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, spurred 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.