
Lauren Royal
Contents
For Terri Castoro,critique partner and friend forevermore. I couldn't do it without you.
Village of Cainewood England September 1667
They'd sent a carriage to take her to the castle.
In all her thirty-one years, Clarice Bradford had never ridden in a carriage. Gingerly she climbed inside and perched on the leather seat, settling the pink skirts of her Sunday gown.
"I've been in this carriage, Mama. When Lord Cainewood brought me to live with you." Dressed in blue to match her eyes, Clarice's five-year-old daughter bounced up and down on the seat opposite.
"I remember you climbing out of this carriage. That is one day I am unlikely to ever forget." In her short life, Mary had been orphaned by the plague and then abandoned during the Great Fire of London. But in the year since Lord Cainewood brought Mary to her doorstep, Clarice had come to love her like her own. She reached across and tweaked her daughter on the chin. " 'Tis a fine carriage, is it not?"
Mary shrugged, her blond ringlets bouncing on her shoulders in the same rhythm as the vehicle. "I would rather ride a horse."
" 'Twould not be a very elegant way to arrive at a nobleman's wedding."
A sigh wafted from Mary's rosy lips. "I s'pose not." She nibbled on a fingernail until Clarice pulled her hand from her mouth. "Who is Lord Cainewood marrying?"
"I've not met her, poppet, but if she's marrying Lord Cainewood, she must be a grand lady. I've heard she's from Scotland."
"Scotland. Is that very far away?"
"Far enough." Clarice leaned across the cabin and took Mary's hands in hers. "Can you believe we're going to a wedding at the castle?"
Mary smiled, but 'twas clear she wasn't overly impressed. "I lived at the castle before." Last year, after Lord Cainewood's brother had swept her from the fire and brought her to Cainewood in the hopes she'd find a home. "For a whole month."
"Well, I've only been in the Great Hall for Christmas dinner once a year. Never anywhere else." The castle was grandly ancient; the very thought of seeing the family's private living space was both exciting and daunting. And the carriage was clattering over the drawbridge already.
"I will show you around, Mama," her daughter proclaimed, displaying nary a hint of the awe that made Clarice's heart beat a rapid tattoo. They must be passing beneath the barbican now, for the carriage's windows were sheathed in shadow. Then it was bright again, and Clarice Bradford found herself inside the crenelated walls of Cainewood Castle.
The carriage door was flung open, and Mary ran down the steps into the enormous grassy quadrangle. "Who are you?" Clarice heard her ask. "And who is this?"
"Ye must be Miss Mary," came a masculine voice. Clarice alighted from the carriage to see a man crouched by her daughter, an infant in his arms. Four stories of soaring, stately living quarters loomed behind him. "And this is baby Jewel. Lord Cainewood is an uncle now, ye ken."
"Lord Cainewood plays games with me sometimes. The babe is lucky to have him for an uncle." Mary ran a small finger down the child's tiny nose. "But Jewel is an odd name. 'Specially for a boy."
"Ah, but Jewel is a lass." A grin appeared on the stranger's face, lopsided and indulgent. "Though she has little hair on her head yet, she's a girl."
"Oh. Will she have hair soon?"
"Aye. A bonnie lass she'll be. Just like ye."
Mary's giggle tinkled into the summer air as the man rose to his full height and caught Clarice's gaze with his.
Something stirred inside her when she met his warm hazel eyes. Since he hadn't answered Mary, Clarice had no idea who he was. He looked to be a wedding guest, though, dressed in a fancy blue suit trimmed with bright gold braid. She'd been told this would be a small family wedding. Judging from his accent, he must belong to the bride's side.
The stranger was tall. Clarice was not a short woman, but he topped her by a good few inches. Straight wheaten hair skimmed his shoulders and fluttered in the light breeze, shimmering in the sunshine, mesmerizing her.
She gave herself a mental shake. This magical fairytale day was sparking her imagination---that was all. She'd never thought to be inside the castle walls as an invited guest to the lord's wedding---she and Mary the only commoners invited---the only non-family invited, come to that. Lord Cainewood had said that since their misfortune had inadvertently led to his marriage, he wanted them with him to celebrate. The sheer wonder of it was going to her sensible head. Making her giddy.
"You talk funny," Mary said to the stranger.
"Mary!" Clarice exclaimed, but she couldn't seem to look at her daughter. Her gaze was riveted to the man's. He didn't talk funny, either. To the contrary, the Scottish cadence of his words seemed to flow right into her and melt her very bones. Lud, she was afraid her knees might give out.
"D'ye think so?" He tore his gaze from Clarice's and looked down at Mary. "Ye should gae a' folk the hearin', ye ken?" he said in an accent so broad it was obviously exaggerated.
At the look on her daughter's face, Clarice laughed, then clapped a hand over her mouth. Surely laughter wasn't appropriate at a lord's wedding. She schooled her expression to be properly sober. "He means you should listen to people without passing judgment," she told Mary.
The man grinned, showing even white teeth. "I'm Cameron Leslie," he said. "Cousin of the bride." He reached for Clarice's hand. When he pressed his warm lips to the back, her breath caught and she thought she might swoon.
Clarice Bradford had never swooned.
"And ye two must be the mother and daughter I've heard so much about, whose trials set Cainewood on the road to meet and woo my cousin Cait." She released her breath when he dropped her hand. "Though to hear Lord Cainewood's side of it," Mr, Leslie added with a jaunty wink, " 'twas Caithren who did the wooing."
Clarice couldn't help but smile. His cousin Caithren sounded like just what serious Lord Cainewood needed. "I'm Clarice Bradford," she said.
" 'Tis pleased I am to meet ye." He looked down when Mary tugged on one leg of his velvet breeches. "What is it, sweet?"
"Will you pick me up?"
"Mary!" Clarice frowned and set a hand on the girl's shoulder.
But the man handed the baby to Clarice, then reached down and swung her daughter into his arms. "Of course I'll hold ye, princess." His eyes danced with pleasure. "She's charming," he told Clarice.
"I . . ." She cradled the sweet-smelling babe, at a loss for words. Mary was acting inappropriately forward, to the point of burrowing into the man's neck. And Clarice . . . Clarice was jealous.
'Twas absurd. The planes of his face were cleanshaven, his skin flawless and . . . young. The man was incredibly young. Early twenties, she'd guess. She could see it in his complexion, the straightness of his lanky form, the angle of his head. This was not a man who had yet suffered the slings and arrows of life.
And Clarice was almost thirty-two years old. Old enough to know she had no business lusting over a young man of any sort, let alone one dressed in the trappings of nobility.
She'd never lusted before, ever. It was quite a heady emotion.
Her daughter was clearly just as smitten.
Clarice startled out of her trance when the whine of bagpipes filled the quadrangle.
"That's our signal," Mr. Leslie said. "I expect I should fetch the bride."
When he set Mary on her feet, the girl reached up and firmly took his hand. "May I come with you?"
"Of course ye may, princess."
"Princess," Mary breathed as they walked away. Bemused, Clarice smiled down at the cooing infant in her arms, vaguely wondering how she'd ended up holding a marquess's niece. And what she was supposed to do with her.
She glanced up to ask Mr. Leslie, but he was already too distant and Mary was happily chatting away. She wondered if perhaps she'd lost her daughter to this man.
Mary had always dreamed of being a princess.
Cameron Leslie was known to be a wee bit quiet. A man of simple needs, he didn't want for much. But when he did find something he wanted, he generally got it.
Right now he was wanting Clarice Bradford. Or his body was, at least. His head told him he couldn't come to that conclusion following a five-minute conversation.
Good Lord, he mused as he climbed the steps to his cousin's chamber, in all his twenty-three years he'd never found himself attracted to a woman as he was to Clarice. Her quiet dignity, her wholesome beauty, something in her large gray eyes. The way she so clearly adored her delightful daughter. A pity his time here in England was so short. He would like to get to know the lass, but with less than a week before he headed home to Scotland . . .
Wondering how much convincing Clarice would take to spend some time with him, he knocked on his cousin's door and called through the sturdy oak to ask if she was ready.
When the door opened, his jaw dropped. "Cait?" Dressed for her wedding, she looked different from the girl he'd known since her birth. Unbound from its customary braids, her dark blond hair, so much like his, hung straight and loose to her waist. She wore cosmetics and a sky-blue gown trimmed in silver lace. An English gown.
"Good Lord," he said. "Cait, ye look lovely."
"Thank ye." She smiled, her hazel eyes sparkling as she surveyed his own attire, a deep blue velvet suit that he'd borrowed from one of the groom's brothers. No doubt Caithren thought he looked as English as she. She aimed a curious glance at the wee lassie who still held his fingers gripped tight. "And who is this?"
"Her name is Mary, and she and her mother are special guests. She, uh, attached herself to me." Cam lifted his hand, and Mary's little hand came up with it. He gave a sheepish shrug, but his heart swelled, warm and pleased. "She may be walking down the aisle with us."
Caithren knelt, her silk skirts pooling around her. "Good day," she said.
"Good day," Mary returned in a small, polite voice. "I am pleased to meet you, my lady."
"I'm not---" Cait started.
"You'll be a lady within the hour," Cam said with a teasing smile. "Ye may as well get used to it." He knew firsthand how difficult it was to adjust to a new station in life, having unexpectedly found himself to be a baronet after Caithren's brother died last month. He blew out a breath. "I, on the other hand, will never get used to being a Sir."
"Aye, ye will." Cait stood and linked her arm though his. "Shall we go?"
Bagpipe music swelled when they reached the double front doors and stepped out into the sunshine. 'Twas a glorious day to be wed, the quadrangle redolent with the scent of newly-cut grass, the sky blue as Cait's gown and dotted with wee, puffy white clouds. Cameron's gaze swept the enormous castle's crenelated walls and the ancient keep while he mentally compared it to the tiny castle he'd recently inherited in Scotland. Beyond the timeworn tower, the grass grew high and untamed.
"Gudeman's croft," Caithren murmured.
"What is that?" Mary asked.
Cameron knelt down to her. "A place allowed to grow free as a shelter for the fairies and brownies."
"Oh." Mary's eyes opened wide. "Know you stories of fairies and brownies?"
"Many." With his free hand, Cam ruffled her unruly curls. "But they'll have to wait for later." He stood and faced Cait. " Tis really the old tilting yard," he said. "They dinna groom it since 'tis long been in disuse."
"I kent that." Her lips curved in a soft smile as she scanned her new home. "Can ye believe this place, Cam?"
He met her hazel eyes. "Ye always were meant to live in a castle, sweet Cait."
"Aye," she said, no doubt thinking of her family's tiny castle at home---Cameron's castle now. "But who'd have ever guessed it would be such a huge, historic one . . . and in England?"
"You'll do fine." Though they'd always been inseparable and he would miss her terribly, Cam knew in his heart she belonged here at Cainewood with the marquess she'd come to love. He leaned to kiss her forehead, then looked up. "There's your man now."
Her gaze flew to her intended, and her face lit at the sight of him. Suddenly Cameron ached for the security this tall, dark-haired man so clearly enjoyed---a woman to love and a place that truly felt like his own. A family. Now that Cait was staying here in England, Cameron felt very alone. A family would be comforting. With several bairns who would grow up and help him make the Leslie estate into everything he and Cait had always dreamed it could be.
Clarice walked over to take Mary by the hand. " Tis time," she said gently, and reluctantly the wee lass released her grip on Cam. The girl looked over her shoulder, her blue eyes lingering on him as the woman led her away.
"Her mother?" Cait guessed.
"Aye. Her name is Clarice Bradford. You'll like her." Cameron's gaze followed the two as they walked toward the gatehouse on their way to Cainewood's private chapel. Clarice's rich brown hair gleamed beneath a pink-ribboned straw hat. Her pink dress was simple compared to those of Caithren and the other women, but it suited her perfectly.
Cameron was simple as well.
He turned to take Cait by both hands. "Are ye ready?" he asked.
"More ready than I ever thought possible." Smiling at him, she squeezed his fingers. "Ye ken, Mam always said it is better to marry over the midden than over the muir."
"I've heard that said, that 'tis wise to stick within your own circle." Unbidden, his gaze flicked over to Clarice. "But I'm not sure I believe it."
"I dinna believe it, either." Caithren's own gaze trailed to her groom, waiting for her by the barbican. "I reckon even mothers are wrong sometimes."
"A Scots funeral is merrier than an English wedding," the very Scottish bride declared.
The fairy tale wedding was speeding past. Clarice dragged her unfocused gaze from the dining room's diamond-paned windows to the long mahogany table, set with fine china and crystal she'd only heard about in stories. The stack of marzipaned wedding cakes that had sat in the middle was long since eaten.
"Thank you." Dazed, she smiled up at the servant removing her supper plate, which was still piled embarrassingly high with the most delicious food she had ever tasted. She sipped yet again from her seemingly never-empty goblet of spiced wine.
No matter how ridiculous she told herself she was acting, her attention this eve had remained focused on the man beside her. She'd nodded and grinned and drunk to all the loudly proclaimed wedding toasts, and now she was feeling lightheaded. Cameron Leslie---Sir Cameron Leslie, as it turned out, for she'd learned that he was not only young and charming and gut-wrenchingly handsome, but also a baronet---had flirted outrageously through it all. When he wasn't slanting her glances or touching her surreptitiously, he was being attentive to her daughter---a sure way to any mother's heart.
Now they all turned to the beautiful bride as she rose with a scrape of her lattice-backed chair. "Whatever happened to that bagpiper?"
Lord Cainewood shrugged. "I think he's eating in the kitchen." His face seemed to radiate a happiness Clarice had never seen. She was thrilled that her and Mary's suffering hadn't been for naught---while senseless, at least it had played a small part in bringing these two people together.
"Well, would somebody fetch him already?" The new Lady Cainewood moved from the table and shook out her gleaming silk skirts. "I'll be wanting to dance."
Following the others' lead, Clarice stood and listened to the bride's instructions. "Hold hands in a circle, lads and lassies alternating." Clarice found herself between Sir Cameron and one of Lord Cainewood's brothers, holding two strange men's hands. Aristocratic men, no less. Lud, this must be a dream.
"That's it," the bride said. "Now, who has a hankie?" When one of the men produced one, she handed it to Sir Cameron. "Ye take the middle since ye ken what to do."
