by Paula Quinn
“Why would it?” he asked with a suggestive quirk of his lips, and finally slipping her a side gaze.
“Because you think I will want to be with you.”
He turned to face her fully. Sensuality deepened the green of his eyes and softened his mouth, making her feel less in control of her senses. “And ye willna want that?”
“Nay, I won’t,” she told him, managing a haughty tilt of her nose. “I don’t want a husband. How many times must I remind you?”
“I’m known to be dense,” he answered pulling her by the hand closer against him. “So ye’re tellin’ me that if I asked fer yer hand, ye’d refuse?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
His low, masculine laugh sent a tingle of fire down her spine. She pulled away, letting go of his hand at the same time.
“You’re the kind of man who gets what he wants,” she said, her eyes shining like polished onyx while his laughter waned into a smile. “Is it hard not having me?”
He stopped smiling altogether and reached her in two steps. “Aye, ’tis.” He pulled her into his arms, staring into her eyes as if daring her to stop him. She didn’t. She let his mouth cover hers with full, lush dominance. His arms closed around her and dragged her closer as his kiss deepened and she went weak in his embrace.
He kissed her with slow, titillating abandon, his mouth moving over hers with masterful leisure. He rubbed his palms over the swell of her buttocks, making her want to wedge her hips against his and feel his surging power. She opened again and again to his plundering tongue, running her palms down the sides of his face. She wanted him to never let her go, to kiss her just like this until their days ran out.
“Patrick,” she breathed out on a lusty sigh, breaking their kiss. She wouldn’t tell him what her heart was shouting. Proclaiming her love for him was the worst thing she could do.
“We should get back,” she said against his lips, plump and red from so much kissing.
She leaned against his chest, drawing on her last reserves of energy to straighten up. “Duff will be looking for us.”
He didn’t try to stop her when she turned and started back toward the others. She wished he would have. She wished he didn’t care if Duff found them locked in another embrace and accused them before her father so that they had to wed.
But apparently he did care.
She turned the bend and waved at Elsie in the distance. And what about her sister? Who was Elsie’s mystery man? Charlie had to find out. Did this man know of Elsie’s ailment? Did he plan on taking care of her?
“Yer brother wasna lookin’.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Patrick coming up behind her and then returned her gaze to the blanket and to Duff sitting with the children gathered around him.
Duff had been following her to taverns. He likely knew about her thievery and visits to the Wallaces. “’Tis odd,” she said softly as Patrick came up beside her. “He never let me out of his sight when one of my father’s husband-hopefuls tried to court me. Yet he would trust you alone with me.” She cast Patrick a curious glance. “Why do you suppose that is?”
He flashed her a guileless smile. “My endearing qualities?”
She rolled her eyes at him but had to laugh. He certainly lacked no confidence in himself.
“That,” he continued as they walked, “and because I asked him if I could.”
She slowed her pace and his as well when she pulled on his léine. “Could what?”
He looked at her and his smile warmed into something more meaningful. “Court ye, lass.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
They remained at the river for another pair of hours, picking berries, skipping rocks, and catching various bugs.
Patrick no longer questioned his sanity. He’d known he lost it days ago. He was surprised though at how quickly it had abandoned him. Enough to admit to her that he’d asked Duff for his permission to court her. Whatever it meant as far as his heart went, she knew it now too. He was losing fast.
Instead, he reveled in the children’s laughter. They took turns riding on his shoulders or tackling him when he took a moment from their exuberant energy to rest. When they weren’t climbing on him, they were begging Duff to spin them in circles or sparring with him with short branches. Jamie, small as he was, possessed an extra store of fearless bravado while he swung his thin “sword” at Duff’s kneecaps. Charlie’s brother appeared happier than Patrick had seen him so far. It seemed Charlie’s forgiveness had given him some of the redemption he needed.
Patrick watched Charlie and Elsie traipsing through the grass, hot on Nonie’s heels while she chased a yellow butterfly, and he wondered what his life would be like with them in it. What would it be like to have bairns of his own? He’d never thought about being a father before he met Duff—and the facts of what Patrick could have left in his wake became clear. Or was it Charlie who stirred in him this deeply rooted desire to sire a child? If he decided to bring her to Camlochlin would his kin accept her? Could they forgive the Cunninghams for what they’d done to the son of Isobel Fergusson’s favorite brother?
Soon it was time to bring the children back to their parents. He hated to see the day end, but he was ready to find Kendrick and bring him back to his father.
Any decisions and confessions to be made after that could wait.
He was stuffing leftovers into his saddlebag when he heard a woman shouting in the distance.
“Mary?” Charlie dropped the blanket she was folding and took off.
Hell. It was Mary. Patrick left what he was doing and pointed to Elsie. “Keep the babes here with ye. Let no’ one oot of yer sight.”
He ran, hearing Duff doing the same. What had happened to make Mary run all the way here? It had to be Robbie. Hell. Patrick hoped it wasn’t Robbie.
“’Tis Robbie!” Mary confirmed by crying out as they grew closer. “My Robbie is dead!”
Elsie’s breath had grown short soon after Mary’s arrival. Duff returned her to Cunningham House with strict instructions on how to prepare her butterbur tea.
