But in this he was wrong.
Ethan had never wanted anything—not fame, not accolades, not money—as much as he yearned to keep Lady Allegra Gilbert.
Malcolm and Kirstyreturned a short time later, to Ethan’s disappointment.
His brother—accurately guessing what Ethan had been up to with his lady—made an unholy racket as he rounded the bend with Kirsty on his shoulders, giving Ethan and Allie sufficient time to pull apart and act as if they had merely been laying out their clothing to dry.
Their air of nonchalance fooled no one.
Malcolm didn’t even attempt to hide his knowing grin.
“Fell in the river, did ye?” Malcolm shook his head as he set Kirsty down beside Allie. “I seem tae remember us all getting wet when we took Fox fishing for the first time.”
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Aye, but that time, I recall ye made yourself useful and built a fire tae help speed up the drying.”
Malcolm snorted and went to look for firewood.
Fifteen minutes later, Ethan was warming his chilled hands over a roaring blaze.
Allie had donned Ethan’s coat and was holding wee Kirsty on her lap, the mackintosh wrapped between them to keep his niece dry. Untying her wet pocket, Allie emptied its contents in front of them to survey the damage.
Naturally, Kirsty excitedly reached for each item in turn, her curiosity palpable.
“What this?” she asked in her adorably piping voice, holding aloft a small decorative glass bottle in her chubby fingers.
“Smelling salts,” Allie replied patiently.
“Me smell!” Kirsty wiggled her small body in excitement and urged Allie to open the sealed bottle for her.
Allie looked to Malcolm, her eyebrows raised in a question mark.
Malcolm shrugged. “I suspect she needs tae learn about smelling salts sooner rather than later.”
“They don’t smell nice,” Allie warned, taking the bottle and uncorking the stopper. “Only take a small sniff.”
Kirsty dutifully leaned over, took a wee snuffle, and coughed.
“That be-sgusting.” She wrinkled her nose and pushed the bottle away.
Ethan and Allie shared a glance, both smiling at Kirsty’s mangling of the worddisgusting.
Smelling salts forgotten, Kirsty touched a small gold cylinder. “What this?”
“A toothpick,” Allie explained.
Good-naturedly, she showed Kirsty how the narrow point of the toothpick retracted in and out and how to use it between teeth.
With their matching dark heads, Ethan noted, the two could be mother and daughter. It seemed a portent of a possible future . . . Allie wrapping her arms around a daughter of her own, cuddling her close.
Ethan’s chest swelled with a heady mix ofjoylonginghope.
Kirsty leaned toward Malcolm to show him the toothpick, and before long, the three of them were in a conversation about how best to use it—did one attempt to slide the thin metal between teeth? or was the blunt tip the most useful feature? Kirsty frowned, lisping that the toothpick looked “scawry.”
As Ethan watched Allie laugh with Malcolm over Kirsty’s adorable confusion, a burst of understanding illuminated his mind.
Allie claimed she wanted freedom, to have the Salzi Mine returned to her and be permitted to forge her own future. A life on her own.
Ethan didn’t doubt that she felt trapped with Kendall, that she wished to be her own woman.
