He would be like his doomed brother.
Patrick’s fight to reclaim his land would never end until once again it belonged to the MacGregors, but it would not be won at the cost of the woman he loved.
Wincing, he thought of the argument they’d had before he was captured. He might not yet have had the chance to convince her of his love, but he’d spend the rest of his life proving it.
He thought of all Lizzie had been willing to give up for him; he would do no less for her.
No smile marred the hard set of Campbell’s jaw. “Even if it is the best thing for Lizzie?”
“Who are you to judge what is best for your sister?”
“Apparently,” Campbell intoned darkly, “I’m the only person thinking rationally around here. God’s blood, did you see her? Gowned in rags, bedraggled, weary to the point of exhaustion, looking as if she’d been through hell the past few days?”
Patrick clenched his jaw against the accusations, but she had been through hell.
“If you care for her, you will not drag her under with you. You will not see her denied the life that should be hers.”
Patrick could see where this conversation was going, but damned if he would give her up without a fight. “It’s her choice to make.”
The other man was fast losing his patience. He stood up from the chair and strode toward the bed, all pretense of equanimity gone. But if Campbell thought to intimidate him, he was dead wrong. Patrick stood and met him eye to eye.
“You might make her happy now,” Campbell thundered. “But how happy will she be in a few years after hardship has worn her down? I don’t know what my cousin will do, but would you have her risk losing everything?”
Patrick stiffened, knowing he’d argued much the same to himself. “Is this what she wants?”
“She’s confused right now. She doesn’t know what she wants. But if you walk away now, she will recover.”
Patrick flexed his jaw. “Let me talk to her.”
“You’ll only make it harder.” Campbell paused and then said quietly, “If you truly care for her, as I think you do, you’ll do the right thing. Doesn’t she deserve better?”
Truth twisted like a knife in the gut. Campbell was only saying what Patrick already knew and had tried to ignore. She deserved everything, and a man who could give it to her. But he was so damn tired of trying to do the right thing.
Lizzie …
His heart cried out for her. She was all he wanted.
“Even if I agreed, what makes you think she will accept it?” Patrick was grasping, but if there was anything he’d learned about Lizzie, it was that she had a mind of her own.
“If you know my sister as well as I think you do, you will know the answer to that.”
The land. Jamie would make it look as if all he’d wanted had been the land. Patrick wanted to think that she wouldn’t believe it of him, but after their last conversation, when she’d discovered that he’d witnessed her humiliation, she was vulnerable. Maybe even vulnerable enough to believe it. “She’ll hate me,” Patrick said dully.
For a moment, he thought he saw a streak of compassion in Campbell’s granite gaze. “Aye, but it’s for the best.”
It might be for the best, but it didn’t stop Patrick from feeling that he’d just had his heart eviscerated from his chest with a rusty, jagged blade.
Never had he felt so empty. It was as if the last light had gone out of him—and the hope that something good might come out of this bungled situation, extinguished.
Chest burning with emotion and not trusting himself to speak, Patrick nodded.
“I’m sorry, lass, but he’s gone,” Jamie said.
No. Every instinct rejected what her brother was saying. It can’t be true.
Lizzie sat in an upstairs chamber of the drover’s inn near Callander, where she’d been awaiting news of Patrick since Jamie’s men had pulled her off him on the field near Balquhidder. Stunned, she stared at her brother. “Tell me again—everything—that he said.”
“I offered him the tenancy of the land near Loch Earn and his freedom if he would repudiate the handfast,” Jamie repeated. “He accepted.”
“Just like that?” He wouldn’t have left me without saying anything. Though her pride had been wounded by what she’d discovered, his last words had resonated: Can you really doubt my feelings for you? Deep in her heart, she couldn’t. Lizzie shook her head, refusing to believe it. “You must have misunderstood.”
Patrick would never give up that easily, unless … No. He cares about me.