For a few moments on the trip back Patrick thought about leaving. He’d spent the day with these babes, watching them laugh and play. Now, he was going to have to watch them weep for their father.
But that thought didn’t last long before he felt thankful that he was here with them. That Charlie was here and Mary wasn’t alone. They’d help this family through it.
He still didn’t know what had happened. He learned from Mary between her sobs, that her husband had simply collapsed. He’d cried out and clutched his chest and then fell to the floor dead.
According to her, he was still there. In the kitchen, at the foot of his chair.
When they reached the house, Patrick helped Mary and the children dismount and then informed Charlie that he was going inside. “Keep them oot here with ye fer a bit, aye, lass?”
She nodded and gathered Mary and the children around her when she sat on the grass.
Patrick entered the house and hurried to the kitchen. He pushed the table away and bent to Robbie’s body. There was a chance he was still alive. Patrick pressed his ear to Robbie’s chest, listened, and then cursed the booming silence. He didn’t want the children to see their father this way, so he fit his arms under Robbie’s shoulders and knees and lifted him up. He carried him into the backyard and set him down gently on the grass. Damnation, he thought, while he straightened and headed for a line of fresh linens blowing in the breeze. How was this family going to survive without a husband and father to see to them?
He yanked on a bedsheet, pulling it from the line, and covered Robbie’s body with it. He would enlist Duff’s help to bury him tomorrow.
When he returned to the kitchen, he pressed his hands to the table and let his head sink between his shoulders. He remained that way while a sickening wave of heat coursed through him and stole his breath.
He thought of the babes outside the next door. Of Nonie and her nightmares, s
purred by Hendry’s punishment of her father. He closed his eyes in defense of the burning sensation behind them.
“Patrick?”
He opened his eyes and saw Charlie standing across the table, her large eyes glistened with unshed tears in the candlelight.
“Mary asks that you tell them. She cannot.”
He shook his head, afraid to speak and hear the quaver in his voice.
“I will help you, Patrick,” she said, stepping around the table and reaching for his arm. “Come, Mary needs us.”
He ground his jaw and bit out an oath under his breath. He wasn’t a champion…a hero. He’d never wanted this kind of weight on his shoulders.
“Patrick.”
He nodded and pushed off the table. He’d let his heart open to this family. Nonie and her brothers had snatched it when he wasn’t paying attention.
When he stepped outside, they ran to him. He sat on the small stair at the entrance and closed his arms around Nonie and Jamie when they crawled atop his knees.
“I have sad news fer ye, children. Now I know ye’re just babes, but yer mother is goin’ to need ye to be strong fer her, aye?”
When they all nodded, he looked up at Charlie and grinded his jaw. She offered him the scantest of smiles. It gave him the strength he needed to continue.
The children didn’t cry as much as he’d feared and he suspected they didn’t fully understand. He carried Nonie and Jamie to the kitchen where Charlie began preparing their supper.
Dusk had settled and no one ventured into the yard. The children could say their farewells at the gravesite in the morn. There was no need for them to see him under a bedsheet.
“We’ll stay here with ye tonight, Mary,” Patrick told her after the children were asleep and the house was quiet. “Yer husband will have a proper burial tomorrow. We’ll see to it.”
Mary nodded and wiped her nose. “I want to say farewell to him now. Take me to him, please.”
Patrick rose from his chair and after a glance toward Charlie, lit a lantern, and escorted Mary outside.
When Robbie’s covered body came into view, Mary wept and held onto Patrick’s arm. He helped her go to her husband and then backed away from her when she fell to her knees.
Illuminated by his lantern set beside her, Patrick watched her. This was what love did. It broke a person to pieces. He’d seen it before. His father had nearly lost his mind when his beloved Isobel suffered a particularly bad breathing attack and she turned blue-gray in his arms. And again when his aunt Davina had become ill and his uncle Rob carried her frail body around the halls expressing his love in quiet whispers breathed into her hair. No one in Camlochlin had believed he’d recover without her.
But watching Mary speak her soft farewells to her husband pierced him in the heart like nothing before it.
He heard Charlie’s approach and turned to kiss her brow when she rested her head on his arm. Sharing this moment with her felt deeper and more intimate than anything he’d ever felt before. It made his hands shake and his guts ache.
They remained silent while Mary wept and finally bid her last farewell.
He stepped back when Charlie gathered her friend up and helped her back to the house.
Patrick watched them go, the world, as he knew it, shifting from its place. How could he leave now? Mary’s rent didn’t get paid even with a husband. How would she manage all their lives on her own? How would Charlie ever leave if she gave every coin she had to help?
What the hell had he gotten himself into? It was his fault for staying so long and getting attached to these people.
He’d always run from the duty of being responsible for others. He had no idea how to react to the change. He could flee now—just run to his horse and go, leaving this all behind. Or he could return to the house and face the challenge head-on. His decision wouldn’t only affect the six people inside, but Cameron’s son would never be returned to him if Patrick left. Duff would never know his father, or Will, his son. But nothing made his decision easier than the thought of what Hendry would do to these women. To the babes.
