“My da was a rover.”
Arran remained motionless.
He feared that if he moved, she’d recall his presence and stop sharing parts of herself that he wanted—though he had no right to them.
Even during his morning ablutions, he’d resolved to sever the connection growing between him and Lucy.
“I never imagined me, a rover’s daughter, would be sitting at an earl’s dining table,” she said softly. “And I shouldn’t be.”
She wore her uncertainty in the same way she did her honest thoughts.
Arran frowned.
“Lucy,” he said, “your father worked in one of the oldest professions in Scotland. The men who drive those herds are honorable, and it explains how you came to be the woman you are.”
Lucy’s lips parted slightly, a sigh whispering out.
He tried for a smile. “Is your opinion of me truly so low? You believe I’d pass judgement on you because of your origins? My only concern was that you were a stranger to us.”
Her eyes dimmed. “No, it is not that.”
“Or—you were,” he hurried to reassure her, to try and explain everything was different now. “That is not the case anymore, Lucy.”
His reassurances had the opposite effect.
Lucy’s shoulders buckled.
Arran crossed to her and took her shoulders gently but firmly. “Look at me, Lucy. It is clear to me now—your relationship with my cousin. I was wrong to doubt you.”
His fingers curled reflexively into her satin-soft skin.
A drumming filled his head. Lucy with Campbell.
Oh God. A raw, tearing ache ripped beneath his ribs. He yanked his hands from Lucy.
“That’s not what I’m worried about, Arran.” Grief carved hard lines into her features. “It is not about wrongdoing on your part. It is about mine.”
“Lucy, your origins do not define you—”
“Will you please just let me say what I need to say, Arran?”
Arran stopped. She had listened to him bare his soul. She deserved the same.
He inclined his head. “My apologies. I’m listening.”
“My da was a rover, but my mum worked at the inn. The Spotted Elk.” Lucy absently picked at the leftover Yuletide decorations. “It is my home. The only one I’ve known.”
Arran’s mind raced.
I stayed there. Not only that… Numerous times.Had she poured him ale, served him food, and he’d merely given distracted thanks and pressed coins into her hand?
“Aye, you did.”
I’m going to be ill…
Blankly, he stared at Lucy—now, when he’d failed to do so all the times before.
His chest turned over. If it were not for a trick of fate—in who met whom first—how perfectly she would have melded into his world, and he into hers.
