Duff.” Elsie tugged on his sleeve beside her. “Tell Patrick one of the stories you told me while I was abed. I know! Tell him about when the Lamont brothers tried to rob you!”
Sitting across from her at the supper table, Charlie smiled. Elsie was well. Her eyes sparkled like sapphires in the firelight and even the bounce in her golden curls had returned. Her recovery had been swift after two cups of butterbur tea, taken as Patrick prescribed, over a few hours. Patrick had remained at Elsie’s bedside with her the whole afternoon, making Elsie smile, as he was so wont to do with folks.
But neither of them could get her to confess the name of the man she’d been meeting each time Charlie and Duff had left Pinwherry. Charlie still found it difficult to believe. Shy, meek Elsie doing something so bold! Was she in love with her mystery man? She must be if she was willing to defy their father. What of her and Charlie’s plans to leave? Charlie would find out. For now, she was thankful that Elsie was well and there was hope for her future—whether she spent it with Charlie or not.
Charlie hadn’t stopped her when she’d insisted on leaving her bed tonight and dressing for supper, and Patrick had agreed with her decision. If Elsie felt well enough to move about, she should do so.
Sitting with her now, Charlie wanted to celebrate. Patrick had done it. He’d brought Elsie the correct remedy. He saved her life.
She turned to look at him sitting next to her, his profile etched in the hearth fire behind him. He lifted his cup to his mouth, and from behind the rim he watched her father and brothers the way a wolf watches its prey. Thanks to Duff, Patrick knew what they’d done to Kendrick and his disdain was evident in his sharp gaze on her father and his forced smile when Duff began his tale.
Was he going to do something about it? Would he come back for her and take her and Elsie with him to Camlochlin? Did she truly want to live where he lived? Could she bear being near him, hearing his laughter, watching him open his arms to another woman?
His questions about her love for Kendrick had made her uncomfortable. Not because she was ashamed for loving a memory, but because she knew it was hurting Patrick to hear it—and because she was no longer certain she was still in love with Kendrick.
Sensing her gaze, Patrick turned his head and winked at her.
Her heart flipped so hard she nearly hiccupped. She wanted to smile at him but his attention slipped back to her family. She drenched her gaze in the shape of his lips, remembering how she’d surrendered to them. She’d thought about his kiss all day. Twice she had to ask her sister to repeat her query. She’d thought about his mouth, and his intimate gaze shrouded in the shadows of his lashes. She’d basked in his playful grins and the melodic lilt in his voice while he melted her sister right out of her socks. Charlie wasn’t wearing any or she would have melted right along with her. She hadn’t thought about him leaving. She hadn’t thought of Kendrick. She only thought of kissing Patrick, of being swept up in his burly arms and looking into his meaningful gaze before he kissed her.
He’d answered her prayer and brought laughter to her amidst all the worry. She knew a part of him lived the life of a careless scoundrel with no regard for any noble ideals other than to kick the dust from his boots. But there was a deeper part of him who rushed to the aid of a child and baled Robbie Wallace’s hay. For her. She didn’t want him to go. He hadn’t kissed her in the henhouse like he wanted to leave.
Ye dinna believe m’ heart can be won then?
Could it? Did she want to be the one who did it? She hadn’t discarded her plans with Elsie, but was it wise to live with him on his homestead if something meaningful between them could never be? He made her want something meaningful, something filled with physical, soul-stirring passion and life-changing love.
He leaned in and without taking his gaze from Duff and his tale, spoke quietly in her ear. “Are ye also rememberin’ our kiss then?”
She blinked and looked into his eyes when he turned to her. “Our…?”
“…kiss,” he whispered and quirked one corner of his mouth. “In the henhouse. All of them, in fact. They haunt m’ thoughts.”
“Patrick.” Elsie tore his gaze away and Charlie’s breath along with it.
Their kiss haunted him too? Was it possible?
“Have you ever met any Lamonts?” Elsie asked him.
“No’ to m’ recollection.”
“Campbell.” Charlie’s father snatched his attention next. “Don’t you think we’ve avoided the topic long enough?”
“The Lamonts?” Patrick asked him. His tone was razor sharp rather than confused.
“Not the Lamonts,” her father said setting down his cup. “You spent many hours unsupervised with my daughter a day or so past. Hendry told me that after he allowed Charlotte to accompany you both to the village, you refused to let her return home. You sent Hendry away with the promise that if she accuses you of taking liberties with her, you would take her as your wife.” His dark eyes settled on Charlie and glimmered with both hope and a warning to her to see it fulfilled. “Do I have it all correct, Campbell?”
Charlie bit her lip hoping Patrick would agree and not tell her father about her choice to stay with him. Her father would know her choices soon enough when she left with Elsie. If he thought there was even the slightest chance that given the choice, she might run away without securing a prosperous marriage, he’d lock her in her room.
“Nae. No’ all of it,” Patrick said leaning back in his chair.
She slipped her hand under the table and pinched his thigh.
He flinched but that was the only sign of his distraction. “But ’tis a minor detail so I willna dispute it.”
“Was his message to me correct?” her father pressed.
