To Kiss a Highland Rose (Kiss the Wallflower #6) - Tamara Gill Page 0,42

can live a happy marriage and not care what their opinion is."

For the first time in what felt like weeks, she smiled. Julia was so very smart and insightful. When one was melancholy and unable to see straight through their pain, she was always the one friend who was honest and offered a different point of view.

Not that Elizabeth had not been hoping, wondering the same thing, but it was nice to hear it from someone else all the same.

She would face talk, snickers, and giggles as she walked by, reactions she had come to loathe after her embarrassing Season, but she could survive it. With Sebastian by her side, with his support and love, she could sustain anything.

"I need time to think all of this through, to decide what I wish to do." Elizabeth pulled Julia into a quick embrace. "Thank ye for coming down here to see me. To tell me what ye have. You are the best of friends."

"I want ye to be happy, Elizabeth, and something tells me that yer heart too was touched with Lord Hastings. Without him, I fear you will never be content. Think about everything I said, decide your path. As I declared earlier, Georgina and I will be there for ye, no matter your choice."

"Thank ye," she said, more grateful than Julia would ever know for her insight. "I know that ye do."

Sebastian could not stay in Edinburgh long. The Season held no appeal for him or the city now that Elizabeth was not within its walls. He traveled down to Bragdon Manor, took daily walks, and thought over how he could win her back.

So far, he'd failed at the task. Any way he looked at his predicament, a solution, nothing proved he loved her more than the estate.

The way he set out to win Elizabeth had been wrong, ungentlemanly, and cruel. Of course, he'd never meant for her to find out. That idea more than imperative after he realized he was falling in love with her.

A foolish ideal that would never happen. Not with her brother knowing the truth and seeing his motives.

Now that she did know his motives, he would forever be frowned upon in her family if he ever came within a foot of them again. After the laird's dismissal of him, Elizabeth's too, he doubted that would ever occur.

"Damn it all to hell." He swiped a long stick he held in his hand over the tall grass he was walking through on the boundary of his estate and Elizabeth's. He'd found out by a footman that she was in residence there, alone. Her friend Lady Julia had visited last week but had returned to town after staying but a few days.

He stopped, staring over toward his childhood home, watching as the afternoon sun made the west-facing windows reflect the golden rays. Several chimneys bore smoke, a homely, welcoming place he had to admit he no longer cared too much about.

What he cared about was the woman who sat within its walls. What was she thinking? Had she calmed down somewhat after the explosive truth had ruined what had been between them? He did not know, and right at this moment, he was too fearful of finding out. The fear of her reaction of her pushing him away a second time made him want to cast up his accounts. How on earth could he make her see he loved her? Truly loved her and not her inheritance.

A twig cracked somewhere to his right, and he turned to see the startled face of Elizabeth, her bonnet hanging idly in her hand by a blue ribbon. Her light-blue afternoon gown made his heart stutter in his chest.

Hell, he'd missed her. Her beauty, hair hanging loose over her shoulders, held off her face by a few pins, her green eyes wide with shock at seeing him again. He stared at her for a long moment, captivated by her charm. "Lizzie," he said at length, not moving for fear she'd bolt.

"You're at Bragdon Manor?" she asked, glancing quickly toward his estate.

"I am, but not for long. I'm having my things packed and readied for transport to England. I'm selling the property and going back to Nottinghamshire." Lizzie did not deserve to have him living near her in Scotland, certainly if she did not wish him to be near her again. He would honor her wish, give her what she wanted and live in the hope that one day she would forgive him