Chapter 17 #3
“Yes.” Lorna was as easygoing a lady as he’d ever encountered.
It should have made them a perfect match, yet somehow it … didn’t.
He did love Lorna. Even more, he liked and admired her, and there was no denying she was beautiful, but his feelings for her were distinctly brotherly.
Yet he hadn’t hesitated to agree to her father’s request—the lairdship, in exchange for marriage to Lorna.
It had made sense at the time, but that was before …
Before Freya MacLeod. God knew he’d never seen her coming.
But he’d made Alistair a promise, and he wasn’t a man who broke his promises.
“What are your feelings for Miss MacLeod, Callum?” His mother’s voice was hesitant. “Forgive me, but I think it’s rather important.”
“I’m not sure.” It was a ridiculous reply, but true, for all that. “She’s … I can’t explain it.”
Damned if he knew how he felt about Freya. He desired her, yes. He wanted her, more than he’d ever wanted any woman. A mere glance from those green eyes made his entire body burst into flames.
He’d desired ladies before, of course. He knew what it felt like. Passion and desire were simple, straightforward emotions, after all, and in his experience, fleeting ones.
Nothing like the miasma of tangled emotions roiling in his chest.
But what he felt for Freya wasn’t just desire. No, it was something else entirely.
Something more.
He had a fierce, consuming need to protect her, but he couldn’t be certain whether she’d inspired that feeling or whether it arose from the promise he’d made to Hamish.
It was a mystery he hadn’t yet solved.
Or perhaps his protectiveness was just a natural result of her circumstances.
She’d been chased by a mob, for God’s sake.
Blamed for a fire she hadn’t set, and that was just the start of it.
If Clyde Stewart didn’t turn up, she could be taken up for a murder she hadn’t committed.
Her father’s death had left her destitute, and the target of every smuggling scoundrel in Scotland, and if they didn’t get her, then the thief-takers on her trail would.
What man of proper feeling wouldn’t wish to protect her?
If that weren’t all baffling enough, there was affection there, as well, and something else, something softer than affection that he’d never experienced before. Something akin to …
Tenderness. Tenderness, of all things.
There had been ladies before Freya, but none of them had ever been to him what she was.
As for what else he felt for her, there were too many emotions to name. He didn’t even know the names for most of them. She perplexed him and amused him. She occasionally irritated him, and always intrigued him.
There was only one thing he understood beyond a doubt. His feelings for her were powerful. If he’d known he could experience such emotions, he would never have made that promise to Alistair Niven.
He hadn’t made the promise because he wanted to be the laird of Clan Ross. But he’d wanted to be part of something, to belong somewhere. He and his mother had spent so much of his childhood by themselves, untethered to anything, or anyone.
“Callum?” His mother was watching him, her brows furrowed as if she was confused, but he knew better. She likely understood the emotions pouring through him better than he did.
Some of the tightness left his chest as he stared back at her. His childhood had been a lonely one for them both, but he’d always had her, and having Aila Ross as his mother had been no small thing.
In that way, fate had smiled on him.
But now … well, perhaps she was smiling on him again, or perhaps she was merely toying with him, as a cat does with a mouse right before it deals the killing blow.
“Whatever it is you feel for Freya will become clear.” She cocked her head, considering him. “Or perhaps it won’t.”
He snorted, but once again, his lips twitched. “Thank you, Mother. That’s tremendously enlightening.”
She laughed. “I beg your pardon. I wish I could be more helpful.”
“You could refrain from suggesting that Gordon Corbett escort Miss MacLeod around the grounds again.” When he’d come upon them on the garden pathway today, Freya had been laughing as if she hadn’t a care in the world, her cheeks pink and her eyes bright.
He liked Gordon Corbett. Gordon was a decent fellow, and a damned good secretary, but that hadn’t stopped him from wanting to seize the man by the neck and drag him away from Freya.
“Jealous of Gordon, are you, Callum?” His mother raised an eyebrow. “That is telling.”
Callum opened his mouth to deny it, then snapped it closed again.
He was jealous, damn it. And Freya wasn’t the only one who deserved his apology.
Gordon did, as well.
“As I said, Callum, I left Freya in the garden, without Gordon or anyone else anywhere about. She’s alone, and you owe her an apology. I believe you called her a flirt earlier this afternoon?”
God above. Was there anything his mother didn’t know? “I may have, yes.”
“Ah, just as I thought. An apology is in order, then.” His mother rose to her feet and strode to the door, turning back to him when she reached it. “I suggest you go and offer it to her now.”