“Aye, ’twas,” Patrick told him. “Has an accusation been made?”
Her father looked at her, waiting for her to accuse him of taking liberties with her so they could be forced to marry and seal a Campbell union. She suspected she could fall deeply in love with Patrick. But she didn’t want his promises if they came with a pistol to his head.
“I have no accusation against him, Father.”
His expression went cold. Charlie matched it and glared right back at him. She wouldn’t lie, and she wouldn’t be forced to marry, not even to Patrick Campbell.
Her father was angry. Let him be, she thought, and then realized her hand was still on Patrick’s thigh.
She moved it quickly and caught the hint of a smile on his lips.
“Cunningham,” he said while her father was still glaring at her. “Let’s finish this discussion after I spend the day with Charlie tomorrow.”
Charlie held her breath then cursed herself for doing it. When had she become like every other wench in every village, fawning all over the charming Highlander? So what if he was staying another day? What did it mean to her? If he refused to take her and Elsie to Camlochlin, she’d never see him again. If that was what he wanted, what could she do to stop it? But what if that wasn’t what he wanted?
What exactly did he want? Charlie thought feeling a bit flushed. Another kiss? Or perhaps he thought to whisk her off to the Highlands? But what about Elsie? She’d never leave without her sister.
Her eyes darted to Duff, who remained curiously silent. So, he’d protect her from drunken patrons but his promise to their mother didn’t matter when a prosperous union was at stake.
When he smiled at her, she looked away.
“You ask much of me, Campbell,” her father said, pulling Charlie’s attention back to him.
“Ye ask fer much in return,” Patrick countered. “Did I mention that m’ kin have good relations with the queen?”
Charlie didn’t have to wait to exhale a full breath when her father went from angry to beaming.
Sold to the man with good relations with the queen!
Charlie didn’t know which of the three men at the table she should glare at first, the confident one, the quiet one, or the one who sired her? She didn’t count Hendry, who’d remained quiet and skittish throughout supper.
Her father deserved the most contempt, so she chose him. It wasn’t that she’d never consider becoming Patrick’s wife. Just the thought of being in his bed, carrying his bairns, made her belly twist. It was because Patrick could have been anyone. She was nothing more than prized chattel to her father. It had stopped breaking her heart years ago, but it had never stopped being mortifying.
“That is,” Patrick said turning to her, “if Charlie will grant me her company.”
“Of course she will!” her father shouted, smiling and lifting his cup again.
“She’s…”
Charlie didn’t hear what her father was saying. The choice was hers. “Aye,” she told Patrick softly, “I will grant it.”
He smiled at her and brushed his fingers over her thigh under the table.
His touch was as hot as flame, igniting her skin, her cheeks. His smile deepened on her, as if he found her flushed face endearing. “If Elsie is up to it,” he said moving his hand away, “she may come as well. We’ll likely need her help with the lads.”
“Lads?” she whispered back.
“Nonie and her brothers,” he clarified, turning back to her father.
Charlie’s heart could not have gone any softer. He was going to take them all on an outing tomorrow? She could hardly sit still. Oh, Elsie had to be up to it.
“So then, ’tis settled!” Her father gleamed with satisfaction.
Patrick shook his head, traces of the smile he’d given Charlie still apparent on his face. “There’s still much settlin’ to be done. Fer now though, I’ll see to other things.”
Her father laughed. “Like getting the queen to attend your wedding. Do you think she would?”
Charlie stared at him wishing she could throw her cup at him. She wasn’t even promised yet and he was already planning the wedding. He didn’t care if she was embarrassed or hurt, or angry. He only cared that he would be gaining power with a Campbell union. Power he’d lost to the Fergussons.
Patrick didn’t seem the least bit fazed by her father’s boldness. He set his jewel-cut gaze on Hendry, who responded by trying to appear even smaller.
“She might.”
Patrick waited by the henhouse for Hendry to arrive. He didn’t doubt the worm would come. The queen? Patrick smiled in the waning moonlight. He enjoyed waving that carrot at Cunningham.
Hendry would do what Patrick wanted because he knew his father would kill him if he did anything to jeopardize a union with the powerful Campbells—who knew the queen.
Confident, Patrick leaned against the wall of the henhouse and whistled. Soon, he’d have what he wanted and could return Kendrick to his father. What would he do after that? He stopped whistling and looked up at the stars.
Never had there been a time that the prospect of bringing home a lass hadn’t scared the hell out of him. Or back into him, as Mailie liked to tell him.
Bringing Charlie home didn’t make him feel any different. Warnings had been going off in his head since he’d left Tarrick Hall. They’d grown louder when he’d kissed her this morning, more consistent this afternoon while he’d examined the tilt of her raven brow, the quirk of her full, ripe lips when he was supposed to be listening to Elsie. And tonight, amidst opposing wars taking place in his head about what he was doing, and why he was doing it, he’d made plans to spend the day with her tomorrow.
Charlie was what he was afraid of. She was the one who could harness him, the one for whom he’d give up everything.
But he continued to ignore all the warnings, no matter how loud they’d become, because the thought of never seeing her again scared him even more.