given her pleasure. But he’d never given her his heart. In fact, he’s given her his staunch resolve that it wasn’t his to give.
She’d thought she was all right with that. And she probably would have been, had Miss Sewell not sauntered into Alec’s parlor, reminding Sorcha that one woman’s blood was as good as another’s. She was nothing special to Alec, and she never would be. And she didn’t think she could live with that after all.
Alec hadn’t asked her father for her hand yet. There was still time to undo what hadn’t yet been done. Sorcha knocked on the roof of the carriage and called out to Renshaw to take her to the Westfields’ instead of driving her home. Perhaps Elspeth could heal a broken heart before it shattered into a million pieces.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As soon as Sorcha spotted Westfield Manor through the coach window, she took a calming breath. More than anything in the world, she wanted Elspeth to wrap her in comforting warmth. She wanted the healer to ease all her pain. She wanted to feel happy. Or to feel nothing at all.
Nothing was preferable to the dull ache that slowly constricted her heart.
The carriage rumbled up the stony drive and Sorcha closed her eyes, feeling every bump until the conveyance finally came to a stop. The coachman opened the door and offered Sorcha his hand. Worry lined the man’s face, and she tried her best to assure him with a smile. “Thank ye for everythin’, Renshaw. Ye should probably head back ta Mr. Macleod’s. I think I’ll be here a while and then I’ll return in Lord Benjamin’s carriage.”
“Is everything all right, Miss Ferguson?”
Oh, she wished he hadn’t asked that. Tears stung the backs of her eyelids. “Aye. Just please doona mention any of this ta Lord Eynsford.” Cait would know anyway, and that was awful enough.
Reluctantly, the coachman nodded. Then Sorcha scurried past him up the stone steps to the large oak door. Before she could even knock, the Westfields’ young butler opened the door. “Miss Ferguson! I had no idea ye were back home.” He held the door wide. “Come in, come in, lass.”
She crossed the threshold and tried to smile at the exuberant butler. “Please tell me Lady Elspeth is in, Burns.”
It would be just her luck to show up here and have Elspeth aiding a midwife on the other side of town.
He winked at her and shut the front door. “Her ladyship is in the nursery, Miss Ferguson.”
The nursery. Thank heavens she was home. “I ken the way, Burns. I’ll surprise her, if ye doona mind.”
Burns nodded; warmth and cheer nearly radiated from him. “I think she would like that, lass.”
Sorcha climbed two sets of stairs and wound her way down one corridor and then one more before finally reaching the massive nursery. One would think Lord Benjamin planned on raising an entire pack of Lycans from the sheer size of the room. Thus far, he had only filled it with a fiery-haired witch-to-be, a tiny one at that. From the doorway, Sorcha heard little Rose Westfield’s childish giggle, and the sound nearly brought her to tears, though she wasn’t certain why.
She must have made some sort of anguished sound because an instant later, Elspeth stood just inside the nursery, concern etched across her brow. “Sorcha!” she wailed, her red locks bouncing about her shoulders.
“Havers! I thought ye were in Kent.”
Kent, where all her plans for a Lycan-filled future had gone awry. Sorcha couldn’t hold back the tears any longer, not when she was standing so close to the one witch who had always seemed like more than a coven sister. Sobs so deep that Sorcha didn’t know where they came from threatened to cleave her in two. Elspeth caught her and held her close.
“Oh, Sorcha! What is it, love?” the healer crooned.
“Surely it canna be this bad.”
But it was every bit as bad as that and worse. Sorcha couldn’t even speak. She wanted to, but words just wouldn’t come. All she could do was sob.
Then the baby started to cry too. A second later, quick footsteps pounded up the staircase. “Ellie!” Lord Benjamin called from somewhere below. “What the devil?”
“It’s Sorcha,” Elspeth called back, smoothing a hand down Sorcha’s back. “I think Rose is cryin’ sympathetically. Come and take her, will ye?”
Havers! Sorcha didn’t want Lord Benjamin to see her like this. She tried to stop her own crying, which only made her hiccup loudly. It was one thing for Elspeth