Page 29 of Her Reluctant Highlander Husband

Her blue eyes went wide with surprise as a blush stole over her creamy skin. How would he survive another night lying next to her without touching her?

As expected, Cam and Mari slinked off to the stairs as soon as the meal was over. Lach and Kenna didn’t remain much longer, leaving him alone with Dorie.

Rather than sit awkwardly in the hall, he asked her to join him on a walk. Her excited agreement never ceased to surprise him. No matter how awful he’d been, she still seemed happy to be with him.

His invitation was completely selfish. His plan was simply to tire her out so she’d fall asleep instantly when they returned to their room.

Not that she was some grand seductress, but in the low light, with her eyes luring him to tell her all his secrets, he was weak. The warmth of her body would be too close for him to resist. Fortunately his plan worked, and after returning to their room and slipping off that delicious gown, she slid under the covers in her equally delectable shift.

He spent the night tossing and turning. At the first light of morning he sat up, eager to flee. She slept on, so he paused in his escape to look at her.

As the day before, her black hair stuck out at all angles and points. He remembered his failure to offer her even the simplest necessities.

He slipped from the bed and moved to his trunk, silently lifting the lid to peer at the memories that lurked inside. The scent of Maggie had faded, but he still caught a slight whiff of something familiar.

Moving aside a few of her garments, he found what he was looking for. A brush and comb set she’d been given by her parents when she and Bryce married. He recalled the way she sat in their home stroking the brush through her heavy blond locks until they crackled and lifted from the heat of the fire.

He breathed in the pain and let out a breath before he tucked the ivory brush and comb set back in his trunk. He knew Dorie needed them—she had nothing when she arrived, and even less since the fire—but he wasn’t strong enough to offer them to her. They belonged to Maggie.

He glanced over his shoulder to make sure she hadn’t seen him. She was still asleep, her hands folded under her cheek like an angel.

If he’d been a different man, he might have thought she was sent to him as recompense for everything he’d lost. But he didn’t believe in such things. He’d not have anything to do with a god who took innocent women and children while leaving him alive covered with the blood of his enemies on the battlefield. It made no sense. Maggie and Isabel had done nothing wrong.

He dressed and left the room before his new wife woke.

Knowing that he cared even a bit for Dorie annoyed him enough that he was glad to be off to check the far borders. Being away for a few days would give him the distance he needed.

He didn’t want to care.

…

Dorie looked for Bryce at the morning meal but figured he was already out with his men when she didn’t see him. It wasn’t until the evening meal when she heard Cam mention Bryce had left the castle that she became concerned.

When Cam gave no details, she reached across Mari to touch his arm. Her brows pulled together.

“Of course he dinna tell you where he was going.” Cam shook his head and looked at Mari, who only shrugged. “I hope I was never such an arse to you.”

“You’ll recall you didn’t want a wife when we wed any more than Bryce did.”

Dorie was surprised to hear this. Especially seeing how much Cameron clearly loved his family. Even now his hand rested protectively on Mari’s round belly.

“You see, it’s not the worst thing to have a man leave you for a bit. So long as he realizes he cannot live without you,” Cam said. “When Mari left me, I dinna think I’d survive it.”

With the couples chatting to one another, Dorie finished her meal and went to help the women in the kitchen. There was no refuge to be found there. Millie and the other women were speaking of the romantic things their men did for them.

She made a hasty escape as they began to delve into the subject of other services their husbands provided.

Rascal was waiting outside the kitchen for her. Dorie fed him and led him out of the gates toward the stream where she and Bryce had sat and talked the day they were married. Well, he’d talked. She’d been too afraid to speak. Many times since, she wished she hadn’t continued this deception. There were so many things she wanted to say to him now. But what would he think when he found out she’d lied to him all this time?

“Do you think his leaving could be a good thing?” she asked Rascal, who loped along beside her. “I don’t know the ways of husbands and wives. I have to think it shouldn’t be this difficult.”

She was about to tell her dog the confusing things she’d learned from the women in the kitchen when he went on alert, the fur rising on his back. A low growl rumbled in his chest as he ducked down and slipped away from her.

She trusted Rascal. He’d already saved her once before, so she took his warning seriously and wedged herself between a dense bush and a large rock.

“Where did she go? She was just standing here talking with that demon hound,” Desmond said as he pointed to the ground far too close to her. She could just make him out through the leaves of the bush where she hid.

“You lie. My sister doesn’t speak,” Wallace snapped.