Page 102 of The Iron Earl
“Then give me a reason to stay. You’ve never once done that in your life—given me a reason to stay.”
“What are ye speaking of, boy?”
Lachlan’s head tilted to the side and he looked back at Evalyn, staring at her for long seconds. Her gaze focused on him with all the pride, support, and faith in the world that whatever he was doing in this moment was right and just.
That was it.
She was it.
What Evalyn was to him was the one thing that had been missing for so many years of his life. He’d had his brother and his sister, but this—her unconditional love—was everything.
His gaze slowly traveled back to the marquess. “I do not fancy something as grand as love from you, Grandfather. But since grandmother died, since my parents died, in all these years I would have settled for the slightest fondness from you, a mild consideration in the least. One nod, one word of affection. Something you could never bring yourself to do.”
“Ye don’t understand, boy.” The wrinkles about his face deepening, drooping, the marquess exhaled a wheezing breath and sank back into his chair. His look went to the fire, his fingers fiddling with the tip of his cane.
He sat in silence for an extended moment before his look swung back to Lachlan, his ancient hazel eyes turned glassy with unshed tears, his words gravelly. “Ye don’t understand, after yer father, after your grandmother—it—it was too much. I couldn’t…” He shook his head. “How can ye love something ye ken ye’ll lose?”
A heavy boulder settling into his chest, Lachlan moved to stand, his look pained as he looked down at his grandfather. At the withered man time had ravaged. “Except you never lost us, Grandfather. That is the difference. I am still here. Sloane is still here. And we deserved more. We always deserved more. We still do.”
His grandfather lifted his eyes, the blue streaks in the hazel long since dulled to colorless streaks of grey. The marquess stared at Lachlan.
Judging his words, his worth.
Lachlan accepted it fully, returning the stare. Whether he walked out of Vinehill today, or stayed, it didn’t matter. What mattered was the woman standing three feet behind him. What mattered was that she would be by his side. What mattered was her love.
“Fine. Fine boy.” His grandfather’s left hand lifted from the cane, waving in the air. “I cede the running of the estate.”
No words of endearment. No pride.
But a start.
A start.
It took Lachlan a full breath to dislodge the lump in his throat. “Very well. The first order of business is to rescind that petition of divorce you sent.”
~~~
Atop her horse, Evalyn looked over her shoulder past the four rolling hills they’d just traveled over. One last glance at the far-off group of cottages and barns set into a small circle.
It was the first thing she demanded to do the day after the confrontation with her stepfather. She needed to make sure the families Molson had threatened were alive and well. Lachlan had insisted he could send men to see to the task, but it wasn’t enough for her.
She’d needed to see it with her own eyes. That the children were all alive and healthy. And she made sure Lachlan brought extra coin to leave with them.
It was another hour on the journey home before Lachlan broke the silence.
“Your worries are eased?” he asked from his horse next to hers. His eyes flicked back to the direction of the farm they’d spent the majority of the afternoon at.
“They are. For these families.” She shook her head, her look shifting forward on the road. “But it scares me to think of the terror that my stepfather unleashed on this land. How many others were not so lucky. How many others ended with the fate of your brother and your relations.”
Lachlan’s gaze went to the rolling hills, an unsettling darkness creeping into his look.
His brother.
She could see it in the hazel of his eyes, the toll his brother’s death still took upon him. The forgiveness he couldn’t afford himself on the matter.
They traveled onward for thirty more minutes before they came upon ruins of several cottages and barns.
Her throat tightened.