She was running away from him.

Again.

Georgiana dashed away from him, as if her life depended on it.

She clutched the skirt of her dress, evidently not bothered by the prospect of the gauze netting tearing, and rushed away, unhampered by the poor state of her slippers, or simply driven by a desire to separate from him.

And then she was gone.

This whole week they’d been together. They’d kissed, they’d been intimate, but the thought of being discovered alone with him, the thought of perhaps her parents demanding they marry...that had evidently been too much.

His heartbeat lurched, as if struggling to regain some normalcy after the vision of Georgiana rushing away from him. Perhaps he’d once known how to holler, but his throat felt dry, as if any function were now impossible.

She’s gone. She’s gone. She’s gone.

He tightened his grasp on the ring tucked in his hand. The circular shape, with all its connotations of eternal unity, eternal bliss, seemed to mock him.

She’s gone.

His limbs were stiff, as if he were a tin soldier, some poor impression of a real man, an imperfect vision created by a stranger. Perhaps his blood had simply stopped flowing into his limbs.

He’d thought—

His heart panged. His thoughts seemed excessively sentimental, fairy tales told to children during a war when cannons were firing about around them.

He’d never been one for naivety, but where Georgiana was concerned, it seemed he’d lapsed.

He’d been so certain... So hopeful. So happy.

The emotion seemed ludicrous, and he cringed at the memory of riding through Gretna Green this morning, so joyous, telling every villager in sight that he needed to buy the best ring, for the very best woman. Were they peeking behind their lace curtains, laughing or saddened, depending on their particular momentary attitude toward romance?

She’s gone.

The words were a refrain, one that would echo through his mind the rest of his life. At what point had she decided it would be better to flee than to marry him? Why would she choose a tarnished reputation rather than a life with him?

He should have been concerned by his brother’s absence. Perhaps he’d already married Miss Charlotte Butterworth and made her his duchess. Perhaps he’d see Georgiana over holidays, and she would remain a constant reminder of the life he could have had, had he been worthy of selection.

But naturally.

He was the second son.

The spare.

He’d been convenient since he’d come only eight minutes later than Callum, no doubt easing his parents’ minds and assuring them that Montgomery Castle would always be cared for. Hamish had been the emergency option if something were to befall the first choice.

If he had been expected to help look after the estate, he certainly hadn’t succeeded. Ensuring the lines in the estate’s books added and subtracted in a correct fashion couldn’t undo the harm Callum had done now, if he had indeed chosen to marry Miss Charlotte Butterworth.

Hamish didn’t come with a title. He couldn’t make Georgiana a duchess. He couldn’t even make her a baroness. He’d have to give up the home he’d lived in. Perhaps he could continue to find architectural work, and perhaps it would be compensated better than her own father’s work as a minister, but didn’t Georgiana deserve everything?

He’d been in the midst of proposing to her, in perhaps a clumsy fashion, and then she’d disappeared.

She hadn’t given him a chance.

His heart twisted.

Hamish spoke in an accent that made even barmaids dismiss him, thinking him ridden with violent tendencies, perhaps because some of his ancestors had bravely defended themselves against the English invaders and had spoken of it when they arrived home.

If he married Georgiana—he paused as the thought came into his mind—she would lack the large estate on which to exercise her talent for her garden design.

Hamish hadn’t thought she’d considered respectability important before, but then, before she hadn’t been dashing away as if her life depended on widening the distance between them, even as her parents were approaching.

Georgiana’s parents really were approaching. The coach had stopped moving, and the groom was helping them out.

Mrs. Butterworth had placed a gypsy bonnet over her ruffled white cap, and the veil blew in the wind. She pulled the netting down with one hand, though had evidently given up on securing the trimming of her bonnet, and her ribbons flayed over her, as if conspiring with the wind to make her taller and more intimidating.

She needed no help from nature to appear daunting.

“Lord Hamish Montgomery!” Mrs. Butterworth shouted, unperturbed by the increased ferocity of the wind.

Hamish hesitated.

Perhaps running wasn’t such a ridiculous option.

Still. He squared his shoulders and raised his chin. No doubt he deserved to be berated. He wasn’t going to leave them befuddled and scrambling after him, not after they’d seen him. He owed them much more than that.

“It’s really you!” Mrs. Butterworth beamed, and for a moment Hamish could see Georgiana in her mother’s shining expression. She turned around. “Mr. Butterworth! I told you it was the duke’s brother, and it is. How good I am at spotting people.”

Mr. Butterworth ducked his head from the coach. Perhaps Mrs. Butterworth was experiencing a momentary delight at recognizing someone hundreds of miles away from where she’d last seen him, but Mr. Butterworth appeared less contemplative about the wonders of that fact. His eyebrows shot together, and his demeanor exuded anger.

When he’d first met Mr. Butterworth the man had been comfortably ensconced in an armchair, taking such delight in the comforts of well-crafted upholstery and pillows, even the silky ones that some men pretended to eschew, that Hamish had imagined that the man might avoid discomfort.

Instead, Mr. Butterworth had not only traveled to Gretna Green, he was now barreling from the coach, with the vigor of a well-lit cannonball, and was heading toward Hamish. Mud spattered about the man’s buckskin breeches, but his pace did not diminish. He wrestled Hamish to the ground and settled each thigh on either side of him.

Clearly Mr. Butterworth did not subscribe to the ton’s tenements for propriety.

“You do not mess with a Norfolk man,” Mr. Butterworth said.

“You’re a v-vicar,” Hamish stammered.

“And you’re headed for hell.” Mr. Butterworth sneered. His teeth were set into a ferocious line, and he directed both fists at Hamish. He pressed against Hamish, as if to thrust him faster into hell that way.

