“I burned it!” Elizabeth said. “I wanted it to be a surprise, and now it’s ruined.”
Thom had no idea what she was talking about. His father explained. “I mentioned that your mother used to put butter and sugar on the day-old bread and heat it in the bread oven—and that it was your favorite.”
Christ, with all the smoke pouring out of the oven, she must have used a pound of sugar!
“And I forgot about it,” Elizabeth added, “because the porridge started to stick to the pot.”
Thom glanced at the glob of blackened goo in the pot, figured that was the porridge, and didn’t need to wonder why.
Disgusting. He might have made a face had his father not shot him a look of warning. With a few more pats on her slender back, his father said to her, “I’m sure it will be delicious.”
If his father thought Thom was eating that mess, he was the one who was clodheaded. Hell, Thom wouldn’t even give those oats to the nag he’d ridden here that’d snapped at him more than once.
“Why are you here, Elizabeth?”
He meant why was she in his father’s cottage cooking—which to his knowledge she’d never done before—but she obviously took it more generally. “Did you think I would let you get away with treating me so dishonorably?” She looked at his father as if to say “see.” “You left me. Abandoned me after ruining me”—she turned to his father—“quite thoroughly.”
“And more than once, I know,” his father added with a chastising look in Thom’s direction as he took her in his arms to pat her back again.
Christ, was his father really buying this nonsense?
“Don’t worry, lass, I’ll see that he does right by you. Even if I have to drag him to the kirk myself.”
Apparently so.
Elizabeth ventured a look in Thom’s direction, and he could have sworn he saw her smirk.
Shewassmirking, he realized. “She seduced me!”
His father looked appalled at the suggestion. “You shame me, lad. Look at that face.” He tilted Elizabeth’s soot-stained face to Thom. “A wee innocent lamb like—”
Thom snorted, and they both shot him a look—Elizabeth’s was more of a scowl.
“Don’t believe that perfect little princess act,” Thom said. “She had me fooled for a while. But now I know better. She’s isn’t perfect at all. Did you see that porridge?”
Elizabeth’s gasp of outrage couldn’t hide her joy. She understood: he lovedher—not the pretty little poppet he’d seen at the castle all those years ago.
The look in her eyes... It was as if all the love she felt for him was staring back at him. It humbled him.
“I’m afraid he’s right,” she said with a charmingly repentant glance at his father. “I did seduce him. But it was very un-gallant of him to point that out, don’t you think?”
Thom could see his father fighting laughter. His eyes were twinkling as he looked at her. “Very un-gallant, indeed, lass.” He kissed her on the head and let her go. “Let me know if you need my help—he’s not so big that I can’t carry him if I need to—but I don’t think you are going to have much trouble in getting him to that kirk.”
A moment later his father was gone. Without his presence, she seemed to have lost a lot of her certainty, and the gaze that met Thom’s was hesitant and vulnerable. “I like your father.”
“I do, too.” He’d forgotten how much. The awkwardness that had been between them didn’t seem to be there anymore. Maybe they both understood each other a little better now.
“You left,” she said softly.
“I was coming back.”
“You were?”
He nodded, and she ran into his open arms. A moment later he was kissing her, and a shockingly few moments after that, he was carrying her to his bed. The fear of the past few days in thinking he’d lost her seemed to catch up with him all at once. Clearly he wasn’t as honorable as he liked to think, because he didn’t even hesitate. They might not be married or even officially betrothed, but she belonged to him in every way that mattered. And he needed the connection, needed to feel himself moving in and out of her body, needed to hear her cries of pleasure mingling with his own as they climbed the greatest peak together and soared.
It was later—much later—when he finally found his voice. She was nestled against him, her soot-stained skirts still tangled around her legs. He’d been in too much of a hurry to even remove their clothes—not that she’d seemed to mind. She’d been in a hurry, too.
“You would really give it all up for me, El? The castles, the fine gowns, the jewels, your position in society, to live in a small cottage like this and learn to cook and clean?”
