by Paula Quinn
It emboldened her to lean up and pull him out of his shirt. When he helped her rid him of his breeches and boots, she kissed him running her palms over the hard planes of his back, thrilled and apprehensive that they were naked under the sun. She didn’t worry that they would be seen. No one from the village came to the muirs.
They were alone, the only two people in the world, and the world was theirs.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Duff sat in the chair by the bed, wondering if he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by letting Patrick go, and not going after Charlie when he realized that she’d gone after him. If the Fergussons were holding Elsie for ransom, he could have used Patrick as a bargaining piece.
But Charlie was correct. More than likely she would lose them both if he went. He had no choice but to put his trust in a man who had cleverly deceived them.
He was thinking of ways to hurt Patrick if he didn’t return with both his sisters safe and sound. Duff would go to Skye to find him if he had to.
Skye.
He was still thinking of it and Patrick’s promise to bring him there when the man in the bed uttered a word on a soft, crackling voice.
“Wah…gah.”
Duff bolted to his feet. Water! “Aye, aye, ’tis coming.” He hurried to a jug of water and poured a cup. “Her you go, friend.” He held the cup to the man’s lips and slipped his hand behind his head to support him while he drank.
“Not too much now,” Duff told him gently and smiled when the man looked up at him. His eyes were a striking shade of blue against the dingy color of his skin.
Duff looked into them and felt his belly flip enough to make him ill. Where had he seen—?
“Nay,” the man cried out and tried to move his scant body away. His eyes grew even bluer when tears filled them to the brim. “It cannot be you, Duff Cunningham. It cannot be you.”
Duff swallowed and wished he’d gone to church more often. There, he could have learned more about a man coming back to life.
“Kendrick?” Duff’s heart welled over even as his mind refused to believe who he was speaking to. How was it possible? “Kendrick, you’re alive.” He wasn’t dead!
He wasn’t dead!
Patrick’s body was hard and ready to take her, but he wanted to take his time with her. She was an untried virgin just a day ago. He didn’t want to hurt her or make her dislike lovemaking. He intended on making love to her often.
Presently, he basked in the supple fullness of her breasts, shaping them in his hands, kissing each in turn and tugging gently on her tight nipples until she writhed beneath him.
She took her fill of him as well, kissing his chest and biting his shoulder, tempting his restraint to falter.
When she opened her luminous eyes and gazed at him, he felt his heart falter as well. He wanted a life filled with her. Only her.
“Do I truly drive your every ambition?” she asked on a gasp.
“Aye, lass, ye do.”
“Show me.” She smiled and spread her legs high around his waist.
His control snapped. He rose up like some fabled, fiery beast and did as she asked.
He wasn’t sure he could hold himself back with her. A power he had no control over swept across his heart like wind across the muirs. It made him drunk with desire for her, willing to give up all. For her.
He sank into her and stretching over her body, kissed her hungry mouth. He retreated and returned, then had to stop himself.
This was more than he’d ever done before. It meant more to him. Everything to him. He wanted to breathe with her, bind himself to her, brand her as his.
He plunged deeper. She grew warmer and wet around him. He swelled inside her, on the verge of bursting. He dared a look at her and found her glorious head thrown back in ecstasy, her tight, erect nipples pressed to his chest. Hell. He had to stop again.
Lying sill atop her, he smiled when she lifted her head. He moved over her, settling deeper. He couldn’t get deep enough. He kissed her parted lips once, twice. “Ye bring me pleasure, lass, and I’m findin’ it more and more difficult to contain.”
Her haunting lips curled into a smile, captivating him. “What is this power I have over you, MacGregor, that one movement…” She undulated her hips beneath him. “Can tempt you to snap?”
He looked at her, wondering how he’d survived all these years without her. “It must be love,” he whispered, dragging his mouth across hers, and answering her thrust with a long, salacious one of his own.
“Aye.” She closed her eyes and breathed across his lips before he kissed her. “It must be.”
How had it happened? he pondered, drawing his head back to look at her. Love, the thing he feared, had found him. Oddly, he wasn’t afraid anymore. “Ye exhilarate me, Charlie. Ye’re all I need. All I want.”
He made love to her two more times that afternoon. No thing and no one existed, save her, her lithe body pressed to his while he took her from behind on their knees with his mouth at her throat and her breasts in his hands.
He proved to her that she drove his every ambition while she moved, impaled to the hilt, atop him. Och, but that time had been especially exhilarating to watch her thrill at being in control of their pleasure. She moved him, changed him and he never wanted to go back. They found their release together and laughed when it was over.
He held her close in his arms, fully aware of the power of what his heart felt for her.
Gone were the nagging doubts that haunted him before he met her. His convictions had changed and he was glad. In fact, he never felt happier—or more tired. Neither of them had gotten much sleep last night.
They would leave soon, see to the stranger, and then they could both get some sleep.
But not yet. He didn’t want to let her go yet.
How was it possible to bind oneself to another and feel so weightless? Had he ever felt as alive as he did now? Hell, if he’d known love felt like this, he would have considered it sooner. But no. He was glad he discovered it with her.
“Charlie, ye’ve become m’ only love.”
