Forevermore (6 page)

He could kiss her forever, except he had a feeling it would swiftly lead to other things. Not to mention they would soon be down the river without a boat. He wouldn't mind walking back, but he
would
mind paying for a rickety boat 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. Until she looked down at her wet gown plastered against her front.

With a gasp, she crossed her arms over full, round breasts with rosy peaks that had shown 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 don't know what came over me."

"It was 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," she said. 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 added.

"For what?"

"For making you get wet. Ruining your clothes and boots. I hope…" She froze, and her face went white—whiter than the cold could possibly warrant. "Please don't be vexed with me."

"Why would I be vexed with you, 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.

"You didn't do it on purpose," he said. "And truth be told, I would happily ruin my boots to hold you again." He moved closer. "May I kiss you 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 you cannot swim, why weren't you frightened when you fell?"

Her words were long in coming, and when they finally did, it was 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. It would 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 you hanging around here, Cam?" Caithren grinned and took her cousin's hand, pulling him out of Cainewood's stables. "It's obvious your head is somewhere else."

"I wanted to study English breeding methods." He followed her along the path back to the castle. "And the estate manager'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—"

"Cam." Caithren paused on the trodden grass that led through a meadow sprinkled with yellow buttercups, her smile all too knowing. "You don't want to talk about crops."

"Nay?" Cameron sneezed, then rubbed a finger under his nose. "Do you know, then, who around here might be considered the expert on sheep—"

"You're not wanting to talk about sheep, either."

He remained mute, cocking one sandy brow.

"You've been distracted all afternoon," she declared. He never had been able to hide much from Cait. "Would you rather be somewhere else?"

"Nay. Nay, of course not." He almost reached to tug one of her plaits—an old gesture of affection between them—before remembering she now wore her hair loose to please her husband. He crossed his arms instead. "How is married life treating you, 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 you." They'd been there for each other, always. "I can hardly imagine returning to Leslie alone."

"You need someone to share it with." Exactly what he'd been thinking, but he could all but 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—"

"But now you're the laird, Cam." Caithren stopped beneath the barbican and turned to him.

"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, aye? I won't 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?" She grinned and started walking again, backward this time, avidly watching his face. "I can think of more than a couple who are anything but cold. 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 won't be saying." There were some things 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. "You mean you want Clarice herself, don't you?" He could hear the smile in her voice as she climbed. "Don't trouble yourself to argue—I saw you two together at my wedding. Does it not bother you that she's been married before?"

"If I were thinking of having her, nay, it wouldn't bother me." They passed beneath an archway and 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, you understand, but it's the truth I've found myself wondering if maybe I could make her happy. And Mary. She's a precious lass, and she's had a hard life."

It was quiet up on the wall, and the view stretched for miles, lush and green. "You shouldn't marry someone to right past wrongs," Cait said softly. "Or even to make her happy. You should marry for your own reasons. If marriage is what you're implying you want, you need selfish reasons, if I may say so."

"I have my own reasons. But they don't matter, since Cl—Mrs. Bradford—won't 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."

Though Caithren remained on the other side, he could feel her gaze on his back. "What do
you
think, Cam?"

"I think she's lovely and sweet, and a strong woman who isn't afraid of hard work. Life at Leslie isn't easy, as you well know. It's no Cainewood." With the sweep of an arm, he gestured 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 won't be lying around eating sweetmeats all the day."

When he turned to face her, Caithren's eyes flashed hazel fire. "Is that what you think I'll be doing?"

He raised both hands in mock self-defense. "I know you better than that. But the fact remains you could do nothing more than that if it pleased you. Whereas
my
wife—"

"You
are
thinking of marriage, aren't you?"

"I think I might love her," he said simply, shocked at his own admission but knowing it was true. "That's reason enough to marry her, aye?"

Cait came over and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure, Cam? You've known her but a few days."

For a spell, he just measured her. "And how long did you know your new husband before you decided you love him?"

She inclined her head in a thoughtful nod. "Point conceded. Maybe 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 you, Cameron Leslie." She grinned. "Why have you wasted the afternoon hanging around here when you could be courting your lady?"

"She invited me for supper," he admitted.

"Then go ready yourself," she said. "You look like a drowned rat."

She gave him a shove toward the keep and the stairs, and he was off without another word.

"Just don't 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."

Gisela pushed a strand of flaxen hair back under her mobcap. "And when he comes tonight, what will you tell him?" she asked, her words directed to the table where she was counting the strawberry tarts Clarice had brought her.

"I don't know 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, don't you?"

"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. "It's true your daughter could use a man in her life. Can't we 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-four."

"A man grown. If it doesn't bother him, why should it bother you? Other women will be envious." 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. "It isn't good to be alone."