She took a breath, the bitterness in his voice making her head swim. Stepping back, she gripped the kitchen counter. ‘Look, I get that you want to punish me for what happened between us, but my door locks have got nothing to do with you. In fact I don’t even know why you’re here.’
He took a step closer, so close that she could feel the tension radiating from his skin.
‘I’m here because I wasn’t going to make it awkward for Diane and Tom.’
‘If you didn’t want them to feel awkward then maybe you shouldn’t have come in the first place.’ She knew he was angry with her, but it was unjust of him to blame her for this. ‘You knew I was going to be there. If you didn’t like it you could have just stayed away.’
His jaw tightened.
‘Why should I stay away? They’re my friends and, in case you hadn’t noticed, you don’t live there any more, Lady Antonia.’
Her eyes were suddenly blurry with tears. She hadn’t wanted to leave Lamington, or to rent out her home. But she’d had no choice. The alternative would have been to sell it, and that had just not been an option.
It shouldn’t have come to this. For years now she had tried talking to her parents, explaining their finances over and over, showing them how their outgoings always outstripped their income.
But the Earl and Countess of Brechin had both been raised to pursue their every whim, and it had been impossible to make them understand the severity of the situation.
Her mother had reacted with outrage; her father had simply refused to discuss it. It was not possible for him to spend less, and that was that.
Persuading them that it was a matter of urgency had been an exhausting and thankless task, but she hadn’t cared.
What mattered was keeping Lamington safe.
Now more than ever.
Her fingers pinched the kitchen counter.
She’d always loved her home, but for the last seven years it had been the focus of her energies—her whole life, really.
It wasn’t the first time she had acknowledged that fact. But it was the first time she’d done so standing next to Farlan, and it hurt in the same way as seeing him walk into the drawing room, with a sting of regret travelling a beat behind her pulse.
Feeling his gaze on her face, she looked up into his eyes, saw the pride smouldering there.
‘But I suppose the Elgins have been kicking people off their property for four hundred years. I guess old habits die hard.’
Her head was spinning, his accusation jamming up against the memory of telling her parents about Farlan.
She closed her eyes briefly. ‘My father shouldn’t have said what he did.’
‘Actually, it was what you didn’t say that mattered more to me,’ he said coldly.
She stared at him in silence, wanting to say it now. Only it was too late. Too much time had passed…too many things had happened.
‘So staying at Lamington is your way of getting back at me,’ she said hoarsely. ‘For what I didn’t say.’
His eyes glittered, the green vivid against his dark brows. ‘I hadn’t thought about you in years, but when Diane invited me I guess I was curious.’
He was so close she could see the muscles clenched in his jaw.
‘I wanted to see whether Lamington was worth it.’
She felt his eyes rest on her bare shoulder, and then his gaze tracked slowly round the small living room, seeing what she could see and had tried to ignore—that it wasn’t just her home that had shrunk, but her hopes, her dreams, her life itself.
‘And was it, Nia? Do you still think keeping your title and your ancestral home and your wealth was more important than me? Than us? Than our love?’
It was the first time he had called her Nia and her heart clenched as she wondered if it would be the last time too.
‘I didn’t think that,’ she whispered.