He straightened his shoulders and moved to stand over Robbie Wallace. “I’ll take care of things, Robbie. Ye rest now.”
His hands were still shaking as he headed back.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Charlie left the house and drew in a fresh breath of air. She had to get away, just for a few moments. She’d sat with Mary in her small bedroom off the kitchen and soothed her for hours. Her heart broke for her friend and she suffered through the same fears about Hendry that Patrick had. She’d thought about it all night. She needed to be outside, to smell the night blossoms and gaze at the stars, remembering that there was a Master Plan for everything.
She looked toward the fields in the distance, dipped softly in moonlight, and started toward them.
She hadn’t seen Patrick for hours and guessed he slept in the chair by the children’s bed. Just as well. She didn’t want to saddle him with her troubling thoughts. Why hadn’t he left? Any other man would have taken off by now.
She was halfway across the field, thinking about how thankful she was that he was still here when the sound of a horse’s hooves pounding the earth was suddenly upon her.
“Hell, lass!” Patrick tugged on his reins, stopping his mount just inches away, and swung his leg over the saddle. “I nearly rode straight into ye!”
She opened her mouth in defense and then shut it again when he dropped to his boots before her, close enough to overpower her senses. The scent of the earth wafted off him and saturated her, the touch of his breath across her cheek wielding a flame across her spine.
“Where are ye off to this time?” he demanded, his smoldering gaze burning holes in all her defenses.
She held herself rigid, steady. When had she given him this much power over her?
“I don’t like your tone.” She stepped around him and continued on her way.
He caught up, leaving his horse where he’d stopped it, and blocked her path. “Ye dinna like the tone of concern?”
“I’ve been coming out here alone at night for years, Patrick.” She tried to step around him but he moved with her and she walked into his chest. “I won’t stop because of your disapproval,” she said breaking free.
“I dinna disapprove of yer courage and steadfastness to see to yer sister’s needs and risk yer life fer a year and a half,” he told her. “I just dinna think ye use enough caution in yer much sought after freedom, and it concerns me. It might no’ seem as dangerous here as ’tis in other places, but have ye fergotten aboot the Dunbars’ attack?”
What other places? Charlie wondered. Did he mean wherever he thought she was going when she left Pinwherry behind? Was he telling her that it wasn’t Camlochlin? The way he’d spoken of it that day in Robbie and Mary’s kitchen made her imagine an impenetrable fortress far into the clouds, hidden from the world. No doubt there, where values and integrity were nourished, a lass was in no danger walking alone at night. His other places didn’t include his home.
She tried not to let her disappointment escape her lips when she replied. “I wouldn’t wander off in places I don’t know. And of course, I remember the Dunbars’ attack. I’m not an imbecile.” She gave him a pointed stare and rested her palms on her hips. “Do you remember the man I took down in Blind Jack’s?”
“Och, hell, ye’re stubborn.”
She moved around him again and felt a smile creep along her lips in the dim light. She concerned him. All hope of going to Camlochlin wasn’t gone.
“Where are you coming from?” she asked him when he appeared at her side. “Are you going to Dumfries to get him?”
“Nae. Kendrick…” he said and paused to give her a pointed gaze, “…will have to wait. Accordin’ to Duff, Hendry has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
Patrick held his arms out. “’Tis what I was told. He left sometime this morn and hasna returned.”
“He doesn’t want
to bring him back,” she muttered in a low voice. Hendry was so much like their father. “Why would he want to help you? He—” He’d been to the house? “How is—”
“Elsie is well,” he told her. “I checked on her first.”
She could just make out his irresistible grin under the stars.
“In fact, she is the reason I went back. ’Twas late and I saw no reason to wake ye. Even if Hendry hadn’t run off, I would no’ have gone to Dumfries tonight but would have returned to ye.”
He’d gone to check on Elsie? He would have returned to her? Blazes, how was she supposed to resist falling in love with him? But did he love her? Why would he? What made her different from the others? Mayhap she was no different at all.
“I wasn’t asleep,” she said softly, too weary to think on it all now. “Mary fell asleep a short time ago. I just needed some air.”
Patrick turned and whistled for his horse. The beast came without hesitation. Charlie wished her horse would do the same, but she guessed Patrick needed his ride always ready to make quick escapes. She didn’t.
She watched him pull something from his saddlebag and then turn back to her holding up the folded blanket. “Just us this time.”
Her heart went warm and when he moved closer and closed his arm around her shoulder, she sank into his strong arm and rested her head on his chest.
“Are ye cold, lass?”
She closed her eyes, loving the sound of his voice, the feel of his arm around her, his body warming her. “Nay, I’m not cold.”
They walked that way together across the field to the heather-lined muirs beyond. She likely wouldn’t have come this far alone in the dark. Traveling to pubs in other villages was a necessity. She’d had no choice. Venturing so far off for pleasure was different. But Patrick was here and she felt safe.
In fact, she felt every concern melt away when a cool breeze filled her lungs with the fragrance of heather. Shafts of waning moonlight speared the gossamer mist drifting across the muirs and fell on pools of silvery-purple blossoms and glistening dewdrops.