Chapter Thirteen
Cameron led Jeannie down a narrow pathway that wound away from the castle, down toward the sea. They were climbing a slight hill when Jeannie suddenly stopped dead. She closed her eyes and drew several deep breaths.
"Are you all r—"
"Oh, how I've missed that smell." She threw back her head and drew in another deep, luxuriant breath. "Isn't it glorious? So clean and sharp and salty. It does a body good just to breathe it in."
She dropped his arm and hurried up the last rise to where the sea lay spread out before them. She wrapped her arms around herself, pulling the blue shawl tight as she stood staring out to sea, gazing hungrily at the endless horizon.
He came up behind her, and without taking her gaze from the shifting gray-blue waters and the endless frills of white foam breaking on the shore, she put her hand out for him. He took it, and she squeezed his hand hard.
"Thank you for bringing me here. I'd . . . I'd forgotten how much I'd missed this. I hadn't realized . . . "
He watched her in fascination. "You're not sad to leave the hills?"
She shook her head. "The hills are bonny, and I do love the mist in the mountains, and the scent of heather, but I was born on an island. I grew up with the sound and scent of the sea all around me. I missed it something fierce when I was sent to live up in the hills with Grandad."
She drew another breath deep into her lungs, then gave him a mischievous look. "Race you to the water!" She darted, fleet-foot and nimble down the path and across the rocks toward the narrow, sandy beach.
With a shout of laughter, Cameron followed. His heavy boots slowed him down, but his legs were longer and he slowly gained on her.
She hit the beach and with barely a pause, kicked off her shoes, dropped the shawl on the clean, dry sand and sped on, her feet sending up tiny spurts of sand as she raced toward the water.
She didn't stop when she reached the water, just hitched up her skirts and danced into the sea as if in her natural element. Knee-deep in the shallows with her skirts bunched around her thighs, the waves foaming around her long, slender legs, she watched him with a provocative expression.
Lord, but she had a pair of legs on her. Doing his best to block the image of them wrapped around his waist, he waded into the water after her.
"You'll ruin your boots."
Cameron didn't care about his boots. He was all fired up. He closed in on her.
She splashed him and danced back, laughing. The water swirled around her slender, pale thighs, dampening her dress, now bunched around her hips.
"Set on living dangerously, are y—och, look at that! A wee seal. Or is it a selkie?" Cameron said.
Distracted she turned to look, and Cameron pounced, scooping her into his arms.
"You cheated!" But she made no move to escape him. For a long moment they simply stared into each others' eyes.
His boots were ruined, his trews soaked to the waist, but the chill of the cold seawater did nothing to quench his arousal. "I ought to drop you right in it." He made a feint, as if to drop her in the sea.
She squeaked and clung to him, laughing. "No don't, Cameron. Please."
"I thought you loved the sea."
She clung harder. "I do, but this is my only dress!"
He paused, as if making up his mind. "A forfeit then."
She narrowed her eyes. "What kind of forfeit?"
"A kiss."
"Och, well, I suppose, if I must." She gave a sigh of resignation, but her eyes were dancing and she lifted her mouth to his with a sweetness that fair pierced his soul. Her lips were cold, tangy with sea-salt but her kiss was all heat and sweet, dark-honey woman.
It was a feast of a kiss, luscious and intoxicating. He almost dropped her in the sea, forgetting himself, lost in the taste and feel of her. The little jerk as she grabbed him to save herself from falling pulled him back to awareness.
He waded out of the sea and deposited her on the sand.
They glanced at each other, then looked away, unsure of what to say—at least Cameron wasn't. The spilling over of lighthearted fun, into . . . Passion was the only word for it. It had shocked him.
He stared down at her, this slender sprite of a girl he'd married. He hardly knew her, and yet . . .
Her eyes were luminous, so blue against the shifting grays of the sea and the sky. A curlew wheeled overhead.
The silence stretched, broken only by the curlew's mournful cry and the sound of the wind and the waves. She brushed down her skirt, shaking out the wrinkles and the sand.
Still reeling from the unexpected surge of . . . feeling, Cameron took refuge in banality. He glanced at the banking clouds. "It'll probably rain later this evening."
"I'll fetch my things." She hurried up the beach, shook out the blue shawl and wrapped it around her. She picked up her shoes, hesitated and glanced at the clouds. "Must we return immediately?"
He shook his head. "There's still time for a walk if you want."
"Good." She slipped her arm through his and they started walking along the beach, Cameron squelching along in his sodden boots, Jeannie walking lightly across the sand, skipping every now and then to keep up with him, her shoes dangling from one hand.
The laird's bride, barefoot on the beach like any village urchin. It wasn't at all proper. But it felt so right.
Every now and then she stopped to pick something up, a shell, or a smooth stone, or a softly glowing piece of sea glass. She slipped them into her pocket.
"What do you want them for?" he asked, intrigued.
She shrugged. "I don't know, nothing really. They're pretty. I can't help it. I always collect things from the beach. Papa used to say I was half selkie."
"Not with those eyes, you're not."
"What's wrong with my eyes?"
"Nothing, they're perfect."
"But you said—"
"A selkie's eyes are brown, like a seal's.
Your eyes are the color of the summer sky just after sunset, the brilliance of the day deepened by the coming of night.
" He swallowed, feeling suddenly embarrassed, and glanced at her, wondering whether she would laugh at his clumsy attempt at courting.
