She flushed. From embarrassment? Anger? He couldn’t quite tell.
“That was uncalled for.”
Anger then. “Perhaps. But you are the one who forgot about your husband.”
A deeper red infused her face. “But that is where you are wrong, for I have no husband to forget.”
Nathan stilled, the animal under him reacting the same way as though it had just as much personal stake in her statement as he did. “What?”
She smiled, one so brilliant it made his stomach roll over and clench with desire. “I left him. At the altar. Me, I left him.”
A hysterical giggle escaped her and Sara clapped her hand over her mouth. Oh dear heavens, what have I done? The reality of everything was sinking in, causing panic to rise up in her. She had left a good man at the altar, embarrassed him in front of his entire congregation. And for what? For an adventure?
No. She had done it for herself. The truth of that settled her panic. Just as Charles deserved more than what she could have given him, she deserved more as well. She deserved more than Charles, more than Nathan if he rejected her once more. But she had to try one last time.
Nathan stared at her, not fully comprehending what was happening. She was not married? She was still free? “You left him?” he echoed stupidly.
Sara nodded. “At the altar. I couldn’t marry him. Not when I wanted to go to Scotland.”
“Yet you are here at Windent Hall. Or nearly.”
She smiled at him again, that brilliant one he had never seen on her before now. “Yes I am.”
Things were starting to fall into place in his mind and Nathan felt his hands curl with the tension building inside of him. “I see. You are not done with your adventuring and you wish for me to provide you with more.” It was lowering to realize just how much he did not mean to the woman he had fallen in love with. He had been wrong earlier about his penance; it wasn’t knowing that she would never be his but that she did not want him, not the way he wanted her.
She cocked her head and regarded him in a blunt, assessing manner that had lust shafting down his spine and settling in his groin. Rather uncomfortable that, while on a saddle.
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t think you understand. I am going to Scotland with or without you. I think it would be more entertaining should you accompany me, but I am going.”
He raised a mocking brow. “Are you? Well, I wish you good luck.” He doffed his hat at her and wheeled the horse around to return to Windent Hall. There was whiskey waiting for him.
Her voice stopped him. “You see, I have come to a realization. I was wrong. For all those years, I was wrong. I wanted adventure, but I was waiting for it to come to me. It was just today, a few minutes ago at the church in fact, that I realized that true adventurers don’t wait around for things to happen, but rather make things happen around them. So I am going to start making things happen. And the second thing I am going to make happen is going to Scotland. Will you accompany me?”
He narrowed his eyes on her and gave her the look that had become second nature to him in the last few months, one that made people cringe and want to slink away. Except her. Foolish woman could see right through him, he felt.
One side of Nathan’s mouth curled back into a sneer. “Are you proposing that we travel together, unmarried?”
Sara blinked her wide gray eyes at him. “I suppose I am.”
Nathan couldn’t help it; a small spark of hope lit in his chest. He could use this and turn it to his advantage. He could manipulate this situation and come out married to her. She may hate him for it, but he could live with that. As her husband, he could wear her down eventually.
“I will do it on one condition,” he declared.
“You and your rules.” She smiled at him. Was he mistaken or was there some tenderness in that smile?
“Do you want to hear it or not?”
“Please.”
“We must marry.” He watched her face go still. “Not now, not even here. But when we get to Scotland, we will marry. I will only ruin you so much.”
Sara looked up at her driver, who was sitting shock still, pretending to not exist. She dropped her eyes and studied the ground for several long moments. Not quite the response a man wanted when proposing to the woman he loved. He lifted his chin, preparing himself for the anticipated rejection.