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.
She’d seen the heather muirs in daylight, but never at night. It was a place taken from her dreams and spread out before her. Oh, but she was glad that places like this truly existed in the world she knew.
She drew in a deep breath, letting it fill her, cleanse her, and then looked up to smile at Patrick. “I feel alive again.”
He looked into her eyes for a moment, without speaking a word, and if Charlie didn’t know any better, which she didn’t, she’d have thought he was gazing at her as if he loved her. She hoped he’d tell her something that would convince her that a future with him was possible. But he stepped away and unfolded the blanket.
With a snap, he set it atop the heather and offered her a seat on the billowy wool. He sat beside her and spoke softly against her ear. “It has been a difficult evenin’. Take yer rest here in m’ arms.”
Charlie was tempted to weep—and for so many reasons. For Mary and her bairns. For herself if she couldn’t do enough to claim this man’s heart. Oh, how could she have let herself fall in love with a beautiful scoundrel among women? But that wasn’t the Patrick she had come to know. Of course, he knew all the right things to say and if they didn’t work, his easy, inviting smile usually did. But that was only one layer of him. He had many. And Charlie wanted to peel them all away until she reached his heart.
She sank into his embrace and let him hold her with nothing between them but the fragranced air.
“The world,” he finally said against her forehead, “is no’ yer responsibility. Sometimes, ye canna help everyone. The weight of it will become too heavy.”
She tilted her face to his. “I know I cannot help everyone, but I will help everyone I can. How is doing that too much weight to carry?”
“I dinna know, but I—”
“Is that what you truly believe, Patrick?”
He exhaled a heavy breath above her and seemed to be pondering his words before he spoke them. “We are verra different, Charlie.” She was everything he wasn’t, and everything he wanted to be. “Ye care fer all, while I care fer few.”
She blinked. Was he telling her…?
“Ye bein’ among the few, of course.”
She let out a soft breath she didn’t realize she was holding. He cared for her. He wanted to court her. What did it mean? What did it mean for a rogue? Had she won his heart?
She smiled up at him, hoping he could see her and how happy he made her in the moonlight and mist.
“I know many but I don’t like them all,” she assured him.
“And me?” he fished with humor lacing his voice.
Goodness, but he always made her smile.
“I like you. Of course. I wouldn’t like you,” she added lifting her hand to his bristled cheek, “if you were an uncaring lout. You have proven to me with Nonie, and Elsie, and even Duff that you’re not.” She ran her thumb across his bottom lip. “You’re more like your Sir Gawain than you realize, Patrick. Does that trouble you so?”
“Ye trouble me, lass,” he said softy, his breath falling on her chin. “Ye, and what ye’re doin’ to me.”
“What am I doing?” she whispered, angling her head to meet his hovering mouth.
“Ye’re changin’ m’ world.”
She had no time to react to his declaration. His mouth descended on hers with the same breathless urgency she felt. She had no time to think, only feel, thrill, exalt in his touch, his tongue.
He cupped her face in his hands, deepening their kiss and sending wicked fires down her spine. When he drew her down, she didn’t object. The soft heather felt like clouds beneath her back. Patrick’s body was much harder above. She knew it was a dangerous position to be in with him, but she didn’t care. She didn’t care about teasing him with what he couldn’t have. She wanted to give him all.
His bristled jaw scratched at her face while he moved his lips over hers, his tongue taking the deepest corners of her mouth. She squirmed, wanting more and not knowing what to do about it. He groaned at her movement beneath him and slid his hands down her neck and over the mound of her breast. He made her forget Kendrick’s kiss, his quiet, unsure hands, as fire shot through her and she had the urge to sit up and tear Patrick’s clothes away…or run.
She did neither but let the sensation of his rough hand thrill her. His touch tightened her nipple. It pushed upward through her gown, aching, aching for more. His fingers found it and for a moment so agonizing, Charlie nearly cried out, he dipped his face and closed his lips around the taut bud.
Lights, in hues painted silver and purple, burst before her eyes, while deep crimson ignited her nerve-endings.
He made her feel wicked, like some wild thing he’d caught and was about to conquer. And she couldn’t wait. She tugged at his shirt and he at her skirts. Her body pained her somewhere below her navel, for something she wasn’t quite sure of.
She’d spoken to Mary, briefly, about the art of lovemaking, but they ended up giggling through most of it. Once, during one of her visits to a tavern not far from here, she’d seen a serving girl pull up her skirts and straddle a customer in his seat.
She thought about straddling Patrick. Was she so bold? Nay! She shook her head then drew her lower lip between her teeth. Oh, to hell with logic, she thought while flames scorched her blood. Instinctually, she jutted her hips upward then pulled on his shirt again. She arched her back when he moved his face to the valley between her breasts and pulled at the laces of her hand-sewn corset with his teeth. They came undone with one last tug and her corset sprang away from her bosom.
She lay there, exposed to his hungry gaze and ready to surrender all.