The Campbell Trilogy (60 page)

“Aye. Here, Captain,” Robbie said, handing Patrick his bow. “Take mine. It appears I have little use for it anyway,” he added with mock derisiveness.

The men laughed, welcoming the release of tension. Elizabeth took the opportunity to lead him away before Finlay could find more reasons to object or slurs to cast.

Patrick slung the bow over his shoulder and followed her across the
barmkin
and out the gate. She slowed to allow him to walk up beside her. They walked in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the sun and fresh air. It was a beautiful day. After so much rain, the colors of the landscape seemed even more vibrant against the clear blue sky.

It didn’t take long to reach the top of the hill. Bending down, she began to collect the colorful bluebells. A corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile as he noticed how much care she took in choosing each one, examining the petals and testing the strength of the stem before plucking the flower from the ground. He shook his head, wondering at the attention to detail and the obvious pride with which she attended even the smallest of her duties.

It wasn’t that she was a perfectionist, but simply that she took pride in her task and possessed an uncanny ability to make everyone comfortable.

From the short time he’d spent in the keep, he’d noticed that very little escaped her attention. She took her role as lady of the castle seriously. It was also clear that she’d been groomed to the position from birth. Again, he thought of what she would be giving up. But the thought of Glenorchy’s son was enough to keep any residual pangs of conscience at bay.

Seeing that this was going to take a while, he sat down, resting his back against a tree, content just to watch her as she flitted around like a wee sprite, her fair hair shining like white gold in the sun and her eyes sparkling with excitement.

It was rare to see her smile so freely, without restraint.
He’d noticed it the first time he’d seen her. Happiness tinged with uncertainty. The smile of a person who never knew when disaster would strike but knew that it would. Something he could understand, and one of the things that had drawn him to her. He assumed it was the result of her stammer and her previous romantic disappointments. And like him, she’d lost her parents at an early age.

From the furtive glances directed his way, he could tell that she was aware of his eyes following her.

“What are you doing?”

“Watching you.”

“I can see that. But do you have to do it so … intensely?”

He cocked an eyebrow, enjoying her discomfort. “It’s my job.”

She scowled. “Well, if you are simply going to watch my every move with that enigmatic expression on your face, at least come over here and make yourself useful,” she said, holding out the basket.

He chuckled and made a slow show of strolling to her side. But the obvious enjoyment she took in her task was contagious, and soon enough he found himself exclaiming over her finds with nearly as much enthusiasm as she did.

To a man forced to seek shelter in the wild, the Highlands were an inhospitable place. But through her eyes, he saw the beauty of the countryside anew.

“You mentioned something you wished to discuss with me?”

“Oh, I …” Two pretty spots of pink appeared upon her cheeks. “I can’t seem to recall.”

He gave her a look that said he knew exactly what she’d done. It seemed Elizabeth Campbell had no great fondness for her cousin’s guardsman, either. “If you remember, let me know.”

“I’ll do that.” She picked a few more stems and added them to the growing pile in the basket. “I was surprised to
see you in the practice yard today.” She paused, then added shyly, “I didn’t mean to interfere with your duties.”

Patrick gave her a long look, knowing she meant it as an apology. A lass had no business interfering in a warrior’s work, but he could not muster the admonition. It seemed he’d developed an annoying proclivity for having her worry about him.

“You didn’t interfere with anything. I’d only just arrived myself.” As they started to walk back, he adjusted the basket, which had grown quite full.“I don’t think your captain is particularly anxious to have us join his guardsmen.”

She lifted her chin and looked him in the eye, a steely glint in her crystalline gaze. “It’s not his place to decide.” Her voice was every bit as hard and uncompromising as her brother’s, and it took him aback. Her gentle, sweet disposition made it easy to forget the life of privilege and power from whence she came. But Campbell blood stirred in her veins, and he’d best remember it.

She smiled and the glint was gone. “My brother made his instructions clear enough. Finlay can be … difficult, but he is a good warrior. You’ll let me know if—”

“ ’Tis nothing I cannot handle.” It would be a cold day in hell before he went running to a wee lass to fight his battles for him.