Birds fluttered merrily above Hamish, evidently unconcerned at his downfall

“Must you be so dramatic?” Mrs. Butterworth asked. “The dear man will think you’re a Methodist.”

Hamish blinked.

“We’re not Methodists,” Mrs. Butterworth said in a voice obviously meant to be reassuring, though she made no move to assist her husband from his newfound perch on top of Hamish’s body.

“The denomination you subscribe to is of no concern,” Hamish said.

This time even Mrs. Butterworth gasped. Hamish had the distinct feeling he’d said the wrong thing. The wind continued to bluster, slamming against him, as if deciding to thrash him even if Mr. Butterworth had decided to postpone his pummeling.

“Where is my daughter?” Mr. Butterworth bellowed, shifting his position, as if rallying each serving he’d ever eaten, each mince pie, each marzipan delicacy, each marmalade tartlet, to harm Hamish.

Hamish hesitated.

Georgiana wouldn’t want him to admit her location.

“She’s—er—not here,” Hamish lied.

Mr. Butterworth’s face darkened. “Just because I have pince-nez and cannot see with them off, does not mean that I can’t see with them on. I saw my daughter. She was just speaking with you. And then she ran away. Where is she?”

“I—” Hamish swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. I-I couldn’t say where she is.”

“She ran away, darling,” Mrs. Butterworth explained, as if that could possibly explain anything. “Perhaps she was desirous of exercise.”

“Yes,” Hamish nodded eagerly.

“That’s nonsense,” Mr. Butterworth said. “My daughter is a civilized woman, not given to fits of spontaneous running.”

“Habits can always be formed, my dear.” Mrs. Butterworth’s voice was soothing, like the mother he’d wished he had had, like the mother he would never have.

“She is obviously running away from this man.” Mr. Butterworth pointed a finger at Hamish, and he shrank back. “You stole our daughter.”

Stealing wasn’t the right word.

Hamish hadn’t kidnapped her.

He hadn’t known she was in his coach.

But Mr. Butterworth needed someone to dislike now, and Hamish could be that person.

Hamish looked around, wondering if Mr. Butterworth intended to drag him into the blacksmith’s shop and have the blacksmith thrust fiery things in his face until Mr. Butterworth had managed to wrangle his daughter to return so they might marry.

I would be happy to do so.

But Mr. Butterworth did no such thing.

“You’re going to listen to me,” Mr. Butterworth said, articulating each word expertly, despite the wind and stomp of horses’ hooves about them. “You are going to go back to the Highlands, up onto your craggy peak, with only goats and ruins to keep you company, and you are never going to mention to anyone that you traveled alone with my daughter.”

“You’re not going to make them marry?” Mrs. Butterworth’s voice was mournful. “This is the ideal spot to do so. And elopements are so en vogue now. She will be quite fashionable when she returns to society.”

“As I said in the coach,” Mr. Butterworth huffed, and Hamish had the impression that they’d had this conversation many times before, “I am not forcing my daughter to wed anyone. I, for one, have read Mary Wollstonecraft and I refuse to subjugate my daughter to anything dreadful.”

“But marriage!” Mrs. Butterworth wailed. “How could that be considered dreadful?”

Mr. Butterworth refrained from reconsidering the merits of marriage. “Georgiana fled. She obviously considers this man to be no friend, much less her perpetual mate.”

The words should not have been particularly brutal. They contained not a single curse, and he knew he should be grateful that Mr. Butterworth made no demand for a marriage between Hamish and his daughter. Many members of the ton would have desired that their fathers-in-law shared his characteristics. And yet, Hamish’s only emotion was grief.

He struggled from Mr. Butterworth’s clasp. “I’ll—er—go to the inn across the road. If you need me, well, I’ll be there.”

And then he left.

Hamish had been injured in the war before, and had found the experience to be excruciating and best forgotten, even though his body had healed, unlike the new Duke of Alfriston’s leg. Still, the sudden pain that jolted through his body seemed entirely comparable. But unlike when a bullet had entered his right arm and another piece of shrapnel had entered his left arm, he knew that he could not simply wait for the surgeon and time to do their work.

His heart wouldn’t stop aching, no matter how often those trained with medical expertise examined it.

Because Georgiana had run away from him.

He removed his purse and took out the ring that he’d picked up in Gretna Green earlier that day. The perfect sapphire stone set on the shimmering silver band seemed foolish, and he tucked it back into his purse.

He’d been trying to propose to Georgiana, but it seemed like she’d given him her answer.

He strode rapidly away from Georgiana’s parents. He’d imagined, evidently with great foolishness that they might become his parents.

They were warm and kind hearted. Well. Neither word seemed to describe their current behavior toward him, but that was easily ascribed to the fact that they were also fiercely protective of Georgiana.

Would his own parents have been as protective toward him, if they had lived? He already knew that they had been neither warm nor kind hearted, though perhaps that had more to do with him than with them. Perhaps if he’d been different, his early memories of his time at Montgomery Castle would not be confined to the nursery and his nursemaids.

After all the only people who had shown him affection—Lord and Lady McIntyre—had been wrong to do so. Even though he had known how important it was for them that the Montgomery and McIntyre family might be officially joined together, he hadn’t been able to convince his very own brother to fulfil the vow. What use was he?

He wanted his brother to be happy and not regret a life he’d happened upon through rash impulsivity. Perhaps Callum had found happiness. Hamish had been foolish to dream that he could find the same happiness.

He ambled through the village, passing low half-timbered homes with heavy thatched roofs. When he’d visited this morning he’d been full of hope, imagining ridiculous thoughts for the future. He’d pondered whether Georgiana might enjoy decorating their home, so that her parents might have a place to stay should they decide to visit for long periods of time.

They wouldn’t visit.

They didn’t even desire his help now.

And she’s gone.