Clarice didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed when Sir Cameron released her to do his cousin's bidding. The piper arrived, and Clarice's mouth gaped open when the bride kicked off her high-heeled blue satin slippers. Laughing, her two sisters-in-law did the same.
"Mrs. Bradford?" Sir Cameron tapped her on the arm. "Are ye not going to take off your shoes?"
She looked at the women's silk-stockinged feet and then down to her own, clad in wool stockings concealed by shoes both sensible and flat. Surely she could dance in them. Lud, she wouldn't take them off, regardless. Not in front of Lord Cainewood and all his family.
She shook her head, glad when Mary provided a distraction by pulling off her own little brown shoes and gleefully tossing them into a corner. Laughter erupted all around when her stockings followed.
"Very well." The new Lady Cainewood turned to the piper. "We'll have a reel, if ye please."
Around and around they went in time to the rousing tune, until Sir Cameron came from the center to his cousin. The circling stopped, and he laid the lace-edged hankie in a neat square at her feet. They knelt on either side, and she bestowed him a kiss on the lips. This met with laughter and Clarice's own startled gasp. But she could sense an affection between the cousins that made her heart warm; she wondered how much they would miss one another.
Lady Cainewood snatched up the handkerchief and took her place in the middle. Around they went again, dancing until she chose her new husband. Their kiss was long and deep. Clarice's cheeks went hot, and she averted her eyes, only to find Sir Cameron watching her in a way that made her cheeks burn hotter. Casually his hand slipped around her waist, making her more uncomfortable, and somehow she thought he was enjoying her discomfort. Or rather, his own power in making her so. When his arm dropped and he reclaimed her hand, she wondered if she had imagined it all. The spiced wine had surely gone to her head.
After much throat-clearing and finally applause, Lord Cainewood went into the center, and the circling resumed. The dancers spun by in a blaze of color. The men wore deep jewel tones, the women mint and plum and the bride sky blue. The fabrics were rich and sumptuous, shot through with silver and gold, adorned with ribbons and lace. The ladies' stomachers were enriched with intricate embroidery, their skirts split in front and tucked up to reveal glorious matching underskirts. Clarice's Sunday gown seemed so ordinary in comparison; when the dance paused for another kiss, she had to stop herself from fidgeting with the plain pink linen.
"Ye look beautiful," Sir Cameron whispered in her ear. She was saved from putting her hand to her cheek when he grabbed it to begin the dance again.
After several more rounds, Mary was picked, and no one was surprised when she selected Sir Cameron. She bestowed on her new love a wet, smacking kiss.
Clarice was the only one who'd yet to be chosen. And it was Sir Cameron's turn again . . .
But he'd no sooner tapped her on the shoulder when the piper quit the tune. Perhaps 'twas just as well---her face was likely as pink as her dress. But she heard Sir Cameron's groan of disappointment, and it gave her an odd little thrill.
If she didn't know better .. . but no, she didn't believe in love at first sight. Long experience---as a young wife in an arranged marriage, and then a widow alone in the world---had taught her not to trust love at all.
And she and Mary were happy together. Alone together.
But she was at the castle for this one night . . . Just this one night, could she not live out a fairytale fantasy? Even ever-so-practical Clarice Bradford was entitled to a harmless fantasy now and again, was she not?
"A kissing dance!" Her red curls glimmering in the light of the dining room's fire, Lady Kendra, the groom's sister, breathlessly made her way to a chair. "I've never heard of such a thing!"
"There is much kissing at Scottish weddings." The bride winked at Sir Cameron, who was still hovering close by Clarice. "A kiss can be claimed at the beginning and end of each and every dance." That news made Clarice all tingly inside. "Now, get up, all ye lazybones. We'll have a strathspey, and a hornpipe after that."
The strathspey was energetic, a sort of line dance with much weaving in and out---no easy opportunity for kisses there. And the hornpipe was wild. After those, the piper played some lively English tunes, country round dances, until they were all worn out. Mary curled up on a chair and promptly fell asleep. Finally, when Clarice was certain she'd collapse, the piper launched into a slow, unfamiliar tune.
Sir Cameron took her by both hands and swept her into the dance. But not before claiming one of those before-dance kisses his cousin had been talking about. He leaned close, and his lips brushed hers, light and fleeting, naught more than a whisper.
Her own lips tingled in response, and the kiss left her wanting more. Clarice Bradford, who had never really wanted a kiss from anyone. Her heart pounded with new and not quite welcome feelings. "Wh-what is this dance?" she managed to stammer out.
"A galliard. All the rage at King Charles's court. Or so I've been told. Kendra taught it to me yesterday."
He danced courtly dances, and with the likes of Lady Kendra. Clarice rarely found herself tongue-tied, but she couldn't think of anything proper or significant to say. Not a word. Besides, she was busy watching everyone's stockinged feet as she copied their steps.
Sir Cameron's hands felt very warm in hers. She'd never danced a dance designed for a couple---all the country dances she knew were done in lines or a circle. She had to concentrate very hard, and she always felt a beat behind. Step forward on the toes with the left foot. Bring the right to meet it and lower the heels. "Just repeat on the other foot," Sir Cameron whispered.
So far, so good. She was almost enjoying herself.
He squeezed her hands. "Now the same, but twice forward. That's right." They came close and then pulled back again. It struck her that the dance was almost provocative, its movements mimicking courtship. Once more her cheeks betrayed her thoughts. She hated that.
"D'ye like it, Mrs. Bradford?"
" 'Tis . . . difficult."
"You're doing beautifully." He gave her that broad smile that made her heart flip-flop, creasing his faintly-stubbled cheeks. Dimples. The man had dimples. Her lips curved at the sight. "Is something funny?" he asked.
"Ah, no. Tis just . . ." The dimples made him look even younger. But she couldn't tell him that. "You're doing beautifully yourself, having just learned the dance yesterday."
"I've many to learn before Friday."
"Friday?"
"Jason---Lord Cainewood---is hosting a ball, to celebrate his marriage. All the local gentry are expected, and some from London as well, I'm told." He sighed theatrically. "Three days to learn a host of dances."
She wished she could see the ball. Not attend it, of course, but just see it, perhaps hiding in the minstrel's gallery. She remembered noticing a minstrel's gallery in the Great Hall last Christmas Day. The castle was centuries old and terribly romantic.
But other than the Great Hall, she'd never been inside it before, and odds were she'd never be inside it again. Clarice Bradford did not belong in castles. Which was perfectly all right with her. Tonight was a dream, though, a lovely dream . . .
"And a week from today I'll be gone."
"Gone?"
The music ended, and the single word seemed to vibrate in the beautiful chamber.
Gone . . . Why did the thought make her suddenly sad? She didn't know this man, so surely she wouldn't be missing him.
"Aye, I must get back to Leslie. The harvest approaches." He held onto her hands for a few extra moments, then dropped them. "I should not have been away this long, but I couldn't think of missing Caithren's wedding. And then the ball, just a few days more . . . but after that I must leave."
"Oh." Surely 'twas not proper for her to care about him leaving. She certainly wouldn't admit it.
But he looked like he wanted her to.
Impossible. Wishful thinking was leading her to see things that weren't there. And regardless, he was too young.
When the music didn't resume, Clarice wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed. 'Twas past
Lord Cainewood went off to fetch a footman to see her home. Mary didn't wake when Sir Cameron lifted her and beckoned Clarice to follow him through the castle to the double front doors.
Reluctantly, it seemed, he handed over her daughter and leaned against the doorpost, flashing a smile that looked almost shy. " 'Twas a lovely evening."
"Yes, it was. Like a dream, almost." In her arms her daughter felt limp, warm, and overly heavy. "A beautiful dream of castles and lords and ladies. A fairy tale come true. And now I must return to the real world, but I will carry this memory with me."
"I will remember our dance."
Low and meaningful, his words were like warmed, sweet honey flowing over her. Her own words failed her once again.
He touched her on the arm. "May I see ye tomorrow?"
"P-pardon?" She looked down to where his fingers still rested on her pink linen sleeve. Long, strong fingers, so unlike her late husband's older, coarse ones. Beneath the fabric, her skin prickled and the little hairs stood on end.
"May I see ye tomorrow?" When he removed his hand, she felt a distinct sense of loss. "I thought perhaps you'd like to come out walking."
'Twas impossible! The dream was over, and no matter that her heart melted when she looked into his eyes--- there could be no point in seeing him again. "I have work to do tomorrow."
Mary slumped in her arms, and Sir Cameron leapt to right her, his hands gentle, lingering on her daughter as he smiled, then glanced back up at Clarice. "The next day, then?"
"No, I---"
He pulled away, but not before he brushed the hair from her daughter's face. "Ye dinna want to see me," he said flatly. She winced as his eyes faded, his mouth turned down into a grim, straight line.
"No, 'tis not that, my lord---"
"I'm not a lord, Mrs. Bradford. Only a mere sir."
"Oh. Sir. Well. 'Tis just---" She drew a deep breath and tried again. " 'Twould not be ... seemly ... for me to be seen about the village with one so . . ." She looked down at Mary's tumbled curls. "Young." There, she'd said it. She looked up.
"D'ye really think I'm too young?" Part of her was mortified that she'd said it---in doing so, she'd as much as admitted she thought he was interested in her. Yet the light was back in his eyes. Clearly he didn't consider this objection insurmountable.
But he knew not about her other objections---ones more deep-seated and not easily brushed aside.
Just then a footman came up and presented her with a short, snappy bow. "Mrs. Bradford? I've been sent to escort you home."
She knew him. John Foster, Mrs. Foster's oldest son. And John Foster knew her, too. Moved to the castle from the village, he was dressed in Cainewood livery and had acquired the manners to go with it.
She could acquire manners too, if she wanted to. But John Foster belonged here, and she didn't. Not here or anyplace like it.
"Shall we leave, then?" she asked, turning to go down the steps.
She didn't dare look back. But she knew Cameron Leslie was watching her. Sir Cameron Leslie.
And lud, it felt entirely too good to know that.
Late the next morning, Cameron paused in front of Clarice's white, thatched-roof cottage. A colorful profusion of carefully tended flowers bordered the pristine raked path through her tiny garden to the unassuming front door. What would she think of the small castle in eastern Scotland that he'd recently inherited? 'Twas no palace, to be sure, but her cottage would fit onto half of one of its four floors.
He sneezed as he approached the door, then almost fell in when it jerked open unexpectedly and Mary launched herself into his arms. "Oh, Sir Cameron," she gushed. "I knew not if ever I'd see you again!"
"Did ye think I'd abandon my precious Mary?" Charmed, he held the barefoot, pink-cheeked lassie tight, shifting her to balance on a hip as his gaze swept the cheerful one-room cottage. Her mother was stirring something in the kettle over the fire, something that smelled fruity and sweet. Not half as sweet as her shy smile when she set down the spoon and turned to look at him, though. "Ah, there ye be," he said.
"Whatever brings you here, my lord?" Clarice blushed prettily and wiped her hands on the apron that protected her simple tan dress, then gestured to the kettle. "I told you I was busy today."
He hadn't forgotten that she'd also told him he wasn't to come at all---he was encouraged that she failed to mention that. "Now, I'm not a lord, Mrs. Bradford. I told ye that yesterday."
"Sir---"
"Please call me Cameron." He set Mary on her feet. "As to what brought me here, I was just walking by---"
"Walking?" Clarice looked a bit flustered, and he was glad for it. Then she wouldn't think to wonder how he had located her house. "You walked all the way from the castle?"
"And why not?" Humming a careless tune, Mary ran circles around him. He smiled at her indulgently. " Tis not so very far."
" 'Tis just . . . well, they usually ride down in a carriage." Clarice pushed back some hair that had escaped her brown braided bun. "Or on horseback."
"They?"
"The family, I mean." She reached out to stop her daughter's dance, pulling Mary's small body back against her taller one. Like a shield, Cam thought. "Of course some of those from the village who work there walk, but the family---"
He shrugged, wishing he could set her at ease. "I am not the family."
"But the new Lady Cainewood is your cousin, is she not?"
"Aye, Caithren is kin. First cousins, and all. But I'm a simple man, Clarice---" He stepped closer. "May I call ye Clarice?"
Color flushed her cheeks. Mary squirmed, but Clarice held her tight and nodded.
"Clarice, then. As I said, I'm a simple man. A baronet is yet a commoner, ye ken, and until last month I was not even that, and never thought to be. Until Caithren's brother died---"
She looked down to her daughter's curly head. "I'm sorry."
He waved a hand. Although he would never have wished his cousin harm, he and Adam had never been close. "Until he died, I had no property to call my own. No prospect of any, either. So ye see, I am naught but a simple country lad."
At the word "lad," she glanced up and eyed him sharply. He wished he could bite back the word. "A simple country man, I mean."
She nodded slowly, but 'twas clear she didn't agree. She set Mary free and retrieved her wooden spoon. "Why did you stop here?" she asked again.
"I . . ."
Mary crossed her wee arms. "He said he would tell me a story."
"Did he?" Toying with the spoon, Clarice looked dubious.
"Oh, yes! He said he knows tales of fairies and brownies." The lassie's eyes danced when she looked to Cameron. "Did you not, my lord?"
"I'm not a lord, Mary."
"But you did promise me a story, yes?"
"Aye. That I did."
A small trundle bed sat in one corner, and Mary flounced her way over and perched on its edge. She crossed her ankles and folded her hands in her lap. "Well, tell me one, then. A tale of fairies and brownies. Or one about a princess."
Failing to hide a smile, Clarice turned back to stir her pot of preserves. "Mary wishes to grow up and become a princess," she told Cam. "Though I tell her that is never to be."
"Princesses live in castles." Back and forth, Mary swung her feet off the edge of the bed. "Mama says I will never live in a castle, and I may as well get used to the . . . what is it you say, Mama?"
"The fact." Still facing away, Clarice set down her wooden spoon.
"The fact, yes. That I will never live in a castle, and I may as well get used to the fact."
"Hmm ... I must say I disagree." As he spoke, Cameron stepped closer behind Clarice, close enough that he could smell her own enticing scent over that of the strawberries. With stunning clarity, a sudden picture invaded his mind: these two, a woman and a child, playing outside his castle.