A moment later he realized she was asleep. He held her for a little while longer, but he didn’t want to fall asleep as well. If they slept through the night, Duff would come looking for them, and Patrick didn’t want them found like this.
Smiling, he kissed her head then disengaged himself from her and sat up. He looked around at all the purple and saw it a little differently. He shook his head at himself and chuckled. What the hell kind of pansy had he become to let the sight of heather choke him up? It reminded him of home, and of her. The sight of it anywhere would always bring him back to this place.
He understood now why his grandsire always picked the fragrant shrub for his wife.
Rising to his feet he bent again to pluck a shoot from the ground without losing a single blossom. As a lad, he’d hated his lessons in the heather-carpeted glens outside the castle, but he’d learned the proper way to break the shoot and mastered it until he had nothing left to learn and was set free to cause trouble with his cousins.
He walked around now, picking only the fullest shoots, from pale lilac to deep purple until he had a large bundle clasped in his hand.
He was a MacGregor, after all.
Feverish and foolish, mayhap, but still, a MacGregor.
Charlie dipped her face into the spray of heather clutched in her arms and inhaled. She’d done the like at least seven times on the way back to Mary’s house. It was a tradition for the men in Camlochlin to gather heather as a symbol of love to their wives.
It was a lovely tradition and if she ever heard another unkind word about Patrick’s kin, she would remember only the tales Patrick had told her.
Patrick loved her, she thought, smiling into her heather, loving the feel of his arm around her waist, holding her steady against the swift pace of his horse. He loved her and he found no difficulty telling her how it stunned him.
Poor rogue. He was as innocent about love as sh
e was.
Whatever was going to happen now? She thought she should know for certain, and avoid anything unexpected later.
“I cannot go with you to Camlochlin yet,” she told him, lifting her face from the petals. “I cannot leave everyone…Mary and the children, to Hendry.”
He nodded, his eyes set on the Wallace holding. “I know. We’ll wait until we find a way to keep them all safe.”
“We will?” She gazed up at him. “You’ll stay?”
“Of course I will.” He met her gaze and smiled. “Do ye think I’m goin’ to give up kissin’ ye?”
“What about your family? They will not approve.”
“They will in time.”
“And my father?” she asked him, stopping him with a palm on his chest when he dipped his mouth to hers.
“M’ aunt’s sister is the queen,” he replied with a flash of his dimple. “Yer father willna object to our weddin’.”
His aunt’s sister was who? Their what?
Every other thought fled at his kiss.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Patrick didn’t take Charlie directly to Mary’s, but to Cunningham House first to check on Elsie. Charlie hadn’t seen her sister since yesterday. They’d never gone so long without being together. And there was much Charlie wanted to discuss with her.
But her sister wasn’t in her room, or anywhere else in the house. Panic settled over Charlie quickly. Had Shaw deceived her? While she ran to his parlor to find her father, she wondered how the happiest day of her life could become the worst.
Alice the cook stopped her in the hall. “There you are, Miss,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Your sister said to tell you that she’s with Duff at the Wallace holding, and for you to make haste in getting there.”
“Why? What’s happened?” Charlie’s heart slowed a little, but the very thought of harm coming to her sister made her ill.
Alice shrugged her meaty shoulders and turned to head back to the kitchen.
“Mayhap, ’tis the stranger,” Patrick said behind her. “He may have worsened. We should go.”
Aye. The stranger. Charlie nodded, thankful and guilty for the relief Patrick’s sensible explanation provided. She hoped the man’s condition hadn’t worsened, but she was glad that Elsie was with Duff.
They hurried back to the stable and retrieved Patrick’s stallion. Her own horse would take too long to saddle.
She didn’t realize she was still clutching over a dozen stalks of heather in her arm. She wasn’t about to leave them in the stable for the horses to eat. Besides, carrying them helped her remember the best part of her day.
Was she truly going to take a husband? She never would have believed it. She hadn’t loved anyone since Kendrick. She never thought she would. How could she when she’d kept him alive in her heart, in her thoughts and convictions?
She hadn’t been looking for a hero, a champion. She didn’t believe any more existed. She’d never expected to find him in a rogue with laughing eyes and a silver tongue.
In a MacGregor with Fergusson blood.
But, oh, that silver tongue spoke the most heartfelt words her poor ears had ever heard. Who could compare to Patrick MacGregor?
They reached the house and found it empty. The guests had all gone home. Silence greeted them as they entered. Where were the children? Mary?
“Elsie?” Charlie called out and hurried toward the bedroom.
Her sister met her at the doorway. Her breath didn’t appear labored but she looked at Charlie with wide, anxious eyes.
“Where have you been?” she asked Charlie, wringing her hands through her thick, woolen skirts.
“Is everything all right?” Charlie put to her instead. “Where are Duff, and Mary and the children? Are you ill?”
“I’m well,” her sister answered, then chewed her lip. “Duff took an elderly woman home and Mary and the children went with him.”
“They left you here with a man we don’t know?” Charlie demanded and stepped around her sister to check if the stranger was awake or not. Was that her cousin Caitriona standing by the bed?
“We do know him,” Elsie told her softly.
