“I don’t understand.” Not even a wee bit.
“Lucy,” Mr. Smith—Campbell—murmured. “There is one surety in all of this. Once my family got it into their collective minds you and I were sweethearts, you did not stand a chance, my dear.”
Contritely, he patted the top of her hand.
How easily he’d found Lucy blameless. “You are remarkably magnanimous, Campbell.”
Like she was a bairn who’d just made her first word, he pointed a finger Lucy’s way. “Ah, there you are!”
And somehow, she found a smile.
If he could forgive her, maybe Arran could as well…
She let the bubble on that absurdly hopeful thought pop.
Arran and his cousin were cut of very different cloth. Arran carried an honorable sense of responsibility for his family’s well-being. That protectiveness, coupled with the betrayals against him in the past, made it impossible for her and Arran to overcome.
Lucy sighed.
“You love him, Lucy.”
Mr. Smith’s wasn’t a question. Nor did his statement contain any of his previous levity.
Still, Lucy needed to say it out loud. “I do.” She nodded forlornly. “I l-love him.” There was a catch in her voice. “And it is hopeless.”
What if I’d corrected the family’s mistake at the onset?They would have thanked her, insisted she and her family take refreshments, and sent her on her way, and then her path would have never truly crossed Arran’s. Just as it hadn’t the times the McQuoids visited The Spotted Elk.
“I wouldn’t saythat, Lucy.” Campbell’s lengthy pause didn’t reassure.
Lucy gave him an incredulous look.
“I wouldn’t saycompletelyhopeless,” he permitted.
A wave of restiveness sent her flying to her feet. “He didn’t trust me, but now he does, and when he finds out…when I tell him…” Lucy sagged back onto the chair. “When I tell him,” she whispered, “he won’t…” Sadness sent the rest of her words trailing.
“Lucy?” Campbell gently encouraged her to complete her thought. “What is it?”
“He does not feel anything for me one way or the other, Campbell.” Grief settled in her breast. “He’s been kind…” She stared off to where Arran stood while Lucy conversed with Mr. Smith.
“…You deserved so much more than simple kindness…”
She’d felt his eyes on her the whole while, piercing her soul. “No one has ever made me feel seen the way Arran has.”
His raw intensity and fervency.
“Truly seen,” she said softly.
“…You deserve to have the bloody world laid at your feet and the damned stars and moon sprinkled in for extra measure…”
A sad smile touched her lips. “Aside from my da, who was…well,my da, absolutely no one made me believe I deserved magic.”
“And my cousin did that?” he asked quietly.
Lucy attempted to swallow past a constricted throat. She gave an uneven nod. “Aye.” A tear slipped free.
Then it registered that her admission cast a negative light on Arran. “But he has not given me any reason to believe he cares about me, Campbell.”
He slid her a dubious glance.