Her mouth quirked as if she could read his thoughts. “I’m sure there is very little you cannot handle.”

Their eyes met. There was nothing suggestive in her voice, but her obvious faith and confidence in him had the same effect. It warmed a very cold part of his heart. He smiled wryly. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

She laughed and they continued down the hill. He studied her out of the corner of his eye, taking in the details that had become so fascinating to him: the delicate profile, the slim nose and petal-soft pink lips, the long lashes that fanned out at the edges, giving her eyes a seductive tilt, and the smooth, creamy skin flushed from exertion and the sun.
But it was her eyes that truly mesmerized, dominating her elfin face. Crystal clear and as blue as the sky was wide, set off by arched brows drawn with a faint hand.

Everything about her seemed so fragile, but he knew it was deceptive. She was stronger than she looked.

He couldn’t understand how someone had not snatched her up by now, and he wondered if he’d been wrong about her—was it Elizabeth who did not want to marry? He spoke his thoughts aloud. “How is it that you have not yet married?”

She stiffened ever so slightly, a flash of raw vulnerability on her face. The same vulnerability that had drawn him to her initially, making him yearn to protect her and pull her into his arms.

The same vulnerability that he’d come to exploit.

It stopped him cold. In focusing on the plan to return his land to his clan, he’d failed to consider what it would do to Lizzie. Just when her feelings had become important to him, he didn’t know—but they had.

His deception would hurt her.

Eventually, he would have to tell her his true identity, but he knew if she ever discovered why he’d targeted her, it would hurt her far worse. She would never forgive him.

She stopped and turned to face him, a wistful smile upon her mouth, and he felt like an ass for invoking the painful memories. “It’s not for lack of trying. I’m surprised you have not heard of my marriage woes. Or, I probably should say, engagement woes.”

He shrugged, despite the fact that he knew of them very well. It was the reason he was here. “Perhaps a word or two.”

She sighed, taking a deep breath. “My cousin has arranged three betrothals for me, but none of them have ended in marriage.”

“I’m sorry.” He reached out and put a hand on her arm
and then didn’t know who was more shocked by the gesture.

“I’m not. It was for the best.”

“There is no one you have wished to marry?”

She hesitated. “Perhaps once, but that was a long time ago.” The smile on her face was strained with the obviously painful memories.

He felt a primitive flare of anger, and a not insubstantial flash of what could only be described as jealousy. If Montgomery hadn’t already paid for his sins, Patrick would have enjoyed making him do so all over again. “In any event,” she continued, “it will soon be irrelevant.”

His mind snapped back to his plan. Feigning ignorance, he asked, “What do you mean?”

“When we were attacked, I was on my way to Dunoon to discuss this very subject with my cousin.”

“He has arranged another marriage?”

She shrugged. “Nothing has been formalized yet, but my brother informed me that one is in the works.”

Good. She’d not completely resolved herself to marrying Glenorchy’s son. If he’d learned one thing about Elizabeth Campbell in their short acquaintance, it was that she took her duty very seriously. It would be much more difficult for him to persuade her to run away with him if she’d accepted the match proposed by her cousin. “Do you know the man?”

She nodded.

“And he is acceptable to you?”

She fumbled with the lace at her wrist. “I do not know him that well,” she hedged. “But my cousin would never force me to marry a man I could not abide.”

He took a step closer. The faint floral scent in her hair was stronger under the heat of the sun. It filled his nose and clouded his head. “Abide? Is that enough? What of love?”

She wouldn’t look at him, and he could sense her nervousness,
feel her response as her body flared with awareness. “I’m sure I will come to love my husband.”

He laughed. “It’s not as easy as that. Attraction and love cannot be forced.”

Two angry spots of color appeared upon her cheeks. “I might not be as experienced as you are in such matters, but you do not need to laugh at me.”

He sobered, realizing that he’d struck a tender spot. The incident that day at Inveraray had left a deep mark. “It was not my intention to do so.”