The irony was he meant every word of it.
But she wasn't laughing. "That's beautiful, Cameron. Thank you." She hugged their linked arms closer. He could feel the slight swell of her breast pressing against him. They walked on.
"So what did you do today," she asked after a few minutes.
He told her all about the roofs they were fixing, and the new bridge he planned to build. She listened intently, and asked questions that drew him on to explain his plans for the future of the estate.
He hadn't really talked to anyone about those plans, not in detail. Uncle Charles had no interest in the welfare of those he called peasants, and as for his cousins, well, Donald might be interested, but his brother Jimmy was hopeless and would be bored by any serious talk.
It was a pleasure to test out his thoughts on someone who was interested and who asked intelligent questions. She really listened.
He suddenly remembered what Bridget had said, about courting and the importance of talking and listening. They'd almost reached the far end of the beach, and so far he'd done all the talking.
He turned for the walk back. "And how was your day? I'm sorry I left you to manage on your own—there's no telling how long we have before the winter weather sets in. This work is urgent."
"I know, and I was fine on my own. Not that I was on my own for much of the day. In the morning, Mrs. Findlay showed me all over the castle. And then, if you recall, I had tea with your uncle."
"Aye, I'm so sorry—I meant to be with you for that. I hope it wasna too unpleasant." Uncle Charles could be quite scathing and dismissive towards those he considered his social inferiors.
She gave him a surprised look. "But it was no' unpleasant at all. He was charming and hospitable."
"Charming? And hospitable? To you?"
She laughed at his expression. "Yes, to me. I admit, I'd expected him to be hostile, but he wasn't, not a bit. In fact, he was quite sweet."
"Sweet?" He stared at her in disbelief. "Are we talking about the same man? Uncle Charles Sinclair, all airs and graces, direct from old Versailles, satin breeks, white powdered wig and all?"
"I admit he was a bit stiff and prickly at first, but when he found out who my father was—"
Cameron blinked. "Who your father was? Who was your father?"
"I told you, he was a poet. One your uncle admired." He must have looked as blank as he felt, for she added, "Remember the book of Papa's poetry? The bride gift your uncle gave me? With the blue cover?"
"Ah. Yes, yes. Of course." He hadn't really taken in the details.
"I was so touched. I didn't have a copy of my own, you see. It was a very limited printing."
"He wasn't being cutting or superior?"
"No, we had a delightful chat. He's going to paint my portrait."
Cameron shook his head in wonder. "Are you some kind of witch? An uncle-taming witch?"
She laughed. "He's really a sweet, lonely old man."
Cameron rolled his eyes. "That sweet, lonely old man nearly brought this estate to ruination with his impractical spendthrift ways." And drove him to make a hasty marriage with a woman he didn't know.
"Yes, he told me about the silk panels. But I have an idea about them that might help smooth the waters."
"We're not getting ridiculously expensive silk panels from—"
"The woman who made my beautiful shawl, I wondered if she and some of the other village women could weave and embroider some hangings to your uncle's designs."
He frowned, considering it. "It might be possible," he conceded. The more he thought about it, the more he realized what a good idea it was. Work for the village women, and a face-saving project for Uncle Charles. And affordable.
"You are a witch," he told Jeannie. "I've been at daggers drawn with Uncle Charles for weeks, and you arrive and within a day—a day!
— you've come up with a way to soothe his ruffled feathers, and help some of the village women to earn some income.
Winter is the perfect time for a project of this sort. "
She gave a happy little skip beside him. They walked in silence for a while, then she said, "There's something else I think you should know." She told him about his housekeeper's fading sight. "Mrs. Findlay was worried you'd want to dismiss her but I promised her she could stay on."
"Oh you did, did you?"
"Aye, I did." She faced him with a martial glint in her eyes. "You told me I was to be the woman of the house, and that means I make the decisions about who works inside the house. I warn you, Cameron—"
He snorted. "Settle down, firebrand. I said it and I meant it. Run the house however you like." He took her arm and walked on, sobered by the realization that within a day his bride had found out more about his uncle and now his housekeeper than Cameron had in a six-month. It was a galling thought.
"As if I'd dismiss old Finney. The woman practically raised me. Dismiss her indeed! Why the devil didn't she tell me she was having problems seeing?"
"It must be very frightening, to be old and alone, and going blind," Jeannie said softly. "She has her pride, you know."
Cameron grunted, his own pride slightly dented. It was up to him to care for his people. "You say Finney hadn't even seen a doctor? I'll send her to Edinburgh, get her eyes checked by a specialist."
"Oh, that's a wonderful idea." Jeannie hugged his arm. "You're a fine laird, Cameron Fraser, and I'm very proud to be your wife."
"You're no' so bad yourself, Jeannie McLeay Fraser." His eyes dropped to her mouth. "But at the present moment, you're my bride, no' my wife." It was a delicate distinction. But one very much on his mind.
She swallowed. Her gaze dropped. Overhead the lone bird circled, its plaintive call echoing in the dusk.
She bent to put on her shoes, and when she straightened, he proffered his arm. She hesitated before taking it and when she did it was a light, decorous touch, not the warm hugging hold it had been earlier.
They walked back along the beach in silence. Cameron mentally cursed his thoughtless comment. She was miffed with him now for pointing out the truth.
How much longer was this blasted courtship going to take?