Enlightened by Joanna Chambers

Author:Joanna Chambers [Chambers, Joanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Gay, Romance, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781619219809
Google: ILSZAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: B00HVEDKY6
Publisher: Samhain Publishing
Published: 2014-05-06T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

As painful as it was to give Elizabeth the news about her father, David was glad he’d been the one to do it. Glad that he’d been able to sweep her guilty regrets aside and give her the comfort that only someone who knew her father could. It had helped David too, the private sharing of grief between them subtly easing his own sorrow.

By the time Euan returned to the house at six, Elizabeth was calm again, though David thought that Euan looked strained. He entered the tiny kitchen, pulling up short in surprise when he saw David.

“Davy!”

Euan’s incipient smile died on his lips as his gaze turned to Elizabeth and then down to something he held in his hand—a letter. He proffered it to Elizabeth.

“It’s from your sister,” he said gravely. “There was another for me”—he broke off, gaze roaming to David again—“but perhaps the news has preceded me?”

David said nothing. He didn’t need to. Elizabeth had already broken the seal on the letter and was scanning the lines. Her expression remained calm, but he guessed what the letter said from the faint rounding of her shoulders and the lowering of her head.

“He’s gone,” she said. “My father died on Tuesday morning.”

“Oh, Lizzie—”

Euan went to her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head, murmuring endearments and reassurances. If David had been in any doubt about what they were to one another, he could not have remained so after seeing this. He glanced away from them, touched by Euan’s devotion, but also—envious. The envy was a savage, unworthy howl in his breast, and he muzzled it quickly, ruthlessly, appalled at himself.

At length they broke apart, and as Elizabeth wiped her damp cheeks, Euan took the chair beside David at the kitchen table.

“Forgive me, Davy. I’ve barely greeted you.” He smiled a little sadly. “But it’s good to see you again, and looking so well. We were so worried about you, weren’t we, Lizzie?”

Elizabeth said, “I was wretched with worry when I heard you’d been hurt.”

“She felt responsible for your injuries,” Euan added. “And there was nothing I could say to convince her otherwise.”

“You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen,” David said, fixing his gaze on Elizabeth. “No better than I myself did. The truth is, it was down to rotten luck more than anything—not heroics on my part.”

“Don’t say that!” Elizabeth protested. “I know what you did. Euan saw you go after Alasdair. You stopped him getting to me, and in return, he pushed you under that horse.” She swallowed. “You were hurt because of me.”

“Well, now I’m fine,” David said. He meant to sound firm and certain. Instead he sounded surly.

Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment, her expression troubled. Then she said in a small voice, “But you have a cane now.”

The observation hit him like a rock. He had become a man who walked with a cane. David Lauriston, who used to walk twenty miles in a day over the Pentland Hills without giving it a thought.

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