"Ye could very well end up living in a castle, Miss Mary. Dinna let anyone tell ye otherwise. Then have ye never heard the story of Nippit Fit and Clippit Fit?"
With a small huff of disapproval, Clarice turned toward him, then jumped back when she saw how near he'd come. He whirled to catch her before she could stumble into the fire, steadying her with his hands on her shoulders.
"Nippit who?'" Mary asked, clearly delighted.
Her mother's breath caught. Her gray eyes wide with embarrassment, she slanted a glance to her daughter, then looked back to him.
He didn't think it was his imagination when her eyes darkened and she shivered.
"Nippit who?" Mary repeated.
With an inward sigh, he dropped his hands and turned to the lass, then couldn't help but smile at her cocked head and avid expression. "Nippit Fit and Clippit Fit are not people. 'Tis the story of a commoner who became a princess."
"Ooooh. See, Mama?" Mary didn't wait for her mother's answer. "Tell me," she said to Cam.
Looking dazed, Clarice walked slowly to the well-scrubbed table and seated herself before a gigantic bowl of strawberries. Cameron trailed in her wake. "In a country far across the sea lived a prince in a grand castle---"
"Was it pretty?" Mary interrupted.
"Aye." Without waiting to be invited, he pulled out another of the four wooden chairs and sat beside Clarice. " 'Twas full of lovely furniture, beautiful artwork, and rare ornaments. One of them was a wee glass shoe which would only fit the most delicate foot in the kingdom."
Mary's feet ceased their swinging motion. "Like mine?" She stared down at her tiny pink toes.
While Clarice pointedly ignored him and worked at hulling her strawberries, he leaned across the table and craned his neck, pretending to peruse the wee lass's foot. "Why, a dainty little foot like yours exactly. And the prince, he loved dainty maidens, he did, and he decided that he wouldn't marry until the day he found a maiden that fit the shoe." Under the cover of clearing his throat, he scooted his chair a wee bit closer to Clarice's. "That lucky lady would become his wife."
"And then she'd be a princess," Mary said.
"Aye, that she would. So the prince called one of his knights and gave him the task of riding back and forth across the kingdom until he found a lady the glass shoe would fit."
"And did he find one?"
"Patience, Miss Mary. Ye must listen to what happened." Wondering if mayhap he should also practice patience, but unable to help himself, he touched her mother on the arm. "Is that not so, Clarice?"
Startled, she looked up and met his eyes. "Patience, yes." Her gaze flicked to where his fingers rested, and when he didn't remove them, she took a strawberry from the bowl and pushed it into his hand.
Clever lass, he thought, pleased and amused.
"So what happened?" Mary's feet took up their swinging again.
"The knight rode back and forth and forth and back, all around the kingdom, summoning all the ladies to come try on the shoe." He popped the small berry into his mouth. "When word got out that whoever could fit it would be the prince's bride, ye can wager that every lady in the land begged to try it on." He swallowed, and his own shoe met Clarice's under the table.
"And did it fit any ladies?"
"Well, not for the longest time. Try as they might, no ladies could fit their feet into the little glass shoe. Even those who prided themselves on their dainty feet went away in tears." Clarice moved her foot away . . . and then, very slowly, she slid it back. Not daring to sneak a glance at her, Cameron focused on her daughter instead. "Until one day when the knight came upon a house where a laird had once lived---"
"A laird?" Mary's blue eyes looked puzzled. "What is a laird?"
"A Scottish lord, more or less." When she nodded, he went on. "But the laird had died, and his fortune was gone, so his wife and two daughters worked hard to put food on the table and clothing on their backs."
"Were they beautiful, the daughters? And pleasant, as befits a princess?"
"One of them was bitter and angry at the bad luck that had befallen them. But the younger one was always happy and sang as she went about her hard work. A wee lass she was, a bonnie, sweet thing."
"Like me?" Mary asked. Clarice stifled a laugh.
Cameron's lips quirked as Mary flung herself back onto the bed so that she stared up at the smoke-stained ceiling. "Aye, very much like ye."
"So what happened?"
"When the knight rode into their courtyard holding forth the shoe, the older lass ran forward to try it on. But the younger one didn't."
"Why is that?" Mary queried the ceiling. She raised a hand into the air, squinted up, and traced the path of a distant beam with one wee finger. "Did she not want to be a princess?"
"She guessed her feet were small enough to fit the shoe, but she couldn't imagine herself as the wife of a prince. She thought people would make fun of her and say she wasn't fit to be a princess, so she decided 'twas better to keep back and not even try on the shoe."
"I wouldn't think that." Mary declared.
Clarice looked up from her work. "No, you wouldn't, poppet. But you should. You should learn your place in the world."
"Nay, she shouldn't," Cam disagreed. "Her place is what she makes it, as is yours. We are none of us born to a single destiny---I am the living proof of that."
Clarice's hands worked faster. "Not all of us are so lucky."
"Ye might find yourself lucky someday." His fingers reached out to trail one busy arm.
She froze at the touch. "I am lucky. I have Mary." She smiled at the wee lass. "That is luck enough for me---I have no dreams of living in castles."
"Well, I do." Mary rose from the trundle and dragged another chair out to sit across from Cameron. Reluctantly he pulled back his hand. 'Twould not do to court the mother in the daughter's clear sight.
Mary laced her little fingers together on the tabletop. "What happened to the daughters?"
"The knight gave the glass shoe to the older lass, who carried it up to her bedchamber. Some time passed, until, to the surprise of all, she came back down the stairs with the shoe on her foot."
"Did it truly fit?"
"Well, not exactly. She walked with a wee limp and her face was white as a puffy summer cloud. But only her little sister noticed, and she said naught."
Mary shook her head, clearly disapproving of the little sister.
Cameron shared a smile with Clarice. "The knight was so happy to find a lady who fit the shoe, he jumped on his horse and rode to the castle to tell the prince. The next day, the prince gathered his courtiers, and they all rode together to meet and bring home his bride."
"Did he fancy her?"
"Well, there was some excitement, I expect you'll imagine, when the prince's party arrived. Though they were poor, the mother gathered all the food she could find for a feast. The selfish sister helped not at all, but went to her chamber to don whatever fine clothes she could find to impress the prince. When all was ready, the younger sister came not to the table, but hid herself instead. She knew that her foot was the smallest in the house---aye, mayhap in the kingdom---and she worried that if the prince saw her it could ruin her sister's plans."
"But the prince saw her anyway, did he not?"
"Nay, for she hid herself well, behind an enormous black cauldron in the courtyard. The prince and his courtiers had a merry evening with many toasts to the couple. And when it was all over, the bride-to-be rode away with him on his horse, so full of pride she didn't even deign to say her farewells to her sister and their mother."
"Not even to her mother?" When Mary climbed from her chair to hug her mother around the knees, Clarice bent her head to kiss her daughter's curly blond crown.
Cameron was sure he'd never seen such a touching picture as the two of them together. "Not even to her mother." He paused while Clarice drew Mary up to sit on her lap. "But not long after they set upon the road, a wee bird sang from a tree. He trilled, 'Nippit fit and clippit fit, behind the prince rides, But pretty fit and little fit, ahint the cauldron hides.' "
"Oooh . . ." Mary's blue eyes grew wider. "There is the name of the tale!"
"Aye. And the prince cried, 'What is this that bird doth say?' Ye can guess he wasn't truly happy with the bride his knight had found for him. He asked, 'Have ye a sister, madam?' "
"Did she tell him?"
"To her credit, she didn't lie."
"Mama says I must never lie."
"She is wise, your mama. My aunt used to say, 'Tell the truth an' shame the deil.' "
The lassie cocked her head. "The deil?"
"The devil, ye ken? It means ye should always tell the truth. The older sister didn't lie, either, but she told the prince in a whisper, 'My sister is only a very wee one.' "
"Did he hear her?"
"Aye, for he was listening hard for the answer he hoped to hear. 'We will go back and find this wee sister,' he told his courtiers, 'for when I sent forth the shoe I had no mind that the wearer should nip her foot and clip her foot, in order to fit it on."
"Ouch!" Mary yanked a stem off a berry, and, making a proper mess of it, stuffed it into her mouth.
"Ouch, indeed." He reached to wipe some berry juice from her chin. "They all turned around and rode back to the house, where the bonnie younger lass was found behind the cauldron. 'Give her the shoe,' the prince told the older sister, and when she took it off, they all gasped to see that she had clipped off part of her toes to get it on."
A grimace on her face, Mary reached beneath the table to grasp her own tiny toes. "Did the shoe fit the little sister?"
"It fit perfectly, and she'd no need to cut her toes, either." He grinned at Mary's giggle. "When the prince saw that it fit, he took the older sister off his horse and put the younger one there instead. And they rode to his castle for the wedding."
"A big castle, and a wedding like yesterday." Mary sighed, her eyes lit with memory. "Was it beautiful?"
"I am sure it was."
"And did they live happily ever after?"
"Of course they did. For a hundred years and a day."
"A hundred years?" Clarice handed Cameron another strawberry. "You'll put even more dreams in my daughter's head."
The daughter in question hopped down from her mother's lap and made her way around the table to clamber onto Cameron's lap instead. "There is nothing wrong with dreaming," he told Clarice over Mary's curly head.
"I once was a dreamer," Clarice said softly. And her eyes told him that her dreams were long dead.
"You have dreams," Mary disagreed. "In the night, sometimes I hear you dreaming."
"I suspect those are more like nightmares," Cameron said dryly.
A knock came at the door, and Mary jumped from his lap to answer it, squealing with delight when she saw a small, dark-haired girl. "Anne!" She turned to Clarice, her big blue eyes wide with hope. "Mama? Please, can I play? Oh, please?"
"Run along, poppet," Clarice said. "You can finish your chores later." When the door banged shut, she turned to Cam with a motherly shake of her head, then blushed suddenly. "You must leave," she murmured. " 'Tis unseemly for us to be alone."
When he made no move to depart, she bent her head back to her bowl of strawberries. A spell passed where all he could hear was the liquidy sound of her work, the soft sigh of her breath, and the beat of his own heart in the still room.
"You really must leave," she repeated at last. "As it is, I will be spending all night convincing my daughter she'll not be trying on a shoe and ending up in a castle."
"But, Clarice, I live in a castle. Though it's nothing like Cainewood, more's the pity." He raised her hand and kissed it softly, making her eyes widen. Good Lord, he loved her unique combination of straightforwardness and seeming innocence. "I'm wondering if I could persuade ye to accompany me home to see it."
She tried to pull her hand away, but he held tight. Her cheeks flushed pink. "You're jesting."
"Mayhap." She looked so pretty when flustered, he couldn't resist teasing her a little bit more. "But one never kens what the future may bring."
Her mouth dropped open, and she gave a little huff of disbelief. Taking pity on her, he set her hand on the table and patted it comfortingly. "May I see ye again tomorrow, Clarice?"
"Tomorrow?" she echoed, looking dazed.
He nodded and stood. "I'll not put your reputation at jeopardy by staying here with ye alone," he said, making his way toward the door. "But I will come tomorrow, and together we will decide if I am jesting or not."
Without waiting to see her reaction, he slipped outside, letting loose a resounding sneeze as he made his way through her garden. Whistling tunelessly as he walked back to the castle, he wondered if he had been jesting at all.
Clarice returned from her morning errands to find Cameron sitting on the low stone wall in front of her cottage, looking altogether too good for her comfort. Beneath a jaunty brown hat, his hair ruffled in the breeze. Her husband's hair had been a coarse gray, but Cameron's was a silky mixture of blonds and browns. Her hand tightened around Mary's as she imagined running her fingers through it.
Breaking from her grasp, her daughter went skipping down the lane, straight into his arms. He stood and swung her in a wide circle, clearly delighting in her high-pitched squeal. Holding a basket heaped with strawberries, Clarice smiled at them from a safe distance.
He stilled and held Mary close, his nose in her blond curls, and Clarice guessed he was enjoying her daughter's charming, childish scent. Though she'd never imagined a man would appreciate a thing like that.
"I've a mind to go rowing on the river," he told Clarice.
"Oh." She looked down at the toes of her neat black shoes. She wasn't about to let on that she'd thought about him all the night and morning. "I hope you'll enjoy yourself."
"I meant with ye." He gave her a lopsided grin, displaying those dimples that made a giggle want to bubble out of her. But Clarice Bradford didn't giggle. "And Mary, of course," he added as he set her on her feet.
Mary's lips parted in a conspiratorial grin that showed lots of tiny square teeth. "I want to play with Anne," she said, more gravely than was her nature. "I told her I would bring my doll over this morning. Mama made me a most lovely doll," she told Cameron.
He noted that Clarice didn't respond to the flattery. "Did you truly tell Anne such a thing?" Her gray eyes looked puzzled before she turned and started toward the cottage. "You knew that today you're to salt and mold the butter."
Mary's cheeks went pink. "I forgot." Cam sneezed as he followed them through the garden. "Please, Mama?" she asked, shutting the door behind them.
Cameron would never have found it in him to deny the wee lass, but Clarice looked resolute. Mary turned to him, her eyes sparkling with mischief. "Would you mind very much taking Mama rowing without me? Only because I promised Anne."
The little minx was plotting to get him and Clarice alone together! He gave her a broad smile, tempted to wink but afraid Clarice might see. "I'll miss ye," he told Mary, "but nay, I wouldn't mind. Tis important to keep your promises."
"The butter---" Clarice started.
"I will do it later, Mama. I promise that as well." The blue eyes begged. "Please?" she repeated.
Cameron saw Clarice's features soften. "Very well." She put the basket on the table. "I will walk you to the cookshop. But as for going rowing alone with Sir---"
"We'll be out in the open for the world to see," he hurried to reassure her. "There is nothing unseemly about it."
While Mary skipped to her trundle to fetch her doll, Clarice lifted an enormous pile of colorfully decorated throw blankets, holding them before her as though she hoped they were armor Cam couldn't pierce.
"May I see one?" he asked.
"Certainly." She lifted her chin from the top of the stack and he took one and shook it out. "Crewel work," she explained. "They fetch a pretty penny in London."
"You're very talented with a needle." The designs were lovely. "Were ye thinking to take them to London now?"
