Charlie didn’t know what to think of Patrick’s claim that he knew Duff’s true father, Will MacGregor. Will MacGregor of Skye to be precise—of those MacGregors who were kin to the Fergussons, making them kin to Duff. What did her brother think of this news that he’d killed his relative?
She looked at him sitting across from her on Patrick’s blanket with Elsie’s golden head resting on his arm. The haunting shadows darkening his gaze while he looked toward the river were proof enough of his shame. He’d lived with it for so long, it had become a part of who he was.
“Duff?”
He blinked and looked down at his knees and not at her.
“I don’t know if it will help you or not but you have my forgiveness.”
Elsie smiled and squeezed their brother tighter. “I told you she would.”
Duff looked up from beneath his lashes and nodded at Charlie, a trace of his loving smile tugging at his lips. “It helps.”
She leaned in and flung her arms around his neck. Tentatively at first, his arm slipped around her, and then he drew her in and kissed her hair beneath his chin. Oh, she’d forgotten how much she’d missed him. She was overcome with how good it felt to throw off that burden of anger and began to weep.
She let go of him and rose to her feet. She didn’t want to cry like some blathering fool and wake the children.
“I need to stretch my legs,” she told them and walked off before she lost all control of her emotions.
Duff had a family somewhere else, a father, brothers, and cousins. Would any of them ever forgive him? She did and it made her feel weightless on her feet. She didn’t know whether she would laugh or cry if she opened her mouth.
She almost reached the edge of the river when she felt someone come up behind her. She turned to see Patrick.
He crooked his mouth into a soft half-smile. “I needed to stretch m’ legs too.”
With the power to drag her deepest desires to the surface, he was the last person she wanted to see—and the only one she prayed would never leave.
She wasn’t completely certain when it had begun, but he had somehow managed to penetrate every wall she’d ever built in defense of the men she knew and the ones who would never be. She’d thought he was like the rest, but he was so much more. He radiated light like the sun and refreshment like a cool breeze on a summer day. She enjoyed spending time with him, sharing in his carefree laughter and the rapture of their stolen kisses—kisses neither one could forget.
He tempted her to want more than the life she’d planned. He sparked an unfamiliar hope that more was possible.
She admired the strength it took him to deny his feelings and live a life bound to none. But that strength was beginning to get on her last nerve. He knew Duff’s father and he hadn’t told her. She wanted to trust him because she was falling in love with the stubborn Highlander, but his keeping such important information from her made her feel uneasy. What else did he keep from her?
“I didna tell ye,” he said as if reading her thoughts like an open scroll on her face, “because I thought Duff should know before anyone else. ’Tis aboot him and his kin.”
Charlie stared at him not knowing what to say and not knowing if it was his words or the way he looked at her while he spoke them that rendered her mute. She liked the compassion she saw in his eyes. His smile might be careless but his heart beat with the steady drum of an ideal he claimed too antiquated for the likes of him. It was what every other man had lacked. Compassion.
“I suspected he was Will’s son even before Hendry told me,” he continued and took her hand to walk with her along the bank. “After yer show of loyalty to yer brother’s secret in the henhouse that day, I knew ye would understand m’ reason fer not tellin’ ye.”
“I do,” Charlie told him, looking down at their entwined fingers. She didn’t pull away, too lost in the intimacy of his touch to separate them. She already loved walking with him. This subtlest of claims on her being thrilled her to her bones.
“What about the MacGregors?” she asked in an effort to keep her mind from abandoning her.
His hand grew warmer and a bit moist. He turned to offer her a casual smile. “What aboot them?”
“I understand why you didn’t tell me about Duff’s father, but why didn’t you tell me you knew the relatives of the Fergussons?”
He leaned in closer and dipped his face to hers, his vivid green eyes piercing and powerful, his smile slow and filled with natural charm. “Would ye have me tell ye everything I know?”
She stared at his full, red lips while he spoke, wishing he would press them to hers. She raised her gaze, taking her time to admire the fine sculpt of his nose. When she reached his potent gaze, she stared into his eyes and answered with a challenging smile. “Would you tell me?”
He didn’t flinch but his thumb moved over hers. “Ye make me want to.”
Was he sincere? Charlie wanted to believe so. It was a good start. Much more than she’d expected.
When he picked up his steps again and began telling her more, Charlie’s emotions roiled within her—disappointment that he wasn’t going to kiss her. (Why would he after she slapped him?) And elation that he was telling her more.
“I didna know aboot Kendrick,” he told her while they walked beneath tall ash and beech, with the winding river running beside them. “I didna know the connection, so there was no reason to mention it.”
She believed him. She had no reason not to. She couldn’t fault him for any of his decisions. She likely would have done the same.
“Do you think Duff will want to go to Skye after what has happened?” she asked him as they rounded a bend and came upon a roe deer stopping for a drink. It fled even as Charlie smiled at it.
“I didna think he should at first,” Patrick continued, “but the choice should be his.”
Charlie looked at their hands again and then up at his handsome profile against the backdrop of trees and sky, his bronze hair ablaze in the sun. “Is it many days’ ride to Camlochlin?”
He shook his head and set his gaze on the river. “’Tis no’ too far.”
She had the urge to smile at him—and perhaps kick him in the kneecaps. “Does it frighten you to think about me going there?”
“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.”