“Was it not? Not all of us are blessed with a face such as yours.”

He took her chin and forced her gaze to his. “I can assure you, my lady, that your countenance pleases me very well. But what stirs between us is not as trifling as fairness of face.”

“There is nothing between us,” she said, gazing into his eyes. “Nor can there be.”

Her crisp denial angered him, and not because of his plan. Right now he wasn’t thinking about his damn plan. He wanted her to acknowledge what was between them. That she could easily dismiss him when it was taking everything in his power to fight the urge to ravish her senseless infuriated him. It also made him determined to prove her wrong.

She tried to turn away, but he caught her up against his chest. She was so tiny and soft, and with all those womanly curves pressed tightly against him, it was all he could do not to groan.

“Are you so sure of that?” The huskiness in his voice did not need to be feigned. He slid the back of his finger down the curve of her cheek. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t move. “If there is nothing between us, then why is your heart fluttering like the wings of a butterfly?” His thumb found the velvety pillow of her bottom lip. “Why is your
breath quickening?” He cupped her chin and lowered his head. “And why do your lips part for me?”

It was too soon, but he didn’t give a damn. He kissed her, gently at first. A soft brush of the lips that made his chest tighten so sharply, it almost burned. God, she was sweet. An innocent lamb to his wolf.

He never thought someone like her could be his.

He might need her to reclaim his land, but there was no denying that he wanted her for himself.

The knowledge angered him. He knew better than to complicate retribution and vengeance with personal desire. It would only lead to trouble.

He lifted his head and looked deep into her eyes, seeing the surprise and passion shimmering in the crystalline depths. He gave her every opportunity to tell him to stop. To push him away. To refuse his kiss. To tell him he was wrong.

But instead she melted against him, twining her hands around his neck in silent surrender.

This time he did not hold back. The passion, the hunger, the lust, could no longer be held in check.

She was his—even if she didn’t know it yet.

Lizzie’s heart thumped hard in her chest. The brush of his lips over hers had ignited the ember smoldering inside her.

She could taste him on her lips, the hint of spiciness that made her mouth water with anticipation.

His eyes bored into hers, giving her no doubt as to what he intended. The sharp rays of sunlight cast his handsome features in hard angles. His black hair glistened like a raven’s wing. He looked dark and dangerous and very, very hungry.

For me.

A thrill shivered through her, not in coldness, but in warmth … delicious warmth. A shimmery, tingly sea of
sensation that threatened to drown her good intentions. She knew better. Knew better than to confuse lust with something more. But it felt like more. So much more. Strong and true and real.

His mouth lowered.

Her pulse jumped, and she froze like a deer caught in sight of the hunter—paralyzed not with fear, but with wanting. A wanting unlike anything that had come before. A wanting that made what had happened with John feel like child’s play.

The force of it, the intensity with which desire came over her, took her by surprise.

It was like nothing she’d experienced before. This man was far more dangerous than John Montgomery, and look at what had happened with him.

She should stop him. She knew what he was going to do. Knew how dangerous playing with fire could be. But she was weak. Too weak to resist the strange pull that came over her, the heaviness, the bonelessness that made her body soften and flush with heat.

Desire was intoxicating. It simply felt too good.

She sank against him, her breasts crushed against the powerful wall of his chest. Safe, secure, and, for the moment, desired.

Was it so bad to want to feel like this? To crave the closeness? To know that she was a woman a man could want?

What if Patrick was the man she’d been waiting for?

She gasped, feeling the warmth of his breath sweep over her skin. His mouth was achingly close, but he was giving her time. Too much time. She didn’t want to think, she wanted to feel. To take the moment of pleasure that he offered without thought of the consequences.

Desire warred with cold, hard reality. It was wrong. An impossible situation. A guardsman was not the right man for her. Her cousin and brothers would expect her to marry a chief, a laird, a man who would help foster the preeminence
of clan Campbell—even an Englishman would be preferable. What good could possibly come of it? It would only make her yearn for something she could not have.