Musical laughter filled the room, lifting his heart. "I've never been to London. Martinson----the village blacksmith---he visits his sister there twice a year and sells them for me." She replaced her chin on the pile. "I just heard he is leaving next week, so I thought to bring them by. The smithy is beside the cookshop."
"Anne's mama owns the cookshop," Mary put in.
"Ah, I see." Cameron followed them to the door. "D'ye mind if I walk along with ye? I could carry some for ye."
"As you wish." Clarice visibly relaxed when he relieved her of more than half the pile. "But I'm not going rowing."
Half an hour later, Clarice was stepping into a well-used rental rowboat.
Warm sunshine glinted off her braided brown bun as she seated herself on the wooden bench and settled her pale yellow skirts about her. Cameron took up the oars and paddled them into the center of the River Caine, where the gently flowing water took over the work, drawing them downstream.
"A lovely day, is it not?" He set down the oars and swept off his hat, tilting his face to the sun with an appreciative sigh. "I'd wager 'tis raining now in Scotland."
"Do you think so?"
"Aye." He moved to sit beside Clarice, one hand near to where hers was clenched on the edge of the bench. " Tis usually raining. Though beautiful for all of that." England was comely, especially here by the river, but the harsh contours of Scotland held more beauty in his eyes than this land's gentle prettiness. "A bonnie place to live, Scotland is." Inching his hand closer, he linked his little finger with hers.
She didn't pull her hand away, but stared straight ahead, feigning interest in a pair of swans that floated on the river. "I am certain Scotland is lovely. But so very far from here."
"Not so far." He twined another finger with hers. "Caithren has already promised to visit next summer."
"But she's from there, is she not? She would want to go home."
"Her home is here now, with her husband. As it should be. But aye, she will want to visit me and see what I've wrought with the land of our forebears." A quick bit of maneuvering, and three of his fingers were wrapped about a like number of hers. Her hand felt cool, her fingers slightly rough from her work.
More evidence, had he not known it already, that she stood on her own two feet and did what had to be done. He needed a woman who would do her fair share of the never-ending tasks around Leslie. His cousin Caithren was like that, and the more time he spent in Clarice's company, the more he found himself thinking she was the same sort of woman.
The sort of woman who would be a helpmate and friend as well as a wife.
He blinked at that thought. "Has the village always been your home?"
"Always. I've never laid my head anywhere else." She shot a swift glance to their joined hands. "I was born here in Cainewood . . . more than thirty years ago."
Cameron didn't miss the falter in her voice. "And you're thinking that's a long time, are ye?"
She pulled away her hand, folding it with the other one in her lap. "I am almost thirty-two. How old are you?"
"Twenty-three."
Her eyes grew hazy, contemplative. "Just as I thought. . ." She drew a deep breath. "I appreciate your attentions, Sir---"
"Cameron. Just call me Cameron."
Clarice hesitated. While she didn't want to anger him by ignoring the request, she didn't want to encourage him, either. Twenty-three! Lud, she was nine years his senior! And a widow with a child. "I appreciate your attentions---'tis quite flattering under the circumstances---"
"And what circumstances might those be?"
She averted her gaze, but the yellow buttercups that dotted the riverbank looked entirely too cheerful. "I am nearly a decade older than you."
"Ye have lived your entire live here in Cainewood," he said. "I reckon I've seen more of the world."
"What does that have to do with---"
"I assure ye, madam, the difference in our ages matters naught."
For the first time, she sensed an impatience in him that should have frightened her, given her background. But for some odd reason, it didn't. Or not much.
She drew herself up. "How about my feelings, sir? Do they matter?"
"Of course your feelings matter." He captured her gaze with his. "But mayhap you'll find that I can change them."
He was close, so close. Too close. She couldn't breathe. With a straight face, this man---this baronet--- was flirting with her. It was insane.
Even more insane, part of her wished he was serious. Her heart fluttered as it hadn't since her all-too-short youth. Apparently the fairy tale hadn't ended yet. But it would, and then she would fall back to Earth, hurt again by a man.
Because that was what men did to women.
Somehow, she managed to find air. "You cannot just wish my feelings different---"
He silenced her with a kiss that stole her breath along with her words, a sweet brush of his mouth that weakened her knees with its tenderness. When he pulled back, she stared at him, silent.
His eyes darkened with concern. "Is something amiss?"
"Your lips are soft," she murmured. She'd never known a man's lips could be soft.
Her husband's sure hadn't been.
"So are yours." Cameron's gentle smile warmed her.
"But---"
"Hush." His mouth touched hers again, more insistent this time. His arms slid around to pull her close, and she scooted along the bench seat until her body was pressed tight to his. She was lost in a whirl of sensation. On their own, it seemed, her hands crept up and stole around his neck, meshing themselves in the silky softness of his straight, shoulder-length hair. As his lips moved over hers, she abandoned herself to the feeling, strange and wondrous as it was.
And improper. 'Twas improper as well. She pulled away, glancing about, relieved to find they'd drifted far enough downstream that no one else was in sight.
"Hush," he said again, grabbing her back to him and pressing his forehead against hers. She stared into his eyes, so very close to hers, sensing an earnestness and an honesty in their murky depths that she'd never seen in a man before.
'Twas only because he was so young. He'd not experienced the way life could bruise and batter, not only the body but the spirit as well.
"Ye liked that," he said, his tone leaving no space for her to argue. "So why are ye trying to escape?"
"I'm not." She tried to shake her head, but only succeeded in rubbing noses. Lud, even that felt good. "I just ... I only . . . well, you surprised me, is all."
"I told ye yesterday that I want to take ye home with me, Clarice Bradford."
"You were jesting," she breathed, trying not to hope he hadn't been.
His lips grazed hers again, and she closed her eyes, then let out a little whimper when he deprived her of their warm caress.
A low laugh escaped his throat. "Aye, ye like it. And I'm not so sure I was jesting." Before she could react to that, his mouth met hers once more, with a fiery possession that sent the blood racing through her veins. His lips coaxed hers apart, and she was helpless to resist. When his tongue swept inside, hot and emphatic, but still gentle in his way, she paused in shock and then tentatively reached her own to touch it, reveling in the new sensations.
It seemed a long time before he pulled back. As she fought to catch her breath and regain her senses, he caressed her cheek with the backs of his long fingers. "You're an innocent," he murmured. "Are ye not?" His hazel eyes grew murky again. "But ye cannot be. Ye have a daughter, a lovely bright daughter such as I've never seen."
"I did not give birth to Mary," she admitted softly. "She was brought to me an orphan, a year ago, by Lord Cainewood. But I'm not innocent. I was married fourteen years. And . . ." She looked down, her gaze settling on the bottom of the old boat.
He touched her hand. "And ye were nearly raped, is that what ye wanted to tell me? Ye needn't say the words. I've learned from Caithren what happened---your sorry tale that brought her new husband out for justice and into her arms. Lord Cainewood blames himself, as I understand it."
" 'Twas not his fault, though I reckon he may feel responsible. The man was out to hurt him, and mistakenly thought he could do it through me. He thought"--- she pushed at one of the oars with the toe of her shoe, then looked up at him---"he thought I was Lord Cainewood's mistress."
He rubbed a thumb under her chin. "You're certainly pretty enough."
She wasn't used to compliments---not from the men in her life. The truth was, she didn't know how to respond to them. So she didn't. "The man would have finished the job he started, except for what happened to Mary."
"Which was?"
"She was in his way. So he slammed her against a wall. When she lay there, still as death, he took off, afraid he'd killed her."
"Which he almost did, from what I've been told."
She nodded gravely. "She didn't wake for weeks. But she's better now."
"Thank God for that."
"I do." From the look in her eyes, he didn't doubt it. "Every day." Her voice came as a whisper. "But the truth is that now I'm healed I don't think of it overmuch . . .'twas nothing that hadn't happened to me before."
He'd known it somehow, but he wanted to hear it from her lips. "Before?"
"Within my marriage."
He was silent for a long moment; then, with three fingers, he lifted her chin. " Tis sorry I am for ye, Clarice. I'm sorry ye were hurt, this last time and the times before. And sorry because ... I dinna understand. As a man, I dinna think I'll ever understand."
"You understand very well," she said, wonder in her voice.
Cameron moved away, giving her the space he sensed she needed. "Tell me about your marriage."
"I was fifteen." She looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, then back up. "My folks had other mouths to feed. Will needed a wife, children. He was getting on in years---forty-five, he was---and wanted to breed a family to support him in his dotage."
"Your parents married ye off to a man thrice your age?"
"Is that so different from what you're asking?" Her eyes flashed with challenge now, and he admired her for it. He'd never wanted a pliable woman.
He stared at her unblinkingly. "Aye. It is."
A long sigh escaped her lips. " 'Tis the done thing. I was a good daughter. I offered no argument." She shrugged. "I worked my hands to the bone in their home. I thought marriage would be easier."
"But it wasn't."
"Not with Will," she admitted. "All I wanted was a family of my own. But . . ."
"What?" He leaned to touch her clasped hands. "Tell me."
"Will couldn't give me that." Her voice broke, and she paused for a breath. "He betrayed our vows with other women, and he never gave them children, either."
"Marriage doesn't have to be like that, Clarice. Painful and empty and childless." He took her hands in his and squeezed, while words tumbled from his lips, unbidden. "It wouldn't be like that . . . with me."
"Marriage! You're jesting again." But he looked uncertain, surprised by his own words, and she was afraid he mightn't be jesting, after all. "Even were I to take you seriously, and our age difference aside, sir, the fact remains that Mary and I are better off alone. In all my life, I have never been happier than I am now . . . and I don't mean to change my circumstances."
Without a word, he trailed one finger alongside her face, and her cheeks heated even as she tightened her jaw. And her resolve. "No matter what my body tells me, my head knows what is best."
He grasped her hands between his. "Ye speak of your body and your head. But what does your heart tell ye, Clarice?"
Birds twittered in the background while she searched his face ... a face smooth and unlined, unmarred by the countless frowns and endless anger that had so characterized the only man she had ever been close to.
He'd asked what her heart told her, but she didn't trust it now. "My heart is not at issue here. I---I cannot marry you, Cameron. You're . . . you're a baronet, for God's sake!" She struggled until he let loose her hands. "I cannot marry a baronet."
A new protest. He wondered if it was progress or a step back. "Whyever not? Ye sound like the little sister."
"Who?"
"The little sister, from the story of Nippit Fit and Clippit Fit. She knew her feet were small enough they might fit the shoe, but she couldn't imagine herself as the wife of a prince. D'ye remember? She thought people would make fun of her and say she wasn't fit to be a princess."
Clarice remained silent.
"Dinna sell yourself short, love. Ye are fit to be a queen. Tis sorry I am it is only in my power to make ye a mere Lady."
The boat rocked violently when she stood. "This is not a fairy tale, and I am not the little sister. These big feet will not fit into any glass shoes. I am tall, not dainty. Too tall---"
"Ye are not too tall for me." He stood as well, to demonstrate, and the boat swung even more. She swayed wildly. Alarmed, he grabbed for her, but she leapt away.
And flailed backward, headfirst into the river.
He dove in after her, clasping her close when she came up sputtering. "Lud!" She laughed, a sound of pure delight that shocked him out of his wits. He'd expected her to be furious. "You're turning my life upside down, Cameron Leslie. Literally."
The water was frigid, and her teeth were already chattering, her lips turning a decided shade of blue. There was only one thing to do.
Kiss the warmth right back into them.
He dragged her against his body, treading water while he pressed his mouth to hers. He was shocked a second time when she cooperated fully. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders; her legs clasped his. He was certain he'd never felt anything as glorious as this willowy, wet woman fused to him, her every curve melding against his body as though they'd been made for one another. They kissed long and deep, until he realized they were slowly drifting downstream---and the boat was drifting faster.
"Hell."
"Wh-what?" Her voice sounded drugged, dreamy.
With a heartfelt groan, he kissed her again, thrilling when her tongue flicked into his mouth of her own volition. He could kiss her forever, except he had a feeling it would swiftly lead to other things.
Not to mention that soon they would be down the river without a boat. He wouldn't mind walking back, but he would mind paying for a rickety boat that he wouldn't even hold in his possession. Leslie Castle was bonnie, but the estate itself was cash poor.
"Hell," he repeated, pulling back.
"What is it, Cam?"
Cam. He had to reward her for that with another kiss.
"Hell," he said again a couple of minutes later.
"Do you always curse so much?"
"Only when my boat is floating away."
"Lud!" She looked around wildly. And then, "I cannot swim!"
She hung on to his back as he struck out for the boat. Not too long afterward, he hauled himself aboard and pulled her in after him.
She sprawled on the bench, laughing still. Until she looked down at her wet gown plastered against her front. With a gasp, she crossed her arms over full, round breasts that had shown rosy peaks through the transparent pale yellow fabric.
"Tell me you didn't see that."
"I didn't see that." But he had. Her breasts were beautiful. Everything about her was beautiful. Not only the way she looked, but her beautiful soul. And the beautiful way she felt in his arms.
She shivered. "I ... I know not what came over me."
" 'Twas the cold," he said, offering her an out. "And the wet." But they both knew that something had changed in the water.
"Yes, it must have been." Her hair had come undone and hung in long, wet tendrils down her back. He wanted to wrap his hands in it. Her arms were still crossed over her chest. "I'm sorry," she said.
"For what?"
"For making you get wet. Ruining your clothes and boots. I hope . . ." She froze, and her face went white. Whiter than even the cold would warrant. "Please don't be vexed with me."
"Why would I be vexed with ye, Clarice?" She looked like she expected him to be angry, and the truth was, that expectation in itself raised his ire. He wanted to kill the man who had taught her to be so wary. Lucky for him, the bastard was already dead. "Ye didn't do it on purpose. And truth be told, I would happily ruin my boots to hold ye again." He moved closer. "May I kiss ye again, Clarice?"
She bit her lip, for all the world looking like she didn't believe him.
He wouldn't push her, not now when she looked so cold and miserable. Moving to the other bench, he sighed and picked up the oars. With strokes made powerful by frustration, the boat was soon slicing through the water toward the docks.
"Tell me, Clarice," he asked presently, "if ye cannot swim, why were ye not frightened when ye fell?"
Her words were long in coming, and when they finally did, 'twas with a kind of wonder, as though she surprised herself with her answer. "I knew you would come after me," she said simply.