Poor, pathetic … She wanted to close her eyes and put her hands over her ears to block out the memories. But there was just enough doubt lingering from the discovery that what he’d seen that day might have caused him to target her as an easy mark.
Jamie gave her a sympathetic look, though he would never understand the pain he’d just unwittingly inflicted. “I’m sure he cares for you, lass, but the land was what he wanted—isn’t that what you told me?”
Unable to speak, she nodded. She’d told Jamie what had happened, how Patrick had sought her out for her land. But I didn’t mean it. I thought …
She looked to her brother, hoping to find a kernel of hope to hold on to, but the sympathy in his eyes only made it worse.
Jamie loved her too much. He was so overly protective of her. Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t force him to agree to this, did you?”
Jamie arched a brow, a wry look on his face, as if he wanted to be offended but knew he couldn’t be. “I didn’t need to.”
Her heart squeezed at the blunt honesty. It hadn’t been only about the land … had it? To the last, she’d wanted to think she’d been wrong about his motives. But he hadn’t stayed to convince her or make her forgive him. “Why didn’t he come see me and tell me himself?”
“I’m sure he thought it would be easier this way. A clean break.”
She made a sharp scoffing sound. A clean break? As if it were something as inconsequential as a bone and not her heart that had been broken. “What if I don’t want a clean break? I have a year—”
“Is that what you want, Lizzie? To drag this out? To run after a man …”
Lizzie sucked in her breath. She gazed up at her brother, horrified. The blood drained from her face. To run after a man who has made it very clear that I’m not important enough to him. That was what Jamie was trying to say. Humiliation crawled over her in a mottled flush. Was that what she’d been doing, throwing herself at a man who didn’t want her?
She’d practically asked him to marry her. Looking back at it now, she saw that her well-constructed argument had been just as much about what she could bring him as it had been about her.
But he said he loved me.
The cold, hard truth hit her square in the chest. Even if he did love her, it hadn’t been enough. He’d taken the land and his freedom and left her behind with nary a fare-thee-well.
Jamie came over to stand beside her, placing his hand on her shoulder consolingly. “With what has happened between our clans, I can’t say I blame him, Lizzie. Can you?”
Tears blurred her eyes, and she shook her head. She’d been thunderstruck to learn the truth from Jamie. Patrick’s accusations against her cousin and Colin had been horribly accurate. Though Jamie had no idea of their cousin’s intentions when he’d negotiated the surrender of Alasdair MacGregor and his men, Archie had played them false and sent them to their deaths. And just as horribly, Colin was indeed responsible for the rape of Patrick’s sister.
The thought that her own brother …
She shuddered, utterly repulsed and shamed.
The actions of her kinsmen were appalling. After what they did, how could she blame Patrick for not wanting to tie himself to a Campbell?
“You won’t pursue this, will you, Lizzie?” Jamie asked.
Lizzie’s heartbeat drummed in her ears. Everything she’d always wanted was slipping through her fingers like rain through a sieve. A husband. A fami
ly. A dream lost. For having been in love, she knew marriage without it would be impossible.
She gazed at her brother through watery eyes, knowing what she had to do. Even if they couldn’t be together, she couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to him. She would do what she could to keep him safe. “On one condition,” she said thickly.
Jamie eyed her warily. “What’s that?”
“He won’t just have his freedom for now, I want Archie to see to it that he is pardoned in full.”
Jamie gave her a long look and then nodded.
It was done.
Her chest, her throat, and her eyes burned with the knowledge that it was truly over. With a Campbell and a MacGregor, how could any ending other than heartbreak and disappointment ever be possible?
The pain was unbearable: Tears streamed from her eyes, and her shoulders were racked with heart-wrenching sobs torn from the depths of her soul.
Jamie pulled her from her chair and held her against his chest, stroking her hair. “Come, lass, I’ll take you home. You’ll see, you’ll forget about him in no time.”
That’s where Jamie was wrong. Lizzie would never forget about him. She would love Patrick Murray, née MacGregor, for the rest of her life.
