Chapter 16
Patrick
shifted in his seat and smiled in pleasure. It was probably quite deplorable to love a car, but if there had ever been a car to love, it was his Vanquish. Sleek, fast, built for the driver who loved to drive. Could anyone blame him for having such unwholesome affection for the beast?
He let his car unwind along with the road.
It never protested any turn, no matter the speed.
It was truly a marvel, and he felt, as he generally did when behind the wheel, deeply grateful to be driving and not riding.
Especially in the fall when the chill seeped into a man’s bones and made him wish for a warm fire and a hot drink.
And a car did provide him with the luxury of having company he didn’t have to shout at over his shoulder to converse with. He looked at his company. She was clutching the door frame with one hand and scribbling something on a piece of paper with the other. Her knuckles were, predictably, white.
He slowed down without so much as a sigh. She might as well be able to enjoy the view in a more leisurely manner. Goodness knows, he could stand to.
Madelyn put her pen down and looked out the window. “This is beautiful,” she said, nodding toward the loch. “I don’t know how people stand to live here.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked with a smile.
“I’m certain they don’t get anything done. I wouldn’t. I would just spend all my time staring out the window.”
“You don’t think you would become accustomed to the view in time?”
“Never.”
She stared out the window for some time. He watched her periodically from out of the corner of his eye.
Tears leaked periodically from the corners of her eyes.
He wondered what ailed her. He reached over and took her hand as shifting permitted. He even ignored the opportunity to pass several cars that he might not need to shift to do so. Traveling thusly gave him time to contemplate what he thought might be going on inside Madelyn’s head.
Was she worrying over her lack of job? He’d pried that tale out of her on the way to Inverness that morning. It made him want to find a way to do the same to Bentley Douglas Taylor III. He would have to look into that at some point.
Could it be worry over her papers? He contemplated that for a moment or two, then dismissed it. Her sister was sending her the necessary identification, and there would be no problem getting a new passport.
Money was another matter. He’d told her he would take care of her needs.
She was uncomfortable with it, he could tell that quite easily, but he wasn’t going to allow her to call her parents when he was perfectly capable of seeing to her for a few days.
He could easily see to her for more than a few days if she would allow it.
Was it something else entirely? Was it possible she might be missing him already?
He snorted to himself. By the saints, what an ego he had. She was probably suffering nothing more than an attack of allergies.
Madelyn sighed deeply, surreptitiously brushed at the tears on her face, then clasped her hands in her lap. “So,” she said, “did you come here a lot as a kid?”
Ah, a distraction from his ridiculous thoughts. He leaped upon it enthusiastically. “Nay, I didn’t,” he said. “I didn’t travel at all, if you can believe it,” he said. “We were poor and our neighbors were . . . unfriendly.”
“What were you, landlocked? Were there no roads off your property that you couldn’t get past your neighbors?”
To where? More unfriendly clans?
He smiled briefly. “The Highlands are an interesting place,” he said.
“So I keep hearing, and I’m definitely curious about several things,” she said. “And since you’re my tour guide, guide the tour. Tell me everything about Scotland and start with yourself and your growing-up years.”
He downshifted, blew past a caravan, and swung back into his own lane. “Well, there was much of poverty, hunger, and cold extremities,” he said. “Very cold winters. Chilly, rainy summers.”
“And what about you?”
“I was cold and rained on, too.”
She laughed. “Come on, Patrick. I saw, granted it was a brief view, your brother’s castle. You couldn’t have been that poor.”
“It would surprise you,” he said.
“Then surprise me. Cough up the details.”
What was he to do, tell her everything about his childhood and youth, then watch her look at him as if he were completely daft? Worse yet, delusional—perhaps dangerously so?
“I have a list of questions, if that helps.”
He blinked. “Questions?”
“Questions for you, about you.” She waved a piece of paper at him. “Don’t prevaricate. I’ll know it if you do. Shall I start?”
“Can I stop you?”
She rattled her paper purposefully. “Where were you born?” she asked.
That was an easy one. “My father’s keep.”
“When?”
“Thirty-five years ago.” Plus a bit, he added silently.
“Hmmm,” she said, tapping a pen against her paper. “A little lie. Are you clinging to your youth, or is there another reason?”
He grunted. “Move on, ye feisty wench.”
“The worst thing you did as a teenager?”
“By the saints, woman,” he said, faintly alarmed, “you don’t mess about.”