Progress, he decided. 'Twould have to do for now.
"I'm thinking . . ." The horse in the stall before him flicked its tail, and Cameron forced his mind back to the discussion. "I'm thinking if I cross our Highland ponies with some of this stock, then---"
"Why're ye hanging around here, Cam?" Caithren grinned and took her cousin's hand, pulling him out of Cainewood's stables. " Tis obvious your head is somewhere else."
"I wanted to study English breeding methods." Plucking his still-damp shirt away from his body, he followed her along the path back to the castle. "And the estate's theories pertaining to crops---why, there are all sorts of newfangled ideas that bear exploring, as long as I've taken the time to remain here in England until---"
"Ye dinna want to talk about crops." Caithren paused on the path, her smile too knowing.
"Nay?" Cameron shuffled his feet in the long trodden grass that led through a meadow sprinkled with yellow buttercups. He sneezed, then rubbed a finger under his nose. "D'ye ken, then, who around here might be considered the expert on sheep---"
"You're not wanting to talk about sheep, either."
He remained silent, cocking one sandy brow.
"You've been distracted all afternoon. Like you'd rather be somewhere else."
He never had been able to hide much from Cait. In an old gesture of affection between them, he reached to tug on one of her braids, then remembered she now wore her hair loose to please her husband. He crossed his arms instead. "How is married life treating ye, Cait?"
"So far I like it." She turned and started ambling over the drawbridge, her long, straight hair fluttering in her wake. "Very much," she called back, laughter in her voice.
Behind her, his boots sounded loud on the timeworn wood. "I'm going to miss ye." They'd been there for each other, always. "I can hardly imagine returning to Leslie alone."
"Ye need someone to share it with." Exactly what he'd been thinking, but he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. And they weren't running the same direction his did. "There is always Lady Nessa."
"She wouldn't have me when I was plain Cameron Leslie---"
Caithren paused beneath the barbican and turned to him. "But now you're the laird, Cam."
"Exactly." He blinked at her in the shadows. "Whatever feelings I had for Nessa died when she laughed at my proposal. She is sleekit, but cold underneath, ye ken? I'll not be going back to her now." His gaze drifted up to the massive portcullis overhead. The iron-banded gate would kill him instantly should it fall. Indeed, he would prefer such a fate to life with Lady Nessa.
"And the village lasses? I can think of more than a couple who are anything but cold." She grinned and started walking again, backward this time, avidly watching his face. "You've shared a tumble or two with some of them, aye?"
He should have seen something like that coming. He reached for her shoulders and spun her to face away. "I'll not be saying." There were some experiences he didn't share, not even with Caithren. "But there's none of them I can picture spending my life with, regardless." He followed her into the quadrangle and up the winding stairs of the old keep, all the while picturing spending his life with a certain woman who waited in a small white cottage. "I want somebody like Clarice---I mean, Mrs. Bradford."
His statement seemed to vibrate through the ancient stones, and his cousin's feet faltered on the steps. "Ye mean ye want Clarice herself, do ye not?" She resumed her climb, and he could hear the smile in her voice. "Dinna trouble yourself to argue---I saw ye two together at my wedding. Does it not bother ye that she's been married afore?"
"If I were thinking of having her, nay, 'twould not bother me." They went out through an archway onto a long stretch of wall walk that circumnavigated much of the castle. "She didn't have an easy time of that marriage, Cait. Not that I'm planning to take her home with me or anything, ye understand, but 'tis the truth I've found myself wondering if mayhap I could make her happy. And Mary. She's a precious lass, and she's had a hard life."
'Twas quiet, and from up here the view stretched for miles, lush and green. "Ye shouldn't marry someone to right past wrongs," Cait said softly. "Or even to make her happy. Ye should marry for your own reasons. If marriage is what you're implying ye want, ye need selfish reasons, if I may say so."
"I have my own reasons. But they matter not, since Cl---Mrs. Bradford---will not consider my suit. Not that I've been trying to court her. That would be daft, would it not? I'm leaving in four days." He crossed to the side facing the castle. "She thinks she's too old for me."
Caithren was still on the other side, but he could feel her gaze on his back. "What do ye think, Cam?"
"I think she's lovely and sweet, and a strong woman who is not afraid of hard work. Life at Leslie isn't easy, as ye well know. Tis no Cainewood." He gestured with the sweep of an arm at the immense edifice of the castle and the open quadrangle, continually crisscrossed by servants going about their business. As castles went, Leslie and his lifestyle there couldn't have been more of a contrast. "My wife will not be lying around eating sweetmeats all the day."
When he turned to face her, Caithren's eyes flashed hazel fire. "Is that what ye think I'll be doing?"
He raised one hand in mock self-defense. "I know ye better than that. But the fact remains ye could do naught more than that if it pleased ye. Whereas my wife---"
"Ye are thinking of marriage, aren't ye?"
"I think I might love her," he said simply, shocked at his own admission but knowing it was true. "That is reason enough to marry her, aye?"
Cait came over and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Are ye sure, Cam? You've kent her but a few days."
For a spell, he just measured her. "And how long did ye know your new husband before ye decided ye loved him?"
She inclined her head in a thoughtful nod. "Point conceded. Mayhap the Leslies just fall fast." She could hardly say otherwise, since her own romance had culminated in a marriage proposal within less than two weeks. "So then I have a question for ye, Cameron Leslie." She grinned. "Why have ye wasted half the day hanging around here when ye could be courting your lady?"
"She invited me for supper," he admitted.
"Then go ready yourself," she said. "Ye look like a drowned rat." She gave him a shove toward the keep and the stairs, and he was off without another word.
"Just dinna go gathering flowers to impress her," she called after him.
"He kissed me, Gisela." Clarice paced her friend's small cookshop. "Just like that, and then he asked me to go home with him."
"And when he comes tonight, what will you tell him?" Gisela pushed a strand of graying hair back under her mobcap, her words directed to the table where she was counting the strawberry tarts that Clarice had brought her.
"I know not what to tell him. He cannot have been serious, anyway." Drawing a deep breath, Clarice took the empty basket off her arm and set it on the table. "Watch where you're running, Mary!"
"You as well, Anne," Gisela chided her sprite of a child as she watched the two girls race around the cookshop. "You're making me dizzy." She reached out a plump hand to stop her daughter's hectic progress. "Go into the back and fetch Mrs. Bradford two loaves of bread."
"As you wish, Mama." Laughing, Anne streaked past a lace curtain and into the next room, Mary close on her heels.
Clarice sighed. "I'm still wondering how it is I invited him to supper. I was leaving to go home and dry off, and the words just came out of my mouth, all by themselves."
"All by themselves, is it?" When Clarice kept her lips pressed tight, Gisela leaned closer. "You like him, do you not?"
"He's good to Mary. Patient. He told her a story. And her eyes light up when---"
"This isn't about Mary." With a self-satisfied smile, Gisela counted coins to pay Clarice for the tarts. " Tis true your daughter could use a man in her life. Can we not all?" Her kind brown eyes sparkled when she laughed. "But this is about you, Clarice, and what you want for yourself."
"I've been happy alone with Mary. After what I went through with Will, I value my independence."
"And?" The money jingled when Gisela scooped it up.
"He's young."
"How young?"
She bit her lip. "Twenty-three."
"A man grown. If it doesn't bother him, why should it you? Other women will be jealous." When Clarice rolled her eyes, Gisela handed her the coins. "And?"
The money clinked in Clarice's hands as she toyed with it, pouring the small pile from one palm to the other. "Scotland. He lives in Scotland. For God's sake, I've never even been to London!"
"And?"
She lowered her head, and her voice dropped to a defeated whisper. "My skin tingles when he touches me. I"----she looked up---"I've never felt like this before."
"I felt like that once upon a time." Gisela's words sounded far away, as far away as where she seemed to be staring. "Then Tim succumbed to the smallpox, and here I am . . . running the cookshop alone. Alone, Clarice." Her gaze focused on her friend. " 'Tisn't good to be alone."
"I have Mary," Clarice said doggedly. And I'm terrified, she added to herself.
"For how many years? They grow. They grow and they're gone. You cannot live your life through a child, dearie. 'Twould not be fair to either of you."
"Delicious.'" Cameron pushed back from the table. "Another lurking talent I was unaware of. I thank ye for the fine meal."
Her cheeks burning, Clarice rose to clear the plates. " 'Twas nothing compared to what they serve at the castle."
"I've told ye, Clarice, I'm a simple country man. I prefer simple country food."
His words weren't mere flattery---he'd polished off two servings of the stew she'd prepared. She leaned close to access his empty plate. He smelled fresh and faintly spicy, not just the clean scent of the river, but like he'd bathed afterward at the castle, using expensive imported soap. Her husband had worked hard at the mill and rarely bathed---he'd usually smelled of stale sweat.
She jumped back when Cameron released an ear-splitting sneeze. She couldn't help but stare at him. He'd been sneezing ever since he'd arrived.
He shook his head as though to clear it. "Oh, I'll admit that once in a while 'tis nice to eat fancy, but a man could get sick eating like that every day, ye ken?"
"I hope you're not getting sick now," she told him, her heart thudding at the sudden thought. The Black Death had swept through England two years earlier, devastating the population. And its first symptom was sneezing.
His face turned red. " Tis just---" He cupped his hands and sneezed into them again.
Unaware of her mother's distress, Mary stared at him with open admiration. "You have the loudest sneeze I've ever heard."
"Mary!" Clarice admonished, although she'd been thinking the same thing herself before her mind had become fixated on this new concern.
He sneezed yet again, seeming to shake the cottage walls. "My apologies. Tis just---" Another explosion had Clarice backing away in an effort avoid this plague. It was all she could do not to grab her daughter and run for the door.
His eyes filled with regret, he rubbed a finger under his nose. " 'Tis the flowers," he admitted sheepishly.
"The what?" Mary asked, nibbling on a nail while Clarice wracked her brain, wondering if her daughter had touched him.
"The flowers." He gestured toward the middle of the table, where Clarice had placed a bowl crammed with cheerful posies she'd picked from her garden. "They make me sneeze."
His words finally got through to her. As he drew breath in preparation for another discharge, Clarice snatched up the bowl, clutching it to her chest and sagging with relief. "Flowers make you sneeze?"
With an obvious effort, he held back. "Aye. I've always been that way---I know not why."
"Lud." And here she'd worried he'd been on the verge of death. Trying not to laugh---at herself or his absurd affliction; she wasn't sure which---she backed toward the door. "Let me just take these outside."
Cameron began to rise, as though he intended to help her. Or to leave.
"Mary," she choked out, "will you please pour Sir Cameron more ale?" She hurried outside, closing the door behind her before she slumped against it, attacked by a fit of the giggles like she'd never before experienced.
Around this man, she seemed to be a different woman. She had to get herself under control. Biting her tongue, she drew a deep breath and used every ounce of her will to keep a straight face as she reentered the cottage.
As she'd requested, Mary had poured more ale. Apparently recovered, Cameron sipped and chatted with her daughter while Clarice bustled about, calming herself and lighting candles to ward off the dark that was swiftly falling. Though she hadn't a clue whether he would stay a spell longer or not, she was hoping the cozy lit room and another cup of ale would keep him there awhile.
To her vast surprise, she found herself craving another kiss. What could it hurt? A memory to keep her warm at night.
He'd removed his surcoat and sat at her table in a thin lawn shirt, the sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned, muscled forearms. That small display of skin was enough to make her remember how he'd looked and felt all wet, with his clothes plastered to his body. Firm and strong, so unlike her husband's aging form. She'd been distracted to the point that she had almost forgotten to eat.
Yet he hadn't so much as touched her all evening. She knew not whether he'd given up, or whether he was simply a gentleman who wouldn't think of pressing his suit in her daughter's plain sight. But she hoped it was the latter.
She was dying for a kiss.
Although the thought of anything more intimate scared the very wits out of her, the truth was she found Cameron Leslie's kisses almost unbearably exciting. But that was because she'd never really been kissed before. A mindless grinding of the lips, yes, but not a real kiss as she'd come to know a kiss this afternoon. The rest she could happily live without. She knew what that felt like, and why anyone would ever call it "making love" was beyond her comprehension. A glossy lie, that, doubtlessly invented by men to keep virgins from abandoning their marriage beds.
"Well, I've got two choices." Refilled ale cup notwithstanding, Cameron rose. "I can either leave, or we can dance."
"Dance?" Whatever was he talking about? Slowly she removed the apron that covered her navy blue dress. A nice dark color. Even if she were soaking wet, he'd not be able to see through it.
"Aye, dance," he said. "I was supposed to practice my dancing tonight, in preparation for Friday's ball. Lady Kendra told me in no uncertain terms that I was to return early, or dance here instead."
She didn't fall for that story, but when he began pushing the table and chairs out of the way, she couldn't seem to find the words to tell him no.
Courtly dancing was for couples, mostly. He would have to touch her. Her hands tingled at the mere thought.
Mary scraped a chair across the floor. "May I dance, too?"
"Of course ye may." He brushed his palms on his plain wool breeches. "We will start with the minuet. I need the most practice in that---"
"We've got no music," Mary pointed out.
"I can count the beats." He cleared his throat and launched right into the lesson. "We count six for each minuet step, but the first movement is only a plie---"
"A what?" Mary cocked her golden head.
"A plie. Just turn out your feet and bend your knees a little."
"Like this?" She plied until her bottom nearly touched the floor.
Clarice's heart melted when she saw him bite back a laugh. "Nay, princess. Just a wee bit. Like this." He demonstrated. "Now, that is really naught but a preparation for the step, so we start with the last beat of the previous bar. Six, one, two, three, four, five; six, one, two---"
"I think I feel the headache coming on," Clarice interrupted, putting a hand to her brow. "This is terribly complicated, is it not?"
"You'll do fine. Follow me. Plie, then step forward with your right foot and rise on your toes. Close in your left foot and lower your heels." As best they could, Clarice and Mary executed the steps while he watched. "Good. Now the same on the other side." Counting off, he danced along. "Six, one, two, three, four, five. Smaller steps, Princess Mary. The steps must be tiny to fit in the beats. Six, one, two, three, four, five . . ."
When he took Mary's hands to show her how they would dance together, Clarice wanted to scream. Not that she begrudged her daughter the attention, but lud, she'd been waiting all night to touch him. And she felt downright silly dancing alone.
