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 suspected 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.
“Ye’re here now,” Patrick told him with another forced smile. “Ye’re safe. As soon as ye’re well enough to travel, I’ll bring ye home to Tarrick Hall.”
“You have my thanks, cousin.” Kendrick looked at Charlie again and gave her one last smile before he fell asleep.
“Charlie.” It was Elsie. She’d come to stand by her sister and rested her hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “Why don’t you go rest? Cait and I will see to Kendrick.”
“Nay.” Charlie shook her head. “I wish to remain with him.” Kendrick deserved that, didn’t he? He’d meant more to her than anyone in her life besides Elsie. He’d been ripped from his family’s arms and shipped across the world, where he was forced to be a servant by abusive men because of her! She would see him back to good health. She would have done it for anyone, and Kendrick was so much more than that.
“There’s nothin’ ye can do fer him presently, love,” Patrick said in a gentle tone. “Come, share a meal with me while he sleeps.”
She couldn’t. What if he brought up Camlochlin or their life together? What was she to tell him? How could she leave Kendrick after all he’d suffered? “I’m not hungry,” she told him without looking at him. “You go eat. Elsie will fix you something. Won’t you, Elsie?”
“Of course.”
Charlie watched her sister turn to leave. Patrick nodded but then paused and bent to pick up the heather strewn on the floor. Her belly sank and she felt queasy for a moment at the solemn expression he wore.
She turned to speak a word to him. She understood what the heather represented. She hadn’t meant to drop it and send it scattering as if it meant nothing to her. She was sure he knew that.
Her gaze returned to the man in the bed.
Kendrick. He’d returned from the dead. Oh, how she’d missed him. When she thought about the life he’d suffered, she sniffed and wiped her eyes again.
She heard Duff return to the house with Mary and the children. She would greet them later. She expected Duff to come to her, but Elsie appeared beside her instead.
“Forgive me, Charlie. Patrick told me how terrified you were for me and how brave you were facing thieves and then his uncles.” Tears filled Elsie’s large eyes. “Forgive me for putting you through that.”
Charlie smiled and took her hand. “First, does Duff know about Kendrick?”
Her sister nodded, casting Kendrick a pitying glance.
Charlie wondered how it had felt for her brother to know Kendrick was alive. Was he delivered from his terrible guilt, or more reminded of it?
She looked toward the door, hoping to see him, but he’d likely stopped to speak with Patrick.
“He also knows about Shaw,” Elsie continued. “I had to tell him when he found me at the house.”
“How is he?”
“I don’t know. He wasn’t here long enough to speak to.”
They would find out soon enough. Her smile restored, Charlie smiled at the person she loved most in the world, besides Patrick. “Tell me about Shaw.”
“Oh, Charlie, he’s wonderful! I wanted to tell you so many times—”
“’Tis dangerous and reckless to go out alone.”
“He always meets me just beyond the fields.”
Charlie listened while her sister told her about Kendrick’s brother. Shaw sounded like quite a nice fellow. Elsie sounded very much in love. Charlie’s heart broke thinking about what Cameron had said. Should she tell her? Would it be any easier hearing it from her? No. And Kendrick was alive. Surely this changed things with the Fergussons, perhaps even with the MacGregors.
She stayed with Kendrick long after her sister left. Poor Kendrick. She wanted to be the first thing he saw when he woke. It was the very least she could do.