“Don’t worry,” she said with a laugh, “I won’t ask you about regrets, past sins, or huge, colossal mistakes you’d like to hide under large rocks so no one could ever discover them.”
He slowed for a village and the accompanying traffic, and took the opportunity to look at her. “Do you have regrets?”
“None.”
He smiled, then looked back at the road. “I daresay that was given too easily.”
“It isn’t my turn to give answers.”
“I’ll be happy to answer anything you’ll ask—after you divulge a regret or a colossal mistake.”
She sighed. “Well, I do have one. I regret that I didn’t grow up soon enough to realize that what I wanted to do had nothing to do with accepting my parents’ plan for me, or rebelling against that plan. I would have practiced more and become a violinist.”
“It’s not too late, is it?” he asked. “You’re not precisely geriatric.”
“Thirty,” she said. “Too old to start something new.”
“Hardly,” he said. “It’s not too late to change.”
Change
, his heart whispered suddenly. Aye, change.
She was silent for several minutes before she nodded. “It’s tempting.”
“Dreams are.”
“All right, now you,” she said, shifting in her seat to look at him.
He rubbed one of his hands on his leg. There was no reason to be nervous, but he found himself so just the same. He much preferred it when he was the one asking the questions. “Regrets,” he said slowly. “I wish I hadn’t tormented my brother so much when we were younger.”
“Were you a rotten kid?”
He shook his head. “Reckless. And Jamie was a very sober soul with much responsibility thrust onto him at an early age. I tormented him when I should have stood behind him and offered him aid. And I regret leaving home without saying anything. When I left, I think it grieved him deeply.”
And that, he supposed, was a monumental understatement.
“Didn’t you ever go back home?” she asked.
“Once,” he said. “Once, before Lisa was to have had the baby.”
“And after?”
“It was several years before I saw him again.”
“Is there no phone at his castle?”
Patrick smiled. “At that time, nay, there wasn’t. And it seemed as if we were millions of miles apart.”
“Hmmm,” she said thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
“Next regret,” he said, moving on quickly. Best not to linger where she might ask questions he certainly couldn’t answer. “That I married Lisa.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nay,” he said, with a shake of his head. “Her uncle told me not to, but I didn’t listen.” He smiled at her. “As I said, I was reckless and full of my own opinions.”
“You aren’t now?”
“I’m no longer quite as reckless.”
She laughed. “I’ll just bet. Jane said you’re close to losing your license.”
“Speeding is for the joy of it. Recklessness is another matter.”
“All right, I’ll give you that. Third regret now.”
“That I was rude to you at Culloden.”
She was silent so long that he had to look at her. She was blushing furiously.
“My apology moves you so?” he asked.
“You didn’t hear what I said to you there, did you?” He shook his head. “I didn’t.”
“Thank goodness. Let’s move on.”
“Nay,” he said with a smile, “this is far more interesting. Were you being rude to me?”
“Terribly, so get over it,” she said, crossing several things off on her list. “Now back to my questions. You were born, you grew up shivering, and you wish you hadn’t been such a pain in the backside to your brother. Where did you learn to use a sword?”
He’d wondered when that would come up. “From my father.”
“Just like that?” she asked. “Like learning to tie your shoes? He just up and said one day, ‘Okay, Patrick, today we’re going to learn to use a medieval weapon. Pay attention or I’ll cut your little head off’?”
“Aye, something like that.”
She stared at him for several moments in silence. He could have fidgeted, but he didn’t.
“You’re leaving out critical details,” she said. “There’s something about your whole family that just doesn’t add up for me.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Maybe we all behave this way in the Highlands.”
“Possibly,” she conceded. “Possibly. I’ll give you that.”
The saints be praised
. He wasn’t up to coming up with a decent excuse as to why his family behaved the way they did. If he gave her the entire truth, she wouldn’t believe it anyway.
Then again, she might.
At this point, he wasn’t sure what would be worse.
He was, he conceded with complete resignation, more bewildered than he had been in his whole life. And it had everything to do with the woman who’d just been distracted from her list by the sight of a castle sitting on the edge of a loch.
“Will you look at that!” she exclaimed. “Look over there! Can we stop? I bet there are lots of stairs.”
“Stairs?”
“Stairs,” she repeated reverently. “Millions of feet tramping up and down them. Very interesting. Can we get there? Do you mind?”
He smiled at her. “I don’t mind. I’m eager to stomp up and down stairs with you. We’ll stop wherever you want.”
“Thank you.”