Chapter 22
From the window in the small seating area off her bedchamber, Lizzie gazed out at the Kyle below, her eyes scanning the icy gray waters and snow-covered banks, and then, unwittingly, they turned north. Though the hills she’d traversed with Patrick couldn’t be seen from Dunoon, she knew they were there.
He was there.
The sharp pang of longing had yet to dull. The tightness squeezed her chest and cut off her breath. She fought back the viselike grip of loneliness and despair.
Unconsciously, she wrapped the plaid she wore around her shoulders a little tighter. It was the same one pulled from Patrick’s horse before their flight into the wilderness all those weeks ago. Though winter had set in all around the Highlands, it was not the cold she sought to ward off. Somehow, the raggedy plaid made her feel closer to him.
She lowered her head to her shoulder and nuzzled the scratchy wool against the side of her cheek. Every now and then, she would catch the faintest scent of pine and spice lingering in the rough woolen threads. She inhaled deeply and sighed with disappointment. Not today.
The memories were painful, but she held on to them because they were all she had.
A whisper of a smile lifted the corners of her mouth. Her hands dropped to her belly. Perhaps not all.
Lizzie closed her eyes and prayed that her suspicions were correct. The subtle roundness and the fact that she hadn’t bled in weeks gave her every reason to hope.
A child.
His child.
The part of him that she carried around in her heart would not be left alone to die and wither into bitterness and regret but would blossom with the new life she carried inside her.
For the first time since that horrible day four weeks ago when he’d left her without a word, Lizzie felt a ray of happiness slice through the miserable shadows of darkness.
She turned at the sound of a door opening, surprised to see her brother entering the room, and not far behind him, his furious, albeit stunningly beautiful, wife.
Jamie hesitated at the door, and with two hands pressed against his back, Caitrina pushed him unceremoniously into the room. Hands on her hips and just noticeably pregnant belly jutting forward, she glared at her husband and then back to Lizzie. “Your brother has something to say to you.”
Though Lizzie had been at Dunoon with Jamie and Caitrina for over a month, this was the first time she’d caught a glimpse of the Caitrina Lamont of the infamous spitfire reputation. Lizzie had been charmed by the sweet girl who’d lost so much and yet had loved Jamie enough to forgive him for the destruction wrought on her clan. But there was no sign of that forgiveness right now. With her flashing eyes and furious expression, she looked part wildcat—ready to tear him apart with her tiny claws.
Lizzie frowned, wondering what Jamie had done to provoke such a reaction in his wife. It amused her to see Jamie so disconcerted. Caitrina was good for him. The changes in her brother had not gone unnoticed. He seemed lighter now—not so serious and unyielding.
Lizzie also had Caitrina to thank for Jamie’s apparent softening of his stance against the MacGregors. So caught up in her own pain, Lizzie hadn’t thought about what her brother had actually done in allowing Patrick—chief of the outlawed clan—to go free. Initially, Colin and her cousin Argyll had been furious, but after a few hours in the laird’s solar with Jamie, her cousin had changed his mind. Argyll had traveled to London not long after they’d arrived at Dunoon (much to Caitrina’s relief), and Colin had returned briefly after the short trial where Gregor and his men had been sentenced to death then disappeared.
If she’d needed any further proof of the love Jamie bore his wife, however, she’d received it when she heard what he’d done in allowing Caitrina’s outlaw brother Niall to “escape.” No one escaped her brother—ever. That he’d allowed Niall to do so demonstrated Jamie’s fair-mindedness to the plight not only of the Lamonts, but of the MacGregors as well.
With Niall Lamont on the loose, Lizzie could understand why Colin had made himself scarce following the executions. If her brother wasn’t worried about Niall or Patrick exacting revenge for what Colin had done to Annie MacGregor, he should be. The irony wasn’t lost on her—the hunter would learn what it felt like to be hunted.
