She forced her mouth to curve upward, but she could not lighten her heart enough to put any feeling behind the effort. “Of course I shall consider him.”
Jamie nodded, as if he'd expected that she'd say nothing else. “I will inform our cousin.”
“Then I can stay?”
“I will consider it, but if things are as you say, it might be for the best.” He paused, searching her face. “Is there something wrong, Lizzie?”
“You mean beyond my almost being kidnapped by a band of outlaws?”
Jamie grinned. “Yes, beyond that. Do you not wish to marry? I've always wondered whether there was something you didn't tell me about Montgomery.”
There was much she hadn't told him, and much she never would. She stood up on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “There is nothing wrong. Of course I wish to marry.”
It was the truth, but sometimes the truth didn't tell everything.
Robert Campbell.Glenorchy's son. His damn cousin— though the murder of his mother had severed all kinship to the Campbells of Glenorchy in his mind. Patrick felt as though he'd taken an arrow in the back.
Glenorchy was the man responsible for his parents’ deaths, for evicting his clan from their land and burning down his home. For turning him into an outlaw. And now Glenorchy's son would have it all—Patrick's land, the life denied him, and Elizabeth Campbell. The injustice ate at him, churning like a pool of acid inside his blackened soul.
Shoot him.
His muscles started to twitch from the force of holding the bowstring taut for so long. He should have taken his shot right away. But he'd been surprised to see a touch of humanity in the man he'd thought a ruthless Enforcer. “Lizzie,” he'd called her, for Christ's sake. Though Patrick hadn't thought Jamie Campbell had it in his black heart, clearly he loved his sister. And just as clearly, she loved him. That perhaps more than anything else stayed his hand.
He gritted his teeth, sweat running down his temple. The loss of blood had made him weaker than he'd realized.
The Enforcer's broad back loomed before him, an easy target. There was no one else around. He could make his escape before anyone realized what had happened. There was nothing in his way….
Take the damn shot.
Patrick lowered the bow.
Damnation.
He couldn't do it. No matter how much he hated him, he couldn't shoot a man in the back. The Campbells might have forced him from his home, turned him into an outlaw, and hunted him with bloodhounds, but Patrick had not lost all honor. No matter how slippery the reins of civility had become, he was not yet a cold-blooded murderer.
Besides, if he was forced to flee, there would be no one to prevent Lizzie from marrying Robert Campbell and Pat rick's land would be forever in Glenorchy's hands. He couldn't let that happen.
Self-doubt was not something that normally troubled him, but he couldn't escape the feeling that in not killing Jamie Campbell, he'd failed his clan.
What part did honor have in the life of an outlaw?
He hoped to hell he did not live to regret it. For the blood of every MacGregor killed by the Enforcer from this day forward would be on Patrick's hands.
Upon further consideration, Lizzie was not particularly eager for the meeting between her brother and Patrick to take place. She feared that her astute—and annoyingly overprotective—brother would see more than she wanted him to. Lord knew she'd never been very good at hiding her feelings, and there was no denying that Patrick Murray roused a maelstrom of “feelings” inside her. Just what they were, she didn't know. But she didn't want Jamie to reach any conclusions before she did.
Thus, she felt some measure of relief when Patrick left word that he was not to be disturbed. Worried that he'd taken a turn for the worse, she sought out the healer, who informed her that though he'd appeared well enough that morning, he'd weakened considerably by the afternoon. The older woman had given him a posset to ensure a good night's rest, and had every hope that he would be better in the morning.
By morning, however, Patrick was still not feeling well enough to appear.
“I thought you said he'd all but recovered?” Jamie asked idly, washing down the herring he'd chosen to break his fast with a long drink ofcuirm,the strong ale preferred by Highlanders.
Lizzie's brows wrinkled. “I thought so as well.” She plopped a piece of buttered bread in her mouth and chewed it slowly. “He seemed much better a few days ago.”
“If I didn't know you better, Lizzie, I'd think you were hiding your knight from me.”
Blast her fair coloring. Lizzie knew her brother could no doubt see the flush heating her cheeks. The last thing she wanted was Jamie curious. Once he sniffed trouble … he had a streak of doggedness in him that defied belief.
Her brother's attention, however, was shifted from her pink cheeks to a disturbance in the entry and then by the timely arrival of a messenger who burst into the great hall and demanded to see Jamie immediately. From the harried looks of him, he'd ridden all night.
