“Ye are nae trouble to me, Miss Drummond. Even if ye were, ye are leavin’ soon. I havena fergotten. Have ye?”
The warmth in her gaze vanished and was replaced by a cold sheet of ice. “Nae. I havena fergotten, Lochiel. How could I when ye take every opportunity to remind me!”
They reached her door. She opened it, stepped inside, and slammed the door in his face.
Inside, with her back pressed to the cold wood, she squeezed her eyes shut. Why was she angry? Why was she hurt that he wanted to get rid of her—when it was the same thing she wanted?
She had to go. She had to leave him before—before she didn’t ever want to leave his side again.
Oh, Lord, help her, she mourned. ’Twas too late.
Chapter Ten
Constantine sauntered awayfrom Miss Drummond’s door, wearing the hint of a smile that widened the farther he moved away from her chambers. Her fire sparked something in him to life. Other lasses shied away from him, afraid to touch the bear. All the men, including his closest cousins, would never think of betraying him and rarely disobeyed him.
But this wisp of lass, who journeyed on foot for a month to Tor, was not afraid of him. He almost breathed out loud with relief.
He enjoyed getting her angry by giving her exactly what she wanted: the freedom to leave. Of course, he didn’t fancy the idea of her leaving, nor was he certain he would let her go so easily. If her betrothed or her mother were after her, a convent would not stop them.
He would. But that meant she would have to remain at Tor Castle. There were plenty of folks living here who weren’t necessarily kin, but Miss Drummond was different. Was she not? He thought about her…often. He didn’t think about anyone else in the castle.
She made him want to smile—and a few times, he had. The only other people he felt any inclination to smile with were Lewis, Geoffry, Fionn, and Lachlan—and even with the four men he’d grown up with, he didn’t do it often.
Miss Drummond kept him occupied watching to see what she wasup to next. Even in the silence of the misty morning, she had gone traipsing about in the thistle, marveling at purple flowers while he marveled at her. She hummed often. It was mostly done just under her breath, but he could hear it. How did she still sing after being so mistreated by a man and finally killing him as a child? After losing her beloved father, being hated by her mother, and treated cruelly by her betrothed, her resilience shone like a beacon.
She had an unwelcome effect on him and he had no idea how to stop it. He could send her away, but he didn’t want to do that.
He was acting like a fool. He’d never put himself in the path of deliberate danger before. But Miss Drummond was making him feel and do things he had not done in years.
He felt the beginnings of another smile, then stopped when he saw Bethia hurrying toward him. He stopped and waited for her to reach him.
“Fergive me, Lochiel. I heard ye were looking fer me.”
“Aye,” he said, picking up his steps again. “Where did ye disappear to withoot tellin’ a soul? Ye know ’tis dangerous to go oot alone.”
Truly, he thought of the lass he just left at her door, did he want another foolishly fearless woman on his hands?
“We needed some supplies from the market and I took Fionn with me.”
He paused, then nodded. At least she had some sense—unlike a certain lass who had run into a coyote.
“Lochiel, if ye dinna mind me saying,” the head chambermaid said, “ye seem ill at ease. Is it the lass who darkens yer countenance?”
He looked at her, sincerely surprised. “Is my countenance dark? I feared I was smiling too much.”
Now Bethia was the one who appeared utterly astonished. “Smiling too much, Lochiel?”
“Aye,” he confessed. He’d often confessed to Bethia, who was the one who tended to him through the quiet times and the times whennightmares covered him in blood and he woke up crying out into the night, when he drank too much and told her too much while she undressed him and put him to bed. He didn’t remember her ever cowering from him after his drunken confessions of the men he had killed fighting in the royalist army, and how he’d felt killing them. How he’d tried to kill one hundred a day. A hundred for every one of his kins’ lives they had taken. She’d never admonished or judged him outright, but she thought he was a monster. She didn’t have to say it.
“I have been feelin’ more…light-hearted,” he said after a moment of pondering it.
“Light-hearted?”
She moved slightly closer and gave the air around him a sniff. “I havena been drinkin’, woman.”
She contemplated him for another moment. “Hmm, come to think of it, ye havena been drinking at all since ye returned with her.”
He thought about it, continuing onward. She was correct.