Lizzie dropped the book she’d been reading—or trying to read—into her lap and gazed up at her brother with a questioning look on her face. “What is it, Jamie? Is there news of Duncan?”
She’d been shocked—but enormously pleased—on her return to Dunoon to discover from Jamie that their brother Duncan was rumored to have returned to Scotland. She smiled. Perhaps the blatant nudge in her note about Jeannie Gordon’s recent loss had helped. Jeannie was the woman Duncan had once loved who’d betrayed him—though Lizzie was no longer so sure.
Despite the treason hanging over Duncan’s head, he’d made quite a name for himself as the leader of a fierce group of warriors on the continent. It was about time he returned and proved his innocence. She’d missed him.
Jamie shook his head. “Nay. I’ve sent out scouts, but there’s been no sign of him. It’s probably nothing more than rumor.”
“Then what is the problem?” Lizzie asked.
Her brother gave his wife an angry glance, to which Caitrina responded immediately with one of her own. “I swear I will give you nothing but daughters,” she warned, her voice heavy with foreboding. “So that all of your overbearing, overprotective male ‘wisdom’ can be put to good use.” She smiled wickedly. “Girls. A whole bevy of them. Just like me. For you to worry about and fret over”—her eyes gleamed—“forever.”
Lizzie could have sworn she saw her fierce, not-scared-of-anything brother pale. “What is this about, Jamie?” she asked.
“Tell her,” Caitrina ordered.
Lizzie’s pulse spiked as she waited for him to continue.
Not one to be intimidated, even by the wife he loved, Jamie drew himself up to every inch of his six-foot-plus frame, towering over his petite wife. “I’ll not be raked over the coals, wife, for doing what I think is right. Nor will I apologize for trying to protect someone I love.” Looking none too pleased, he turned to Lizzie. “I was only thinking of your happiness.”
Caitrina’s mouth quirked, and Lizzie could see that she was softening. For all her brother’s fierce overprotectiveness, it was difficult to stay angry with him in the face of such equally fierce emotion.
“Does she look happy?” Caitrina asked softly.
Jamie gave Lizzie a long look. Though she’d been trying to hide it, her unhappiness was palpable. “What I told you about Patrick MacGregor was true,” he said. “However, I did neglect to mention one thing.”
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “And what was that?”
; “When I first offered MacGregor the land and his freedom, he refused. Quite adamantly, actually.”
Lizzie felt as if a weight had just been lifted from her shoulders. He did care for me. I knew I couldn’t have been that wrong. It wasn’t just about the land.
“Then how did you convince him to take the offer?” As if she needed to ask. She glanced at Caitrina in shared understanding.
“We thought—” Jamie started, but was cut off by a sarcastic scoff from his beautiful wife.
“That was your first mistake.”
Lizzie had an inkling of the source of her sister-by-marriage’s irritation and felt her own temper rise. She’d warned Patrick not to make decisions for her, but it seemed he—and her interfering brother—couldn’t resist. Men. Was there a more protective breed around than a proud Highland warrior? “Let me guess. You and Patrick decided that I would be better off not married to a MacGregor—”
“An outlawed MacGregor,” Jamie clarified.
“Not any more,” Lizzie quipped back. “So you decided to make me believe that he didn’t want me.”
Jamie shrugged uncomfortably. “Something to that effect.”
Lizzie felt her face flush with anger. She rose to her feet and crossed the room to stand toe-to-toe with her overbearing lout of a big brother. “How could you! How could you let me sit here in misery for weeks believing that the man I loved cared so little for me that he turned his back on me at the first opportunity? How could you both be so high-handed and cruel? I love him, Jamie. And if that means I live in a hovel, I will gladly do so. Wouldn’t you do as much for your wife?” He had the good grace to grimace guiltily, but Lizzie wasn’t finished. “How could you let my child grow up without a father?”
Jamie swallowed hard with a wince. “Child?”
“Oh, Lizzie, that’s wonderful!” Caitrina exclaimed, rushing over to give her a hug. “When?”
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