At Cameron’s declaration,Mary’s knees went weak. How could he promise to marry her in the kirk, knowing her father as they did? And her obligations. Cameron was right. She had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. She needed to turn it off somehow if she ever wanted a future with this man.
How should she respond? Her mind was befuddled by his kisses. She wanted more of those sending fire down her limbs, making her ache with a need she didn’t know how to satisfy. She wanted to shout herayeloud enough for the entire clan to hear it, and promise to love him the rest of her days, but that response would not be seemly.
Cameron’s expression was utterly serious. He had her at a disadvantage, away from other members of the clan, pressed between his powerful body and the wall at her back. He watched her face, giving her time to think while waiting for her reaction, but his hands still caressed her, and his gaze fell again and again to her mouth.
“I would like that, Cameron. When the time is right…”
“What about now, Mary, my love?”
She sucked in a breath and shook her head. This was happening too fast. She’d waited longer than her sisters for the right man to come along, yet now he was here, she felt frozen with indecision. She wanted him. He wanted her. But he’d just returned after weeks away. “Nay,Cameron. Ye have been gone so long. Let’s take some time to be sure…”
He pulled his head back. “What are ye afraid of, Mary, my love? Me? Ye already ken all there is to ken about me. I would never hurt ye. And I willna leave ye again, no’ if I have any say in the matter.”
He tempted her. With his body, his beauty, and his spirit. And she knew she tempted him. She could feel the evidence pressed into her lower belly, long and thick and growing more insistent. “I dinna fear ye, Cameron. Ye ken that. I fear for ye. Ye canna promise ye willna leave. There’s nay a man alive who can.”
“Nor can a lass,” Cameron chided. “Nothing is promised to us in this life. I want us to be together as man and wife, to live our lives together. I want ye to belong to nay other man, only to me.”
Exultation and delight warred in her belly with dismay over having to deal with Dougal. Being desired by a handsome and powerful man like Cameron thrilled her. She would be daft to feel anything but happy to have Cameron Sutherland as her husband.
“Dougal has had a week to soften my anger toward him. Yet, all I could think about was ye.”
Cameron shook his head and stepped back, his hands dropping to his side. “Has he also asked yer father for yer hand?”
“I havena given him the chance. Da has been ill, and doesna ken Dougal is here. I’ve told Dougal seeing him might make Da’s condition worse.”
Cameron barked a laugh. “Of all the—”
Mary held up a hand to silence him. “Da feels guilty over having ruined my one chance for happiness withDougal—or so he says. I do fear seeing Dougal would upset him, or worse, cause him to betroth us out of hand. I didna want that. I hoped for ye to return. And there’s more.” She told him about the bargain Seona had offered. “If she pushed Da, he might have done as she asked. Ye might have returned to find me betrothed or married. How can I make ye see I wanted ye. I waited for ye?”
Cameron hung his head. “I deserve at least some of yer condemnation. I left confused in my own mind about ye, lass.”
Mary could sense he told the absolute truth, and it scared her. “What convinced ye?”
“Being away from ye. Missing ye, day and night.”
“Ye are daft.”
“I am no daft, lass, except about ye.”
She turned away from him, fighting sudden tears she didn’t want him to see. “When ye left, I felt the same pain as when Dougal abandoned me. I grieved for ye.” She gazed up at the windows, fighting the urge to turn back to Cameron. She couldn’t look at him while she said the words that might send him back to Sutherland. “Now ye show up suddenly and rush to my father to demand we wed. Do ye no’ see how ye might have confused me, too, just a wee?”
“I’m sorry, Mary. I didna mean to hurt ye.”
NotMary, my love. She pressed her lips together against the pain. “Please, Cameron, I need to think.”
“I’ll go to my chamber, then. Take the time ye need, and find me when ye are ready to talk.”
She was tempted to look over her shoulder. But the chamber door closed, and she felt a sense of emptinessthat told her no one else was in the room. Cameron had gone away.
Cameron pacedby the hearth in the great hall. He felt terrible about the way they’d left things last night. He’d thought Mary would come to him during the night, after she sorted through the choices she had and the emotions plaguing her. Instead, he found her at first light, working in the garden. She promised to break her fast with him after she finished, so he headed to the stable, where his Brodie escort was preparing to return home. By the time they rode out of the gate, she’d left the garden and he expected to find her in the hall, but she wasn’t there.
Hungry, he resolved if she didn't arrive in the next ten minutes, he would fetch her. He wanted to be with her. Their argument last evening still stung; not because they’d fought, but because he knew it was his fault. He’d botched his reunion with Mary, assuming her need for him matched his own. But much had happened at Rose while he’d been away. He should have taken more time with her before demanding they wed.
He stood, tired of waiting, intending to find her, when a man he didn’t recognize descended the stairs and joined him. “Ye must be Sutherland. Are ye waiting for Mary?”
This must be MacBean. “Ye are?”
“Dougal MacBean, an auld…friend…of Mary’s.”