"Six, one, two, three, four, five. La la la, la la la---"
"What are the words?" Mary interrupted, stopping mid-step.
Cameron blinked. "It doesn't have words." He tugged on Mary's hands to get her dancing again.
"Oh." She stayed stubbornly still and ruminated on that a moment. "I like songs with words."
He shrugged. "I know no words to this one, Princess Mary."
"Then I will sing something else." And without further ado, she launched into a lovely rendition of "The Twenty-Ninth of May."
"Let the bells in steeples ring,
And music sweetly play,
That loyal Tories mayn't forget
The twenty-ninth of May."
The charming dimples appeared when Cameron grinned. "Ye sing beautifully, princess." And finally, while Mary's sweet voice trilled the lilting tune, he dropped her hands and took Clarice's.
Mary made her way to a chair.
"Twelve years was he banish'd
From what was his due,
And forced to hide in fields and woods
From Presbyterian crew;
But God did preserve him,
As plainly you do see,
The blood-hounds did surround the oak
While he was in the tree."
Clarice's feet seemed to glide effortlessly, her body guided by Cameron's warm hands holding hers. Her gaze was locked on his compelling hazel eyes. Her blood pumped much harder than the sedate dance should cause. Lud, what was happening to her? If her daughter weren't watching, she would surely throw herself into his arms.
His smile suggested he just might be reading her mind, and her heart skipped a beat. His hands tightened on hers when she would have stumbled, but he didn't comment on her clumsiness. "She sings of King Charles's restoration, does she not?"
"P-pardon?" The song was the farthest thing from her mind.
"I'm speaking of Mary." The dimples winked, telling her he was pleased with her discomposure. "Her song tells of the Restoration, and Charles hiding in the Royal Oak."
"Oh. Yes." Somehow, probably owing to Cameron's skill, her feet kept moving in time to the melody. He must have been jesting when he said he needed practice; he was a superb dancer. " 'Tis a Cavalier ballad she sings. Cainewood---the whole village---was a Royalist stronghold throughout the Civil War. In support of the marquess, you understand. His family was fiercely Royalist---his parents both died in the battle of Worcester."
"D'ye remember that?"
"Most certainly." Then she remembered something else, and her heart dropped to her knees. "You were too young, were you not? I'd wager you don't remember the Commonwealth. 'Twas no trial to you, was it, that sad period in our history?" For a moment, lost in his eyes and the dance, she'd forgotten their age difference. But it would be there, wouldn't it? Always. Different life experiences.
"Nay. I dinna remember overmuch," he admitted, confirming her suspicions. "I was but a bairn. And though London holds rule over Scotland, ye must remember we are quite far removed from what happens here."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "We haven't much in common, do we? You're Scottish, I'm English . . ." A profound sense of loss swept through her, and her words trailed off.
"So let the bells in steeples ring,
And music sweetly play,
That loyal Tories may ... n't ... forget
The . . . twen ... ty ... ninth . . ."
The song trailed off as well. Curled up on the chair, Mary was sound asleep. Their dance ground to a halt. In unison, they both shot her a glance, then their eyes met.
"I want ye, Clarice."
She looked down at her scuffed black slippers. No glass shoe, to be sure. "I was never meant to be a lady . . . indeed, I wouldn't even know how to behave."
With a finger under her chin, he brought her gaze back to his. "Exactly like ye do. You're the best woman I've ever met."
Her smile was quick but sad. "And you're the most charming man I've ever met."
"Nay, I'm serious." His eyes searched hers. "You've the kindest heart, the sweetest soul. I wouldn't want ye to behave any other way than ye already do. And no matter what ye say, we have quite a bit in common." Cameron's voice was suddenly lower, husky. "Most importantly, what we have in common is this ..." And he pressed his mouth to hers. His hands went to the small of her back, pressing her body to his as well. And God help her, she went willingly. Eagerly. Her lips opened beneath his, aching for the sweep of his clever tongue.
When he finally pulled back, she was breathless. Lightheaded.
Halfway in love.
"Now I'll hear no more talk of what we don't have in common," he told her. "What we do have in common is much more pleasant, dinna ye agree?"
She nodded, then shook her head. "But there are other things---"
"Aye?" His hands gripped her shoulders, and he kissed her again, short and bittersweet. "I will hear of them, then. We will speak of those things tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?"
"Today ye fed me, tomorrow I'11 feed ye." Another kiss. Clearly he meant it to be short, but she kept her mouth fused to his when he would have pulled away, sinking into the caress. With a groan, he capitulated, and for a glorious space of time Clarice was positive there was nothing occupying his mind save for her. The power was heady. When she finally let him release her, she grinned, licking his taste on her lips.
His answering grin was a bit too cocky for her comfort. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and strode to reclaim his surcoat.
"Tomorrow," he repeated, shrugging into it. "A picnic. I will call for ye at noon. And Mary, of course. She may bring her friend Anne if it pleases her."
Her gaze shot to her daughter. Lud, she'd been wantonly kissing a man, and Mary right in the room. Sensible Clarice had lost her senses.
"Dinna worry," he said, reading her mind. "She saw naught." On his way to the door, he paused to draw her close and plant one more kiss that left her reeling. He was outside and down her garden path before she could catch her breath. A final sneeze drifted back to her.
Noon. Fourteen hours from now. Fourteen hours until she would have to tell him the one thing that would send him running from her as fast as his legs would carry him.
This had gone much too far already.
"There's a bonnie loch near Leslie." Seated on the blanket he'd brought---which he'd positioned as far from any flowers as possible----Cameron crossed his arms behind his head and leaned back against the trunk of a tree. "But not nearly as big as this one."
"Hmm . . ." Clarice smiled at the sight of Mary playing with her friend Anne by the lake's edge. "We are fortunate the marquess allows us to enjoy his park." Indeed, 'twas a sylvan scene, blue water lapping softly at green shores. Friendly swans roamed the gently sloped grassy banks, begging crumbs from picnickers. The whole was surrounded by lovely shade trees.
Before they'd eaten, the girls had begged dancing lessons from Cameron. Right there in the open, he'd taught them all a branle, the courante, an almain, and the English pavane. "Lady Kendra's been busy," he'd told Clarice with a grin.
Now, licking the delicious stickiness of roast chicken from her fingers, she turned to the huge picnic basket that Cam had brought with him from the castle. "Lud, there is food left to satisfy the entire village."
He grinned. "I told Cook I needed to feed four ravenous folk."
"Are you telling me you didn't prepare all this yourself?" Sipping wine from a pewter goblet, she sent him a mock glare over the rim.
"Nay." Cameron crossed his long legs. "I suppose ye should know that I cannot cook. Tis why I require a wife." Though he'd said it in jest, he was pleased to see that she didn't flinch at his words. Mayhap she was getting used to the idea.
Tomorrow was the ball, and Sunday he'd be leaving for home.
The realization hit with a stab of desperation. He couldn't leave her here. Whatever bond he had felt upon meeting her, since then it had grown. He was more than certain of his feelings now.
He stood suddenly, reaching a hand to bring her up with him, to mold her body against his, to devour her sweet mouth, to convince her, once and for all, that she didn't want to live without him any more than he did without her.
Her goblet fell to the ground and rolled down the mild slope. With her palms flat on his chest, she pushed away. "I cannot do this." Her words came in a harsh whisper. "I'm feeling too close, and . . . you're leaving."
She shot a glance to where Mary played by the water, oblivious.
"Clarice." Fingers on her chin, he gently eased her gaze back to his. "Lord knows, I've tried to be patient, but I want ye. If ye didn't believe it before, mayhap ye will now. Ye have to now, or 'twill be too late." He stared into her eyes, the gray bright with a sheen of tears. "Do ye truly think it matters that you've years to your credit I haven't lived?"
"No," she whispered, for all the world looking defeated. " Tis---"
"Ye cannot believe ye dinna deserve a baronet. For God's sake, all that means is I own some land. And with it comes a title of sorts. But I'm not nobility, Clarice, and even if I were, I'd want ye still."
"I know."
Then why did she look like her heart would break? "Would ye be so unhappy then, to leave the place of your birth?"
"No." She shook her head vehemently. "That is not . . . no."
"Are ye afeared, then, to come away with me unmarried? Afeared for your soul? For though the kirk may say it wrong, the truth is I cannot wait three weeks for banns to be called. I must get home. And the thought of leaving ye here . . ."
"No ... that is not the problem, either. I cannot marry you, Cameron. I cannot. 'Twould not be fair to you, can you not see that? I'm not young anymore, and---"
"I told ye, I care not about such things!"
"Let me finish---"
"A handfasting, then---"
"A what?" She blinked, clearly confused.
"A handfasting. At home, we dinna have too many clergymen, as ye do here. And so it is custom to join hands, and to pledge to each other to live as man and wife for a year and a day. At the end of that time, if no child is conceived, the couple can choose to part ways. When next a priest comes to visit, the marriage is confirmed in the eyes of the kirk. 'Tis simple, no?"
" Tis impossible," she whispered.
He didn't understand. "Why think ye so? 'Tis the perfect solution for such as we. A time-honored ceremony . . . tell me true, would ye feel unwed if it were not performed by a member of the clergy?"
She shook her head. "I was wed during the Commonwealth." Cameron knew that during Cromwell's rule, marriage was a civil matter only, not considered to be any business of God's. "And truly wed I was," she added, visibly shuddering. "It took no clergyman to bind me to Will."
Once again he wondered what this marriage of hers had been like. But this was not the time to probe.
"Then what is your objection, if I may ask? I ken ye like me---no, more than that. And I'll not hear otherwise."
"Whenever my husband . . ." Her voice dropped to a whisper, then faded away entirely.
"Aye?"
"I cannot be a true wife to any man," she blurted all of a sudden. "I was married fourteen years. Long years. Yet I never once enjoyed sharing a bed with my husband. He said I was . . . frigid." Her face turned red, but she held Cam's gaze. "I hate that word. But it fits. When it comes to intimacy, I feel . . . nothing. Nothing but pain and revulsion and fear."
Cameron drew a deep breath, let it out. "That was with him. Ye dinna feel revulsion and fear when I kiss ye," he pointed out carefully.
"That is different. I had never been kissed before---" His mouth gaped open, and she held up a hand. "Not really. Not what, with you, I've come to know as a kiss. 'Twas new to me, and yes, wonderful. But I know what the other is like. I know not how other women stand it. I know only that for me, it can never be something I more than tolerate. Barely."
He knew she was wrong. But he also knew that no words would convince her of that fact. " 'Tis sorry I am for ye, Clarice. That must have been hard on your marriage."
"It was. Will always said that a night in my bed was . . . akin to rape. And truth be told, what he did was not all that different from what that other man attempted this summer." A single tear overflowed and traced a path down her cheek. "Will never let me forget, for one minute, what a failure I am as a woman."
"Clarice . . ."
"That is why I was so thrilled to be given Mary." Her gaze strayed to where her daughter chased Anne along the shore, their giggles floating to them on the breeze. "To have a child, at last, and without having to remarry. I ... I know not if I can go through that again."
A strangled sound escaped his throat, and she looked back to him, her features etched with both determination and pain. "You're young, Cameron Leslie. You have love in your heart, and land and a title to bequeath to children of your body. You shouldn't have to rape your wife in order to get them."
How many times had he pictured those bairns she spoke of running around his castle, growing, working with him side by side? He wanted her for their mother. "Would ye be willing to try, Clarice?"
She shrugged. "I tried a thousand times, with all my heart. I always hoped that if I tried, he wouldn't hit me." More tears ran down her cheeks, and he reached to brush them away, feeling a stab of hurt when she pulled back to avoid his hand. "It never worked, and ... it never will. Other women speak of a mindless joy, a special bonding. I'll not deprive you of that, not even to secure my own happiness. I'm not that selfish. You deserve better."
He knew she was wrong---that she was warm, not cold, and that with patience, the right man could overcome the emotional scars of mistreatment. She was wrong.
But what if he were wrong, instead? What if she knew of what she spoke?
Could he live with that?
She knelt, reaching for the goblet that had rolled away, tossing everything back in the basket. "I want you to leave, Cameron."
"What?" Would she cut out his heart?
"I want you to leave." She stood and shoved the basket into his hands, then tossed the blanket over it. "Now. Just leave me alone, like you should have in the first place."
He stared at her for a long moment, until she turned her back.
"I love ye," he said. Her shoulders remained stiff, unyielding. The words vibrated across the chasm that stretched between them.
A chasm it seemed he couldn't leap. But he would find a way.
For the first time in close to a week, Clarice felt like she'd done a full day's work. She'd made some more strawberry tarts and delivered them to Gisela at the cookshop. Her fingers were stained red from picking berries for tomorrow's batch. She'd finished one crewelwork throw and started another, both of which would bring a tidy sum. The house was swept, the linens washed.
Her heart was empty.
She'd known all along that Cameron wouldn't choose to marry a cold woman. She'd been foolish to allow herself to get close. But though she had said from the start that she and Mary were better off on their own---and truly meant it as well---the thought of never seeing him again left her feeling like there was a gaping hole in her middle.
Yet surely she would get over that. 'Twas all for the better. She was terrified at what the marriage bed would bring, and having escaped that once, she'd be daft to go back. She might have lived a fairy tale for a week, but she wasn't meant to live in a castle forever.
She was setting supper on the table when the rattle of carriage wheels started parading down her street. One after the other, the local nobility were making their way to the castle for the marquess's wedding celebration ball.
Mary ran to fling open the door. "Look, Mama! Oh, look at the beautiful coaches! Look, that one has four white horses! And I can see inside. That lady's hair has jewels stuck in it!"
"How lovely," Clarice answered with as much enthusiasm as she could muster---which wasn't much. Of course she'd never expected to attend the ball---unlike her daughter, never even dreamed of such a thing---but that didn't mean she wanted to ogle the guests. She'd prefer to block the entire event from her mind. Just knowing Cameron was there, probably already dancing the new dances, made her heart ache anew.
"Eleven carriages so far, Mama."
"Is that so?" Clarice struggled to pull herself together. "How many if three more arrive?" she forced herself to ask, playing their old game. "How many then?'"
