“No need to apologize.”
She propped her chin on his chest to look at him. The room was dimly lit by the glow of streetlights creeping through their curtains, but she shouldn’t have been able to see his expression. Alas, his wife was getting better at reading his thoughts as time passed.
“You haven’t been this restless since the night we planned to run away from Seattle.” Her subdued whisper was ripe with concern. “What’s bothering you?”
“Naught,” he assured her, but could make out the roll of her eyes sure enough. Another deep sigh rose within him and Hugh barely managed to draw it back. He rolled on his side to face her. Hesitant to broach the true subject of his worries, he vacillated by answering, “Scarlett tisane seemed to take to me yet. Hae ye noticed?”
“Scarlett is the cautious sort. Not given to allowing herself to care too deeply, too quickly. Given the life she led here, can you blame her?”
“Yet, she’s taken to ye,” he pointed out. “To Emmy. Even to Connor. But no’ me, her own blood. I wonder why.”
Claire’s caressing fingers slid up his cheek, ruffling his beard. “I would bet it’s because she doesn’t want to become too attached to you.”
A wry chuckle escaped him. “I doubt that’s it.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. Scarlett’s hesitant to trust people, especially anyone who might hurt her or her family, but when she loves, she loves fiercely and forever.”
“Mayhap.”
Or perhaps she’d sensed from the beginning the danger his presence would bring. How he would threaten the safety of her husband and children. He wouldn’t blame her if that were the case.
He stared up at the ceiling, expelling another protracted breath. Claire caught his chin and forced him to turn to her. “Now why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you? And don’t give me any nonsense or another feeble excuse.”
Bugger it all, she was getting to know him too well.
“’Tis a wonder aboot yer being the descendant of Connor and Emmy, aye?”
“Nice try. Come on. Tell me.”
“Verra well, but I dinnae think ye’re going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“I fear Laird may hae the right of it,” Hugh said slowly. “We may hae to find a way to eliminate Jameson permanently.”
A gasp choked her. “You’re right. I don’t like it. Why would you even think such a thing?”
“The situation is different from the one we faced before.”
Bloody hell, why would the woman not just let her man protect her as God had intended it? Claire did not need to be unduly troubled in her delicate condition. Her expression was stubbornly set, however. She motioned for him to continue. “There is more at stake. The Jameson we kent is gone, Sorcha lass. Once he was content to simply rid the world of me. Now Laird and Connor hae been drawn into danger. And the wee bairn, my ancestor.”
“Why would you think the baby’s in danger?”
“’Tis another way to eliminate me, ye ken?” Hugh rolled on to his back again and crossed his hands behind his head. Tension drew his body taut, fear for the lives that might be lost for his. Because of him.
Damn Auld Donell and his games. At least when he’d disappeared this night, they’d all been more than glad to see him go. The old man might have brought them all happiness at one point, but these days he delivered them nothing but grim tidings.
Hugh would have been happier in knowing nothing than what the others now knew. If Jameson were privy to the whole of the truth as Hugh knew it, more lives would hang in the balance. Lives far more valuable than his. Potential losses far more devastating.
He couldn’t let that happen.
“I wish Donell would just tell us why it was so important to him you be born,” Claire sighed, curling against him again. Her fingers traced idle circles on his chest. “Instead of leaving us to wonder.”
Hugh fisted his hands behind his head.Och, that was the problem. He didn’t need to wonder. Heknew. As Donell said, he’d always been a canny lad, but lately he wished he weren’t so bloody good at solving riddles.
Questions still needed answering. He might knowwhatwas important to Donell, but he still didn’t knowwhy.
In knowing even as little as he did, however, his resolve to take the action Laird proposed solidified from an alternative to a must. Jameson was still out there. Mayhap in custody, but his confinement couldn’t last forever. Therefore, his threat persisted. Appalling and real.