“We do?” Charlie asked her, moving toward the bed. She saw a movement. His hand. It moved and it was clean.
As was the rest of him.
“Who is he?” she heard Patrick ask her sister, following her into the room.
The stranger’s skin was pale, his lips cracked and dry. His nose looked to have been broken more than once. He was awake and when she stepped up to him, he turned his eyes on her. They misted with tears almost instantly.
Who was he and why would he weep at seeing her? Why did her heart begin banging against her chest again? She was barely aware of Patrick coming to stand beside her or Cait stepping away.
“Charlie?” the man said in a weak, shaky voice. “Am I dreaming?”
Was she dreaming? Why did she feel like she’d heard him speak her name a hundred times before?
“I’ve dreamed of you,” he went on. “Every day, Charlie. Your smile kept me alive.”
Charlie stared at him, then at Elsie. Her sister smiled faintly and wiped a tear from her cheek. No, Charlie told herself looking at him again. No, it couldn’t be. He was dead.
“I know how I must appear to you,” he continued torturously, “but ’tis I, Kendrick.”
Charlie dropped her bundle of heather to the floor and lifted her hands to her mouth. It was Kendrick!
The room was spinning. A cry fought for release from her throat. Kendrick! Here. Alive. Speaking to her. She’d never hoped to hear his voice again. Her Kendrick wasn’t dead!
“Kendrick?” Was this her voice speaking to him? Waiting for him to answer?
“Aye, Charlie.” He smiled at her and memories of his face flooded her thoughts. “’Tis I.”
It was him. Her Kendrick, back from the dead. God help her, she almost fell to the bed, keeping herself upright by sheer force of will.
“All these years I’ve thought of you, believing you were gone…and now…here you are. How…how is it possible?” she heard herself asking him, looking at him, soaking in the sight of him. It was Kendrick! She simply couldn’t take it in fully. “My brothers. Hendry—”
“Aye, he stabbed me and left me for dead. But I lived.”
“How?”
Charlie looked up at Patrick when he spoke. He looked as shocked and confused as she.
“Who are you?” Kendrick asked him.
“This is your cousin,” Charlie told him, still stunned to be speaking to him again. “Patrick MacGregor.”
“I remember hearing of them around the table.” Kendrick’s smile was almost as warm and welcoming as Patrick’s usually was. “My aunt Isobel wed a MacGregor.”
“Aye, Isobel is m’ mother,” Patrick told him, sounding hesitant, heavy, as if the world had just crumbled around his feet and left him standing in the rubble.
Charlie’s smile faded. The love of her life had just returned to her, and Patrick was watching. Had she told him she loved him while they…Her gaze flicked guiltily to Kendrick. Kendrick! She still couldn’t take it in. All the years she’d cried for him, pined over him, believed she could never love anyone but him…But she did love someone else. She loved Patrick.
“Do you know my father then?” Kendrick asked him, his voice hopeful and dreadful at the same time. “Is he well?”
“He will be better when he sees ye,” Patrick assured him in a gentler tone Charlie didn’t know how he pulled off. His calm expression looked as if it were about to dissolve into something more excruciating. “Are ye up to tellin’ us what happened?”
Kendrick nodded and coughed into his hand. Caitriona hurried forward with a cup of water, or mayhap tea, for it soothed him and he smiled at her.
Charlie watched Cait with a measured smile. She’d barely seen him in the last five years and now, when Kendrick had returned, so had Cait. She cared for Kendrick. Charlie had always suspec
ted it, but Kendrick’s heart had been loyal only to Charlie.
“Hendry left me in Dumfries, bleeding out in a ditch,” Kendrick continued. “I don’t know how long I was there before an old man happened by and took me home.”
Charlie felt as if she couldn’t breathe. How could her brother have done something so vile? She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the rest, to hear how he ended up like this, with barely any meat on his bones, filthy, sickly…She wiped her eyes and reached for his hand, aching to comfort him.
“When I was well enough,” he told them, “I left and began my journey home. With no coin, I had to steal to eat. I was caught and sent to the colonies as an indentured servant. I was put to work and beaten by almost every owner I had.”
Beaten by his owners? Charlie couldn’t bear it. She hung her head in shame at what her family had done and let her tears fall freely. Five years of fear and torture inflicted on him just to keep her from marrying a Fergusson. She wiped her eyes and looked at Patrick. Surely, Allan Cunningham could not do the same thing to him. Patrick was a man, not a boy, as Kendrick had been.
“Thoughts of you and the laughter we shared helped me go on,” Kendrick confessed, pulling Charlie’s woeful gaze back to him. “I vowed to myself that I would return home and see you again…see my father and mother again. Three months ago, I managed to escape the bonds of my servitude and stowed away on a ship bound for Scotland. It took much to return, but I finally made it.”
He smiled and it was as if nothing had changed between them. But so much had. He’d gone through it all because of her and had gone through more to return to her. A sennight ago she would have rejoiced, climbed into bed with him, and promised her life to him—as she had when they were younger. But then Patrick had stumbled into her life, swept out the cobwebs, and spread laughter and life into the ghostly chambers of her heart.