He’d proposed.Even if he’d only made the offer because he wanted to protect her, it meant she could have him, forever, if they could find a way around this. And now she would never sleep. Rebecca carefully untangled herself from him, slipping from his bed and pulling her night rail on over her head. She’d left a heavy shawl over the back of the chair before the hearth, and she wrapped herself in it, missing his warmth.
Padding quietly in her bare feet, she opened the door of the master bedchamber and slipped into the dark hallway, the single lamp at one end barely enough to allow her to avoid the furniture. Margaret’s bedchamber lay across the hallway and down a bit, the door cracked open a few inches. She pushed against it—only to have it blocked by something solid.
Frowning, she pushed again. A low growl directly on the far side of the door answered her.Good heavens.“It’s me, Waya,” she whispered, noting that despite her alarm, she couldn’t name any one thing more likely to dissuade any housebreakers from entering Margaret’s room, door partway open or not, than a full-grown wolf.
The barricade shifted, and she opened the door wide enough that she could slip into the room. Yellow-reflecting eyes caught the dim light, staring at her as she tiptoed over to the bed. Evidently she’d been approved, though, because the wolf didn’t attempt to eat her.
Quietly she sat on the edge of the bed. Margaret lay in a tangle of blankets and pillows and wild dark hair, secure in her self-made nest. Reginald at the foot of thebed, out of reach of restless feet and elbows, lifted his head, blinked at her, then went back to sleep.
If Callum hadn’t returned, if the Geiry title had passed to James Sturgeon as she’d thought she preferred… Back when she’d trusted Donnach and even thought to marry him…
Rebecca shivered. She couldn’t imagine what might have happened to her if she’d married Donnach. He wouldn’t need her, after all, once her property passed to him through marriage. And then Margaret would have had no value, no place, in this world of backstabbing, greedy men.
But Callum had come, and the first thing he’d done was place Margaret under his protection. At the time she’d thought it underhanded and cruel. Now she knew otherwise. And if for no other reason, Rebecca loved him now because of that.
She loved him.Her heart pounded hard in response, an affirmation to what it had known for days now, despite her mind’s refusal to acknowledge such a basic, vital thing. She loved him. He’d upended everything in her life, made her look all over again at things of which she might have preferred to remain ignorant. He argued with her, unsettled her, threw ice-cold water on her ideas of safety and comfort. And she’d never felt as alive as she did in his company.
A softwhumphfrom the wolf at the door made her look up. Callum stood in the doorway, naked but for the kilt knotted at his hips. Waya rubbed against his thigh, and he reached a hand down to scratch behind the wolf’s ears.
Rebecca held out a hand in his direction and he stepped forward, silent on the hardwood floor, to take her fingers in his. Tightening her grip she stood, drawing his arm around her so she could lean back againsthis chest. Standing there in her daughter’s room, Callum’s arms around her, the abrupt sensation of contentment, of peace and comfort and calm, surprised her with its soft warmth. After Ian’s death, she’d never thought to feel it again.
“Did someaught fright ye?” he breathed into her hair.
“I just want to check on Mags,” she returned in the same quiet tone.
“She’s either asleep or twirling about like a pinwheel. There’s naught in between.”
With a soft chuckle, Rebecca stepped out of his arms to lead the way to the door. “She’s always been very confident, but now that she has a pack, I don’t think she can be stopped.” Now that she had a father again, Rebecca almost said, but stopped herself. Callum didn’t get to be a father unless he proved himself able and willing to remain with them.
In the hallway Callum tugged her back against him. If they weren’t careful the servants would notice and begin talking, and then she would have to figure out what to tell Margaret—which would be supremely difficult when she didn’t even know what to tell herself.
“I wish ye could go about with yer hair down,” he said, pulling a long strand of the blond stuff over the front of her shoulder and twining it around his finger.
“I’m not a maiden, or a hoyden, so I can’t. Not outside the house, anyway.” She leaned up and kissed him. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I’m glad ye did. I’m discovering there arenae enough hours in the day, any longer.”
“Not for vengeance and a family, you mean?” she asked, before she could stop herself. “Perhaps you need to choose one and let the other go.”
“Let it go? Ye mean letthemgo. Let them get away with two murders. How can I do that, lass?”
She looked up at his face. Even in the dark both of his eyes looked light, though if she hadn’t known she wouldn’t have been able to tell which was green and which one, blue. “I can’t answer that. But I’ve been looking for solutions, and I can’t seem to find one that includes both.”
He lowered his arms, their absence leaving her cold. “Then ye dunnae know me very well, Becca.” Turning around, he walked back up the hallway past the open master bedchamber door, and toward the stairs.
“I knowthem,” she said to the empty hallway, and turned for her own bedchamber. “And that’s what frightens me.”
***
Callum shoved the close-written notes Dennis had left him aside and stood, stretching. The muscles across his back had spent so much time being knotted up with frustration and anger he was going to become a hunchback if he wasn’t careful.
As he sifted through the growing pile of evidence that Rebecca had insisted he compile, he found himself wishing he could talk to Ian. His brother had always been proficient at separating wheat from chaff where information and rumor were concerned. Callum knew himself well enough to realize that he wanted to pile every bit of news he found, reliable or not, onto the pyre he’d built for burning Dunncraigh at the proverbial stake.
He’d returned to Scotland to do one thing. And the other things that kept coming between him and that goal, things and people he’d begun to view as astonishingly vital to him, kept twisting him about and making him hesitate—which he’d never expected.
Leaving the office, he sent a quick whistle toward the stairs, then continued into the foyer. “Is Jupiter saddled?”he asked, shrugging into the caped greatcoat Pogue handed him.
“Aye. It’s a wee bit windy out there today, m’laird,” the butler supplied. “And the rain’s nae falling straight down.”