Mary's golden head tilted, but she stayed facing away, her gaze glued to the proceedings outdoors. "Fourteen," she finally announced, pride lighting her small voice. "Fourteen, is that right? And here come three more now." She yawned, covering her mouth with one small hand; Clarice had kept her busy all the day long, running, fetching, and helping wherever a girl her size could help. Then suddenly she froze, and her voice sounded puzzled. "Here comes one from the other direction, Mama. Do you s'pose the party is full?"
"I think not."
"But 'tis stopping, Mama, and not turning around. The party must be too full."
Despite her melancholy, Clarice found herself laughing. "I imagine the ballroom is large enough to accommodate half the population of Sussex."
"Cainewood doesn't boast a proper ballroom," came a deep voice, "but they're using the Great Hall. And your mama's right---the chamber is unlikely to be strained to the bursting anytime soon."
"Cameron?" Clarice whispered.
"Good eve, princess." He swung Mary up into his arms and stepped inside, dressed in the blue velvet suit he had worn to the wedding. Lud, he was devastating. Wickedly confident, his grin lit up a place in Clarice's heart, but she steeled herself to caution.
"Good evening, Sir Cameron."
"Clarice." He nodded, a gallant incline of his head. "I hope ye remember the new dances."
"Wh-what?"
"The new dances. I'll be wanting to dance with ye at the ball."
"I'm not going to the ball!" Whatever could he be talking about?
"Oh, aye, ye are. And 'tis started already, so we'd best be on our way." Setting Mary on her feet, he brushed stray curls from her face. "You'll be needing a ribbon for your hair, princess, and ye must put on your best gown."
"Am I going to the ball, too?" Mary's eyes were round as two blue saucers.
"Not exactly. But ye can watch from the minstrel's gallery." The minstrel's gallery. The exact place Clarice had wished she could watch from a few days before. "And there will be one special ceremony I'm hoping you'll want to bear witness to."
"What about a bear?"
"Bear witness. You'll see. Then when ye get tired, ye may sleep in the nursery."
"With baby Jewel?"
"The very same. And her nurse to watch over ye both."
"You've planned everything," Clarice put in, finally finding her tongue. "But I'll thank you not to make promises to my daughter that you cannot keep. I cannot go to the ball. I am no lady, and I've nothing to wear."
"Did ye think I taught ye those dances just so that ye could do them with Mary?" The ostrich plume on Cameron's hat bobbed when he shook his well-groomed head. "I've a gown for ye in the carriage---just wait here while I fetch it."
"Wait here," Clarice scoffed, turning to ladle her soup. "As though I've anywhere to go. Certainly not to a ball at the castle."
But a moment later he was back, a brilliant yellow gown over one arm that reminded her of the buttercups alongside the River Caine. It had an underskirt of golden tissue, and a wide gold flounce all the way around the bottom.
"I had the seamstress add the flounce," Cameron explained, "since you're a wee bit taller than Kendra." An understatement if ever she'd heard one.
Her fingers itched to just touch the sumptuous fabric. "Ye expect me to ... wear this?"
"Aye. I went to great trouble to have it readied when both Lady Cainewood and Lady Kendra were wanting their new gowns finished at the same time."
"But"---she drew a deep breath---"nothing has changed. Between us, or otherwise."
His eyes were as earnest as ever. "I didn't think that anything had changed. I want to take ye to the ball, Clarice." He held out a matching golden stomacher. "Hurry. Tis already started."
Mary snatched it from his hands and shoved it at her mother. "Yes, hurry, Mama. We must bank the fire, lest the soup burn. Will we eat supper at the ball?"
"Aye, delicacies like you've never seen. Your mama and I will bring ye a plate to the nursery."
Mary clapped her hands. "Hurry, Mama!" she repeated. She started working the laces on the front of her dress.
"I'll wait for ye in the carriage," Cameron said over his shoulder as he headed out the door. "Impatiently."
"I feel like I'm in a dream," Clarice said an hour later. "Dancing at a ball in the castle. Ever since the day I met you, I've felt like I'm in a dream. A fairy tale."
He twirled her into the next step. "The dream can last forever, Clarice, if only you'll say aye."
"Oh, Cameron . . ." Tonight, if she had any say in the matter, reality would not intrude. There would be time for sorrow and regret tomorrow. "If only things could be different. I cannot be a real wife to you---not the kind of wife you deserve---"
"What I deserve is for me to decide, for me to choose. And I choose ye. What ye speak of is only one small part of marriage. The other parts are much more important. I choose ye, Clarice. I choose ye and Mary."
She watched his gaze stray up to the minstrel's gallery, where her daughter's small face appeared between the slats. He let go of Clarice long enough to wave, then grinned when Mary waved back.
"Ye said ye were willing to try." They rose on their toes, then moved closer together. "But even without that, what ye have to offer is enough for me." And right there, in the Great Hall in front of all the glittering nobility, he stopped and leaned to give plain Clarice Bradford a kiss.
"Since you're the practical sort," he continued when he resumed the dance, "I'll give ye my practical arguments. I do not wish to marry for lust. That often fades, anyway, or so I've been told. I wish to marry for love, companionship, and the helpmate I ken ye will be." He drew a breath that she might have thought was shaky, if she didn't know him better. "But mostly because I cannot live without ye. Since the moment I laid eyes on ye, I kent ye were meant to be mine. Just like ye are, Clarice. I'll not be expecting ye to change."
"I wish I could believe you," she whispered.
"Why can ye not?" he demanded, displaying the quick temper she'd spotted briefly the day they went boating and again at the picnic. She had to remind herself she'd seen nothing in him to lead her to believe he might hurt her. "What cause have I given ye to doubt my word? Ever?"
"None," she said honestly. "But you walked away. When I told you I am ... fr-frigid"--- she stumbled over the word---"you walked away."
"Ye told me to walk away." The look that he gave her sparked her guilt. At the time, she'd been certain that permission to walk away was what he wanted. But now she wasn't so sure.
"Regardless," he said, " 'tis sorry I am that I did walk away." His hazel eyes looked so earnest, she couldn't doubt him. "I needed to think it through; I'll admit to that, Clarice. I did not ken my own feelings in that very moment. But now I know my heart. I've told ye the truth, and I've never lied to ye before, so I'll thank ye not to accuse me of it now." His hands squeezed hers.
"What ye have to offer is enough. I cannot live without ye, not happily at least."
All at once, rather than seeming too young, he seemed wise beyond his years. And Clarice felt young and untried, frightened of the future yet even more afraid to refuse her one chance at happiness.
"What say ye?" Cameron stopped, right there in the middle of the dance. "Will ye become my handfasted wife, Clarice Bradford? Tonight? For day after tomorrow I leave for my castle, and I'll be wanting to take ye with me. Ye and Mary."
"She'll think she's a princess."
"Nothing will make me happier than she be my princess. Except, of course, if you'll be my wife. Lady Leslie. It has a nice ring to it, does it not?" His smile made her heart turn over. "The glass shoe fits ye, Clarice. Ye deserve to wear it."
"The glass shoe would never fit." She glanced down at the hem of the gorgeous gown, thankful it was plenty long to hide her plain black slippers. He hadn't thought to bring her proper dress shoes, and for that he'd apologized profusely, although she suspected he'd wanted to but not been able to find any to fit her big feet. Not that she'd have chosen to wear formal shoes, anyway. She could barely perform the new dances in flat shoes, let alone heels.
"It fits," he insisted.
It sounded impossible, still. She would be living in a castle. Speechless, she glanced around Cainewood's Great Hall. From the polished plank floor, to the tapestries on the walls, to the intricate oak hammerbeam ceiling, the entire chamber spoke of a stately majesty she could never aspire to live up to.
"Leslie Castle is nothing like this," Cameron said, reading her mind as only he could. "Nothing. 'Tisn't ancient like this, but almost new---Caithren's father built it. It boasts naught but fifteen rooms, small rooms, none of them anything like the massive chambers here. 'Tis but a fortified house, really, built to look like a castle."
"Fifteen rooms," she murmured. "Naught but fifteen rooms." Her lips curved up in a wry smile. "I've only ever lived in one."
"Dinna worry---I will hire someone to clean it for ye. You'll not be expected to break your back making our castle a home."
" 'Twas not what I was thinking." Good heavens, she would have a servant? Whoever would have thought it? But of course she would. She would be Lady Leslie.
"Will ye marry me, Clarice? Please. Tonight. Right now." He pulled a white ribbon from his surcoat pocket. "Mary is waiting for your answer."
"Mary?" She glanced up to the gallery, and her daughter waved again. "Mary knows you wish to do this tonight?"
"Well now, while we were waiting for ye in the carriage, she asked again about the bear. She was afraid it would be dangerous." He grinned, displaying the dimples that reminded her he was young. But wise, she reminded herself. So very wise. And entirely too charming. "So I explained to her about bearing witness, and what a very important job that would be. She assured me she is mature enough to handle it."
"Oh." She felt overwhelmed, pressured from all sides. And within herself. She'd been so sure she wanted to be free of men, just she and Mary making a life for themselves. But Cameron would leave on Sunday, and she knew if he left alone, he'd be taking her heart along with him.
She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. "Yes," she whispered when she opened them. "I will be honored to become handfasted to you, Cameron Leslie. Tonight."
He let out a whoop that had heads turning as he pulled her from the Great Hall.
Laughing, she ran after him, and his cousin, Lady Cainewood, came running after them both.
"Cameron! What are ye up to?"
He stopped in the entry, a three-story stone chamber graced with impossibly tall columns and a majestic staircase. "Getting handfasted, cousin. Right now."
"Without asking me to attend? How dare ye?" His cousin's words sounded stern, but her hazel eyes, so like his, were dancing conspiratorially. "Where? I must fetch Jason."
"Not Lord Cainewood," Clarice begged under her breath. "I couldn't ..."
"Ye alone, Cait." Cameron started up the steps. "Mary will be the second witness."
Without hesitation, Lady Cainewood followed. When they reached the top of the stairs, Mary came running down the corridor and threw herself into Cameron's arms. "Did she say yes?"
"Aye, princess, she did. Aren't we lucky?"
"Can I call you Papa?"
He froze in his tracks, clearly made breathless with surprise. "I would be honored," he told Mary gravely, his voice husky with emotion. And in that moment, Clarice knew for certain she had made the right choice, no matter how frightened she was of the marriage bed, and moving to Scotland, and becoming a lady. 'Twas the right choice for Mary, and she was more important than all the mental obstacles barring Clarice's way.
He led them all to a chamber and threw open the door. Clarice's breath caught in wonder.
The entire room seemed golden. A carved bedstead was gilded and hung with golden brocade. The rest of the furniture was upholstered and gilded to match. The largest mirror Clarice had ever seen hung over a marble-topped table. She glimpsed herself in it, looking flushed and awed and younger even than Cameron.
"The Gold Chamber," Lady Cainewood explained. "My husband told me 'tis saved for honored guests, and no guest here is more important than Cameron."
Cameron rolled his eyes. " 'Tis the truth I've felt rather ridiculous bumping about this enormous room by myself." He took Clarice's hand and pulled her inside. " 'Twill be much nicer in here tonight with ye by my side."
"Me? In here?" She couldn't imagine. She was afraid to even stand on the patterned carpet that covered the floor. Her mind boggled at the luxury and expense.
"Did ye think I'd be spending our wedding night alone? Or in your little cottage? Not that it isn't nice," he hurried to add. "Ye keep it quite bonnie. But 'tis one room, ye see, and with Mary---"
"We all see," his cousin put in. "And ye are more than welcome to stay here, Mrs. Bradford, until the day ye leave for Leslie."
Clarice wasn't at all sure she was mentally prepared for a wedding night. "I wouldn't presume, Lady Cainewood---"
"Ye must call me Caithren. Or Cait, if ye please. We're about to be cousins, after all."
Could it get any more unbelievable?
"Now," Cameron said, "take my hands, right to right, and left to left. In this way our arms make the symbol of infinity, signifying our commitment to be together. Forever."
It sounded too much, too soon. "I thought you said 'twas for a year and a day?"
"Normally, aye. But for us, forever."
When he looked at her like that, she was hard put to refuse him anything. She only hoped this strange ceremony included a kiss at the end like the traditional one, because she was dying to feel his mouth on hers. No matter that her daughter and his cousin were watching.
He dropped one of her hands long enough to give the ribbon to Mary. "Can ye tie this around our four hands, princess?"
"I'll do it," Caithren volunteered.
"No, I can do it." Proudly Mary stepped up and took the white ribbon. "I learned how to tie last year, did I not, Mama?"
"You surely did, poppet."
Cam reclaimed Clarice's hand. "Then tie it well, princess, for it symbolizes how tightly our family will be bound together. Ye, me, and your mama."
"Wait." Frowning, Mary chewed on a nail. "At Lady Cainewood's wedding . . . well, should not Mama be holding flowers?"
"Nay!" Cam and Cait shouted together. Eyes wide, Mary jumped, and in spite of the serious occasion, Clarice found herself laughing.
What a marvelous new life she was going to have.
She sobered when Mary came closer, and if the bow was a bit crooked when she finished tying, it didn't matter. "Perfect," Cameron declared.
Then he dropped to one knee and captured Clarice's gaze with his.
"I present to ye, Clarice, my love and my pledge. May I never knowingly or willingly do anything to harm nor grieve ye in any fashion. Accept this pledge as a token of my trust. Like our hands are bound, may our love be as strong. That which is mine is yours, my heart and all my worldly belongings. Will ye share my life with me, Clarice?"
A hush settled over the room, and his hands squeezed hers.
"What am I supposed to say?" she whispered.
"Say aye, my love. Only aye."
She ventured a tremulous smile. "Aye, then. I will share your life. For a year and a day and forevermore."
He rose and leaned forward, his mouth meeting hers in a rush of heat, their bound hands crushed between their bodies. All too soon, he pulled away. "Now, Mary," he said huskily. "Cait? Will ye untie us, if ye please, and bind Mary's hands to ours as well?"
Tears flooded Clarice's eyes as his cousin did as he bid. Soon they were tied together, the three of them, and Cam dropped to one knee again.
"We are bound to ye, Mary, from this day forward, as your parents in our hearts and our souls. Ye have our love, and with it our promise never to harm or grieve ye willingly in any fashion. Like our hands are bound, let our love be as strong. Will ye share your life with us, and be known from this day forward as Mary Leslie, daughter of Cameron and Clarice?"
