Emily growled deep in her throat and marched forward, wondering what she’d do if he didn’t shift to let her by.
She might be smaller than him, but she was ablaze with fury. On this occasion, her temper trumped his size. After a hesitation, he fell back and let her shove past him.
The tower wasn’t large. Her gaze swept the gloomy, windowless ground floor and confirmed even through the darkness that the uninviting space was empty. The shadows concealed no round-heeled Highland lassies.
Breathing audibly through her nose, she mounted the stone stairs to the next level. Another round chamber with a few narrow arrow-slit windows and an unlit fireplace. A table and chairs, a couch, an untidy bookcase. No comely wench waiting here either.
"Emily, you’re being foolish," Hamish said behind her, in the tone he’d used when he told her she was wrong about his calculations for his comet.
"Am I indeed?" she muttered, more to herself than to him.
She rushed up the next flight of stairs to the bedroom Hamish had just left, if the sheet missing from the bed was any indication.
The light was better here. This room boasted a ring of windows, offering a breathtaking view over the rugged hills. Not that Emily was in any frame of mind to appreciate scenery.
A round house offered no corners for the devil to hide in. The devil – or a brazen hussy. One comprehensive glance proved this room was empty, too.
Hamish stood at the top of the stairs leading up from below and spread his hands with more of that spurious injured innocence. "You see? I’m alone."
"There’s another floor," she retorted. She was so furious that she felt like an iron band tightened around her chest.
Breathless by now, she climbed the last set of stairs to another round room. The tower was built like a spice jar, circular chamber set above circular chamber, tapering to the top.
No corners. No devil. No woman.
She glanced around the untidy space, encircled by windows like the one immediately below. This must be where Hamish worked – when he wasn’t tupping the local talent. Papers littered every flat surface. Notebooks. Loose sheets. A quick scan took in drawings and calculations and reams of writing in a familiar scrawl.
Over the years, she’d transcribed enough of Hamish’s work into a fair hand to recognize it. She certainly didn’t recognize it from his letters to her in London because there hadn’t been any.
She heard Hamish following her. He had no need to rush, she started to suspect, just as she suspected she was making the most frightful fool of herself.
Another stairway sloped up to what she guessed was the roof. More slowly, she made her way upward, already sure of what she’d find. Humiliation churned in her stomach and left a sour taste in her mouth.
Emily paused when she got to the top, not just because she was winded from climbing all those stairs, but because at last she took in the view. A view that didn’t include any females rousted from her husband’s bed, although it did include a large telescope on an elaborate stand and a couple of tables heaped with scientific instruments. Around her stretched a vista of treeless hills offering no signs of human habitation, apart from the faint dirt track that she and Billy had followed to get here and Billy himself. Billy was leading the ponies toward a grove of Scots pines that grew beside the tower.
Mortification crawled along Emily’s backbone. It felt like a host of spiders. Another crowd of spiders waged a battle inside her stomach.
"You’ve been working," she said flatly, turning to where Hamish stood near the parapet.
He watched her with steady blue eyes. "Yes."
"I thought—"
"I know what you thought." Of course, he did. What made her cringe was that he’d understand that her outburst proved she was far from indifferent to him. She cursed herself for showing her hand so early in the game.
"That’s why you were still in bed at four o’clock in the afternoon."
His gesture encompassed the empty wilderness surrounding them. "It’s the perfect place for an observatory. No light to interfere with the stars."
She regarded him without pleasure. "You can’t try and tell me there have been no women, Hamish. I won’t believe it. It’s been nearly eleven months since our wedding."
He looked annoyed, although whether at her accusation or at being caught out, she wasn’t sure. "Why should you care?"
She shouldn’t. After all, she’d faced the possibility – certainty – of him straying since she’d agreed to marry him. If he lost his temper, for once Emily couldn’t blame him. She’d acted like a madwoman. But the idea of Hamish finding physical pleasure in this isolated love nest made her want to smash something.
Something like his handsome face.
"Nobody likes having their nose rubbed in the sins of an unfaithful spouse."