“They wouldna have made it here without ye,” she added and met his gaze. “I owe ye my sister and her happiness.” Cameron glanced down and her gaze followed his, noting the inherent strength of his hands, like a banked fire, waiting to burst to light again. The scars across his knuckles were reminders of countless fights, and she was sure the long one on the back of his hand had been made by a blade. She’d traced them hundreds of times while he lay trapped in fever. His strength would return. The scars would be with him forever. And someday, she hoped he would tell her the tales they represented.
Cameron pursed his lips. “What about yer own happiness?”
She heaved a breath and glanced out the window, surprised he’d asked such a probing question. The subject pained her too much to discuss face to face, but resentment made words come, nonetheless. “My father ruined my chances when he delayed responding to the MacBean betrothal offer I welcomed. The man I loved, Dougal MacBean, gave up and married someone else.” She stopped speaking, her throat tight with emotion. She cleared it, then added, “He abandoned me as surely as Da betrayed me. I no longer expect I’ll ever find the kind of happiness ye mean, not this late in life.”
Nor had Dougal, it seemed, or not for very long. Nearly a year ago, she’d heard the sad news that his wife had died, though not the reason why. For a few months, she had held out hope he would come for her and renew their romance. But he never made contact at all. That part of her life was truly over.
Cameron studied her, as if at a loss for a way to cheer her.
“Anyway,” she said, pulling herself from her morose memories, “I came to tell ye I will be away for a few days. Da received an invitation from Lady Grant, and he insists I go with him.”
“Do ye wish to?”
She shook her head. “Nay. I dinna wish to leave ye, but the healer will take good care of ye until I return.”
Cameron laid a hand over his heart. “I may die of longing for yer smile before then.”
She slapped at his arm. “Cameron Sutherland, dinna even jest about dying. Ye willna die. Ye mustna.”
“Very well, I willna.” He cocked his head, teasing her.
But she saw a question in his eyes. “I’ve worked too bloody hard to keep ye alive, man. I’ll befashedif I return to find ye gone.”And I’d miss ye.The thought stabbed into her gut like an unseen blade. She’d spent hours reading to him while he thrashed in fevered dreams. But she’d said more. Somewhere along the way, he’d become necessary to her, though he could not know it. Her sisters were gone, and she couldn’t complain to the servants. Knowing he could not hear her, she’d seen no harm in unburdening herself to him about whatever bothered her that day, often something her father had said or done.
“I willna go anywhere before ye return,” he promised. “No’ even if only to Sutherland and certainly no’ to the grave. But lass, yer da takes shameful advantage of yer sense of duty to the clan. Why do ye no’ simply tell him nay? Ye are a strong, brave lass. Stand up to him. Refuse to go.”
“If only I could.” She bit her lip. How had Cameronformed that opinion? Maybe he hadn’t been as deeply asleep as she thought. “But I have to keep Da out of trouble, too. And Lady Mhairi Grant could be trouble aplenty.” She lowered her voice to keep it from carrying out the window into the bailey. “She clung to him at Annie’s wedding as though they were years-long friends, or even husband and wife. But they’d just met. It wasn’t unseemly, exactly, but she did monopolize his time.”
“I see nay harm,” Cameron argued. “He left her behind, so perhaps they only enjoyed a flirtation during the celebration. Have they corresponded since?”
“Until this invitation arrived, I had no’ been aware of any letters, and I didna ken about this one until Da waved it at me.”
“Could it be an invitation to an event that will be attended by other clans as well?”
“Perhaps.” She shrugged. Da hadn’t said.
“Dinna fash, Mary, my love. All will be well.”
Mary sucked in a breath. “Cameron! What did ye call me?”
“Mary?” His eyes glinted with humor.
He was teasing her. “Nay, there was more. Mary…my love.” She could barely say the words.
“Only to make ye feel better, lass. I’m no’ used to seeing ye so unhappy.” Cameron grimaced. “Now, if ye would, help me to the bed. I am suddenly in need of lying down.”
Mary castigated herself for getting so wrapped up in her own worries, she’d failed to notice Cameron’s growing pallor. “Aye, ye must rest. Perhaps by suppertime, ye will feel strong enough to come downstairs.” She got him to his feetand with an arm around his waist, across the small chamber the few steps to the bed, where he settled with a sigh. Mary pressed the hand she’d wrapped around his waist to her hip, uncomfortable how the flex of his muscles aroused such longing in her breast. This visit had not confirmed her father’s assertion that Cameron no longer needed her, but it had convinced her she needed to get away from him for a while. He was becoming too important to her.
Then he reached up, squeezed her hand, and released it. “Go, and thank ye, lass. Dinna think any more on leaving me behind today—or at all.” His smirk softened the implied scold.
“I’ll try,” she promised, though she knew her words rang hollow. She could not refuse her father’s demand, no matter how much she might wish to—or why.
That evening,Cameron made his way downstairs before Mary or one of the maids had a chance to bring him a tray. He wanted to spend some time out of his chamber, with other people, hearing talk and laughter and seeing more than the four walls he stared at every day. He’d counted every stone, every crack, every cobweb, until he thought he’d go daft.
Surely that meant he was getting well.
Some of the clan had already gathered and taken seats at long trestle tables. The high table was still empty and Cameron wondered when Mary and her father would arrive. The day he and Kenneth Brodie had returned Mary’s youngest sister home, he’d briefly met the man,but knew more about him from Mary than from that brief encounter.
Cameron glanced around. He should have waited for her, he supposed, but if the maid had brought him a tray, he might have thrown it against the wall once the lass left his chamber. When Mary arrived, she would not have been pleased.
