her forgiveness, swear that he’d never hurt her again, that he’d make her happy… and maybe he would, for a while.

Resolute, he turned away from the door and headed for the stairs, taking each worn stone tread in a deliberate move away from his wife. He forced himself to remember his mother, leaving him without a backwards glance, leaving him alone with his father’s fury and revulsion. He remembered his sisters crying as though their hearts would break when they followed her two years later, despite promising him they’d never leave him alone with their increasingly violent sire. They’d sobbed with every bit as much sorrow as Ruth was doing, and sworn to him they’d return as soon as they were able. When they were married, they’d come back to him and save him from the nightmare to which they well knew they were resigning him.

Oh, aye, they’d come back all right. They’d come back for his father’s funeral eight years later, elegant women like his mother had been, with their fine, fancy husbands in tow. They’d been strangers to him, strangers who looked at him as if he was something feral, shocked by his barbaric manners and coarse way of speaking. They couldn’t leave fast enough. He’d been sixteen. The new Laird of Wildsyde with not a shilling to his name, for his father had ruined him as his last revenge on the bastard son who would inherit his lands. The man might have gritted his teeth and recognised him as his own flesh and blood for the sake of pride and primogeniture. It didn’t mean he had to like it.

The irony of now being next in line to inherit the Earl of Morven’s title was not lost on him. The earl had lost two fine sons and three other heirs presumptive, until only Gordy was left. Apart from himself, only the earl and Gordy’s parents had known the truth. The earl was Gordy’s father. Not that Gordy would have known either, if his father hadn’t spilled the truth of his wife’s betrayal with his cousin, alongside a tide of venomous hatred and a blow hard enough to knock him across the room and leave his ears ringing for days.

It had been a relief, truth be told, to know there was a reason the old man despised him so. He could understand his father’s rage and disgust once he’d discovered from whence it sprung. What he could not understand was his mother. How could she have done such a thing to him? How could she make him the subject of his father’s hatred and then abandon him to it? She had, though. She’d endured the family home for a full two years after that terrible night, and every day that had passed her resentment grew towards her son as he favoured his real father and reminded both parents of their shame. Every day the home that had been a place of happiness and safety tumbled deeper into uncertainty and danger.

His mother had left without saying goodbye. He’d woken early, disturbed by the sound of carriage wheels below his window. He’d seen her climb in and known she was leaving. He’d been seven years old. She hadn’t looked back.

He vaguely remembered the time when his family had loved him. A distant memory remained of laughter, of his lovely sisters who spoilt him, and a father who looked upon him with pride. He remembered his mother, too, a beautiful woman with ebony black hair, who smelled of expensive perfume and whose skirts rustled when she moved. He’d been the beloved. Doted on by parents and siblings alike, and then, somehow, his father had learned the truth. He had a distorted memory of terror, his parent’s screaming with rage, his mother’s frightened cries and weeping, begging for forgiveness, and he shut it out, slamming the door on memories that had only ever brought him pain and regret. That’s what letting a woman into your life led to. One way or another, they betrayed you. Perhaps they didn’t mean to, perhaps their tears were genuine at the moment they fell, their grief honest. It didn’t make any difference. Women were as changeable as the seasons. Their love might feel like standing in sunlight but, when they took it away, you were left with nothing but a barren winter landscape. He’d not suffer that again. Not ever.

Emotions rose within his chest and he battered them back down again. She’d done this, he thought savagely. She’d stirred up all the old anguish and longing. He’d been fine before she’d come with her hopes and expectations. The sooner she was gone, the better.

On reaching the hall, he headed for his study, his sanctuary, set on drinking himself blind until he could drown out the aching in his chest, until he didn’t hear the haunting sound of his wife’s grief echoing in the empty chamber of his heart.

He strode across the hallway, flung open the door to his study, and almost staggered back in shock.

“Holy God!”

For a stunned moment, he couldn’t take it in. On the plus side, it drove anything else from his mind as he struggled for a reaction.

It was pink.

No, not just pink, it was… pink. It was a violent, angry shade of a colour he’d always thought feminine, and it was aggressively feminine. This was the revenge of a woman who was a worthy rival. Gordy closed the door and leaned against it, staring at the monstrosity she’d made of his favourite room.

The vicious little madam must have searched for every mounted animal head in the entire bloody castle. The glassy, sightless eyes of stags and boar and roe deer glared balefully at him from every corner, dozens of them crammed in cheek by jowl. There was even a wildcat, its mouth set in an eternal snarl. That was not the worst of it, though. Every single antler and every wiry neck was decorated with a thick satin bow. A pink satin bow. It was horrifying.

Everywhere he looked, some beribboned monstrosity glared down at him, framed against the vile pink wall. The mantel over the fire, where there had once been a simple clock in a black case, was now dominated by an astonishingly vulgar ormolu time-piece which simply had to have been a wedding present from her father. It looked as though it was worth a small fortune, and even more like it deserved melting down for offences to good taste.

Gordy gritted his teeth against the sound rising in his throat. His clenched his fists, took a deep breath, and tried not to let it escape but he couldn’t help it. He gave a helpless bark of laughter and smothered his mouth with his hand, but it would not be contained. A moment later and he was nigh on hysterical and not the least bit certain whether he wanted to put his wife over his knee and spank her until she couldn’t sit down for a week, or kiss her senseless. Perhaps both.