"What am I s'posed to say?" Mary whispered.
Beneath the ribbon bow, Clarice squeezed her daughter's hand. "Just say yes, sweet."
"Yes!" An exclamation of pure joy, the single word echoed in the ancient stone chamber.
And though Clarice had felt like Mary was hers from the day Lord Cainewood brought the girl to her doorstep, in that moment she felt closer to her daughter than she'd ever thought possible. Bound, as Cameron had said, heart and soul. She would never be able to thank him for this precious gift of belonging.
All at once, Caithren was untying the ribbon, and Cameron raised Mary into the air and gave her resounding kisses on both cheeks. Then he handed her to Clarice, wrapping his arms around them both as though he could protect them from the world.
She hoped he could. She was counting on it.
"Am I a princess now?" Mary asked when he finally released them.
"No, poppet," Clarice started.
"Aye," Cam interrupted before she could say another word. "You're my princess. And ye always will be, even after ye go off and get married."
"I'm never getting married," Mary declared. "I'm going to live with you forever."
Cameron ruffled her golden curls. "Well, now, 'tis the truth that nothing would make me happier. But we will have to wait and see what happens, will we not? Dinna forget that not last week your own mama was saying she'd never get married, either."
"I must get back to the ball." Caithren sighed, then brightened. "I cannot wait to tell everyone the news."
"Nay." Cameron put a hand on her arm. "This is your night. Yours and Jason's. If you've no objection, I've a mind to take my two women here downstairs for a dance or a dozen---"
"Me, too?" Mary squealed. "Is that why you taught us the dances?"
"Absolutely. We've much to celebrate, the three of us. But in secret, ye ken? No one else will know 'tis not only cousin Caithren's wedding we're celebrating, but our wedding-for-three as well. So lock your lips, aye?"
Mary clapped both hands over her mouth and nodded.
"Good." He took her by the hand and Clarice with his other. "Then let us celebrate."
Celebrate they did, dancing the new dances and supping on scrumptious delicacies until the wee hours when the ball finally wound down. The locals headed for home, and guests who'd traveled a distance were each shown to one of Cainewood Castle's hundred chambers. Mary fell asleep on the way up the stairs, and they took her to the nursery and tucked her into one of the small beds that flanked baby Jewel's cradle.
"She looks like a princess," Cameron whispered.
Clarice leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. "Thank you so much for including her in the handfasting. It meant so much to her." She hesitated a moment, still shy with this man---her new husband. "To both of us."
"To all three of us," he corrected her. He bent to kiss Mary's tiny forehead. "Now we've celebrated that, 'tis time for a more private celebration."
Though she told herself she was being ridiculous, Clarice trembled as they walked the short distance to the Gold Chamber. Once more she was awed by the gorgeous room, though Cam didn't give her much time to admire it. The door had barely shut behind them when he set down the candle he'd been carrying and dragged her up against him and into his arms.
His lips on hers were soft, caressing, almost sweet, but she sensed an urgency in him just before they went hot and fervent. He kissed her senseless, plundering her mouth until she was breathless and tingling all over.
"I will make ye forget them," he promised when he finally pulled away. "Your first husband and the other man who mistreated ye."
"I've forgotten them already," she whispered.
'Twas not yet true, he knew, but he would make it true. He lavished her face with little kisses, and her forehead and her neck and her ears. All the while he worked his arms out of his surcoat, and it dropped to the floor with a soft rustle.
Slowly he backed her up, until Clarice felt her legs against the bed. Someone had removed the costly brocade counterpane, and the quilts were folded back in a way that she imagined was supposed to be inviting, but only served to boost her anxiety.
When he eased her down to the sheets, her trembling increased. Best to get this over with. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and drew a deep, shuddering breath. "All right," she forced between gritted teeth. "You can do it now."
She waited a few heartbeats, and when he didn't touch her, she opened her eyes. Cameron stood by the bed, staring down at her, his face an inscrutable mask.
She swallowed hard and frowned at him. "Do you not want to do it?"
"Ye can bet I do." His long fingers worked at the knot in his cravat. "But not until you're ready."
She bit her lip. "I'm ready now. Just . . . just do it."
"Nay." He drew off the cravat and set it on the bedside table. "I'll ken when you're ready. Ye needn't announce it. Especially when 'tis not true."
"I'm ready," she insisted, wanting nothing more than to have this part out of the way. This part wasn't a fairy tale, and she wanted to get back to the fairy tale part of her exciting new life. Tomorrow she and Mary would pack up their things and say good-bye to Gisela and Anne and all their other friends and neighbors, then Sunday they'd be on their way to live in a castle . . .
"You're not ready," Cameron disagreed with staid calmness. His gaze was steady, his voice tender and huskily seductive. "When your breath comes heavy, when ye ache deep inside, when your body trembles with need, not fear . . . then you'll be ready. And I'll not be 'doing it' until I ken ye want it just as much as I do."
"Oh, Cam." Her heart ached at the thought of disappointing him, but she didn't think that was the ache deep inside he was talking about. "I thought I'd explained this to you---I thought you understood. I will never want it as much as you do. I will never want it at all."
"Then we won't do it," he said simply.
Her jaw went slack, and 'twas a moment before her tongue could form any words. "You---you cannot mean that," she finally stammered.
"I dinna lie, Clarice."
"But never ... do you mean to say that if I don't want it, you will never do it at all?" 'Twas incomprehensible.
"Aye."
She struggled to her elbows to better see into his eyes. He truly looked sincere. And he'd never given her cause to distrust him. She felt a flood of relief, mixed with wonder and a rush of love. "Thank you," she whispered.
Facing away, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off one of his shoes. "I dinna think it will come down to never, though," he said conversationally. "I reckon that not too long from now you'll be dying to have me inside ye."
She blushed at the frank talk. "Maybe," she said doubtfully, not wanting to argue. "In a few years."
"I was thinking more like a few hours." His second shoe hit the floor, and he shifted on the bed to look at her. "Or minutes."
Her elbows slid out from under her, and she lay flat, staring up at him. His eyes darkened. Thinking of the way he talked---when your breath comes heavy, when ye ache deep inside, when your body is trembling . . . you'll be dying to have me inside ye---made the heat rush to her cheeks and her mouth go dry. She licked her lips. No man had ever talked to her like that. In fact, her first husband had never talked in bed at all---he'd either yelled or taken his pleasure as quickly as he could, in sullen silence.
When Cameron began to lower his mouth to meet hers, a little whimper rose from her throat. Whether from anticipation or fear, she wasn't quite sure.
"Hush," he soothed, and sat up. In a businesslike way, he removed her shoes. Then his hands streaked under her skirts and plucked off her garters. More slowly, he rolled one and then the other stocking down and off, his fingers tracing delicate paths on her legs. He ran a fingertip along the bottom of one bare foot. It made her toes curl and her breath catch.
Supporting himself on his forearms, he moved over her with a gentle smile. "I promise ye I will not do anything ye dinna like."
He smelled divinely male, and he felt warm, and because she believed him, his weight on her was more comforting than frightening. "Anything?"
"Anything. For now, I will just kiss ye." He cradled her cheek with a hand and skimmed his thumb over her lips. "Ye like kissing, aye?"
"Aye," she breathed. "I mean, yes. Kiss me. Please."
His mouth claimed hers, and she let herself slide into the gentle caress. She trusted him, and he'd said he wouldn't do anything she didn't like.
She definitely liked his kisses.
She still wondered that a man's mouth could be so soft. And when it turned harder, more demanding, she liked that, too. He tasted spicy and sweet, like the wine that had flowed freely at the ball. He nibbled her lips, then traced them with his tongue before delving inside to make her mouth burn with fire. When at last he lifted his head, she found herself gasping for air.
Like he'd predicted, her breath was coming heavy.
His lips trailed down to press a soft kiss in the hollow of her neck. "D'ye like this, my love?"
"Oh, yes." 'Twas a wonder that a kiss, not even on the mouth, could feel so good. It made her all shivery. Her breathing wasn't becoming any calmer.
Between their bodies, his fingers moved to detach the golden stomacher. Beneath it her breasts were laced tightly into the gown's bodice, and he went to work on the bow at the top, then tugged at the laces, and all the while his mouth continued the sensual assault on her sensitive throat. At last he managed to pull the lacing free. He raised himself and spread the bodice wide, then traced a path with his lips to explore the mounds of her breasts through her flimsy chemise.
"So lovely," he murmured, and his words felt warm through the thin fabric. Clarice's heart skittered, then raced faster. She wondered if he could hear it over the ragged sound of her uncontrolled breathing. He hooked a finger in the chemise's lacy neckline and dragged the material down, fastening his mouth on one rosy peak.
Hot. It felt hot and wet and wickedly wonderful. "D'ye like this?" he whispered, his breath ruffling over her sensitized flesh.
In answer, she threaded her hands in his hair and pulled him even closer. Never had she dreamed her breasts would swell and crave a man's touch, a man's lips. Breasts were made to nourish babies, so she hadn't found any use for them. Until now. Swirling his tongue across her tingling skin, he made his way to her other nipple, suckling it until it puckered in response. It made her ache deep inside. Like he'd said it would.
When he drew off her gown, she liked it. When his fingers traced feathery paths all over her body, she liked that too. When he removed his own clothes, she was surprised to find she liked that very much. Her hands explored his heated skin, the unfamiliar contours of his muscles, the smooth planes of his back. She had never voluntarily touched a man before. Touching him gave rise to new feelings, until her body trembled, but not with fear. With need, then, as he'd said it would. She felt like she wanted, yes, needed more from him.
Lud, 'twas just like he'd said it would be.
"I'm ready," she whispered, then drew a sharp breath, shocked that the words had escaped her lips. Surely she couldn't have meant them, couldn't really want him inside her. She knew what that felt like---it hurt. 'Twould ruin all these new and wondrous sensations.
He stilled and rolled to her side. Lifting her hand from where it clenched his shoulder, he brushed his lips over the knuckles. Dark, unfathomable, magnetic, his gaze held hers. "Nay, you're not ready. But ye will be, love."
Relief and disappointment mingled, along with anticipation. Her eyes slid closed when he slipped a hand between her legs and urged them apart. His fingers danced on the delicate flesh of her inner thighs, tantalizing, teasing, and her skin tingled almost unbearably. "D'ye like this?" he asked, and she could only nod her response. "Only what ye like, Clarice. I promise."
When his hand brushed higher, she almost leapt off the bed.
"Hush," he murmured in a soothing tone, taking her mouth in a deep kiss. When she relaxed, he raised his head. "A test, love, to see if ye like it. Will ye trust me?"
She bit her lip and nodded. Slowly he cupped her with a hand. Drawing a deep breath, she nodded again. And his hand moved.
Lud, what sweet torture. Teasingly seductive, his fingers felt exquisite. "I like it," she whispered.
With an ease she never would have imagined, he slipped a finger inside, and a gasp escaped her lips. Half shock, half incredible pleasure. Will had never touched her with his hands, only his fists.
Aroused almost beyond bearing, Cam struggled to hold himself in check. Sweet Lord, she was tight. And frightened out of her wits, he was sure. Once more he was gripped with a fierce urge to murder her late husband. But she gave off other signals as well, signals that made his heart swell with hope and tenderness.
She felt like heaven in his embrace. Her body exuded a heady, musky scent of arousal that drove his own desire to a fever pitch. When he moved his hand, she responded with a blissful sigh that touched a tender place in his soul. Her hips began to shift, her sighs coming between broken breaths as he continued to caress her, driving them both to the brink.
"I'm ready," she breathed in a velvet-edged whisper.
"Aye, you're ready." He moved over her, settling himself into the cradle of her thighs. Poised to enter her, he gritted his teeth and paused. "Are ye sure, my love?"
Her answer was a simple "Yes," her voice laced in wonder. Her hands came around his back and hugged tight. And he slid home, finding sweet glory in the feel of her taking him into herself. He held there, savoring her heat, until, with a tiny whimper that set his heart to singing, she arched under him.
This, Clarice thought, was the real fairy tale come true. They moved together in perfect harmony, a slow, thrilling cadence that made passion radiate from deep within her. Making love. 'Twas the perfect---the only--- way to describe it.
Then faster they moved, until she couldn't think at all. Until, in a brilliant burst of fiery sensation, she catapulted out of her old world and into a new one, a world brimming with love and shining promise.
Across the room, the candle sputtered and died. Pressed against him in the darkness, as close as two people could be, she could feel Cameron's heart beat in a rhythm to match her own. She reached for his face and took it between her hands. His cheeks were slightly rough under her fingers, just enough to remind her that, incredible though it seemed, she shared her bed with a living, breathing man.
And it was glorious.
"I love you," she whispered. "I love you for who you are, and who you've magically made me to be."
" 'Tisn't magic, my love. Or if it is," he mused, his words warm against her lips, making her ache anew for the touch of his mouth, " 'tis a magic we can only find together." Reading her mind, he fit his mouth to hers in a way that made the heat pool in her middle."
A long, melting time later, he lifted his head. "Together," he repeated.
"Together," she whispered back. Never had she imagined that word would apply to her and a man. But from this moment forward, it did.
For a year and a day and for a day and forevermore.
About the Author
Lauren Royal became interested in the Restoration period at the age of fourteen, when she snuck a valuable first-edition copy of Forever Amber out of her great-uncle's library. She lives in Southern California with her family and loves reading, rock music, and hockey (watching it, not playing it!).
Clarice and Mary were introduced in Lauren's first novel, Amethyst, the story of Colin Chase, the Earl of Greystone, and Amethyst Goldsmith, a talented jeweler whose father has betrothed her to their dull apprentice. Cameron first appeared in Emerald, the tale of his cousin Caithren's romance with Jason Chase, the Marquess of Cainewood. Lauren's next release will be Kendra Chase's story in Amber, due in the summer of 2001.
Visit Lauren's Web site at www.laurenroyal.com, where you can enter a contest to win jewelry, try some seventeenth century recipes, and find out how to get free autographed bookmarks. She loves reader mail and can be reached by E-mail at Lauren@laurenroyal.com or "real" mail at P.O. Box 52932, Irvine, CA 92619.

