Chapter 21 #2
“That’s not a good excuse,” she muttered.
She glanced at him, but he didn’t seem inclined to either apologize for not having been entirely frank earlier, or express any concern that he was driving her farther and farther away from where she should be going.
In fact, all he was doing was watching her with a small smile, as if he actually saw her instead of a convenient herbalist, or Patrick’s sister-in-law, or a crazy woman in James MacLeod’s great hall.
It was so close to how he’d looked at her in medieval Scotland that she had to look away before she started to cry.
“Well?” he prodded finally.
She wished she didn’t feel like he was ripping her heart out of her chest with his bare hands. “What could you possibly want from me?” she managed, looking out the window at the buildings as they passed by.
“I’ll tell you what I want—after you agree.”
“And if I don’t agree?”
“I think it would be in your best interest to do so.”
She shot him a look. “Going to draw your sword soon, Cameron?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “Push me a bit further and see, Sunshine. ”
She almost smiled. She would have, if she hadn’t hurt so badly. He sounded more like himself than he had in . . . well, in centuries. He also looked as if he was barely holding on to his lunch.
“Another headache?” she asked.
“Aye, that, too,” he agreed, “but ’tis mostly that I knocked myself out on your doorway—and please don’t ask me to explain how or why.
The humiliation is still fresh. Your brother-in-law did me the favor of pouring ice-cold water from your stream on my face to rouse me, but he was averse to offering any other sort of aid. ”
“He has no bedside manner.”
Cameron smiled. “Nay, he doesn’t.”
She reached up and smoothed her fingers over the darkening bruise showing from under his hair, then pulled her hand away when she realized what she was doing. He caught her hand, then held it with his.
She looked down at his hand, at those little stitches she had made in his flesh almost seven centuries ago with a needle that had been almost worse than nothing, and thought about when she’d done that bit of sewing. 1375. Exactly what he wanted to talk to her about.
“Sunny?”
She looked at him. “Are you going to nag me until I give in?”
“Tenacity is, I’ll admit with all modesty, one of my more noteworthy virtues.”
She had to fight the temptation to smile. The man was absolutely charming when he wanted to be. Charming, demanding, and ruthless. She supposed she could argue with him all day, but she wouldn’t win.
And she had to admit that there was a tiny part of her— surrounded by her more considerable pockets of insanity, no doubt—that didn’t want to win.
She sighed deeply. “All right. What do you want?”
“You, in London, for twenty-four hours.”
She felt her mouth fall open. “Why?”
“Because we have several things to discuss, things about that date I gave you. I want ample time—and privacy—in which to do so.”
“But we’re speaking in Gaelic now,” she said desperately.
“I want more privacy than this.”
“My flight leaves tomorrow—”
“I’ll change your ticket for you. I’ll fly you to the States the next day first-class. I’ll fly you to the States in my own bloody plane if you like, but I want an entire twenty-four hours before you go.”
“But surely you have other things to do,” she said in a last-ditch effort to save what was left of her heart.
“I’m cancelling them.” He squeezed her hand. “You want answers; I want you. Stay with me and we’ll both be satisfied.”
The only thing staying with him for any length of time would do was leave her wanting more of him.
She wanted to tell him no, but she couldn’t get the word out.
The man she loved was sitting next to her, willing to talk about something she was quite sure he hadn’t discussed with anyone else .
. . and he looked like Patrick had beaten the holy hell out of him.
“We’ll regret it,” she said miserably.
“I don’t think so and I think that was an aye.
” He kept her hand in both his own and gingerly leaned his head back against the seat.
“Thank you, Sunshine. Now, if you’ll excuse me for five minutes, I have to close my eyes before my poor head cleaves itself in twain from the pounding. Prod me when we reach the Ritz.”
“The what!” she exclaimed. “Cameron, I can’t afford—”
“I can,” he said, sounding supremely unconcerned, “so don’t fash yourself.”
“I am not going to stay there.”
“They’ll make you a spectacular salad,” he murmured.
She glared at him, but his eyes were closed so he missed what she was sure had been an impressive expression of fury. The Ritz? She couldn’t think of a place where she would have been more uncomfortable. She wasn’t dressed to go to a nice pub, much less a hotel like that.
She fretted over that for quite a while, which only made her feel worse. She took to fussing with acupressure points on Cameron’s hand to keep herself from stressing any more. That didn’t help her any, but he began to breathe more easily.
At least one of them was.
The cab stopped before she could decide on a likely place to jump out and make a break for it.
The door was opened for her and Cameron pushed her out onto the sidewalk before she could protest. She peered through the hotel doors and felt every single inch the country bumpkin who had fallen off a turnip truck approximately six minutes ago.
Cameron paid the driver, then took her suitcase in hand and nodded toward the front door.
“Let’s go.”
She backed into him, hard. “No way.”
“Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder.”
She looked up at him quickly. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“You great, bloody barbarian—”
“Guilty as charged.” He gave her a quick smile, then put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a nudge. “Walk on, gel.”
Sunny wanted to balk, but she was too busy being shepherded—well, pushed, actually—inside a place she wouldn’t have chosen even if she could have afforded it.
She did her best not to gape at her surroundings, but she could hardly help herself.
She felt horribly conspicuous in jeans and a wrinkled shirt.
Then again, Cameron wasn’t dressed any better than she was and he looked like he’d been brawling in the street outside.
She was a little surprised they’d made it past the doorman.
A man at the desk looked up at them as they approached. “May I help you?” he asked, his tone suggesting that he doubted very much that he could.
“A reservation for Miss Phillips,” Cameron said easily. “My assistant called half an hour ago.”
Sunny tried to slip behind Cameron, but he caught her by the arm and held her to his side. She muttered uncomplimentary things about him in Gaelic under her breath, but he only winked at her.
The desk clerk asked Cameron for a credit card and ID, took them skeptically, then handed them off immediately to his supervisor. Sunny watched as that someone higher up the food chain took the card and checked the picture against Cameron himself.
A look of horror came over his face and he gave his desk clerk a glare. “That is Robert Cameron, the Earl of Assynt,” he said in a low, pointed voice. He straightened and gave Cameron a welcoming smile. “We’ve never had the pleasure of your company here before, my lord.”
“And you aren’t having it now,” Cameron said with an equally polite smile. “Miss Phillips will be your guest and I’m most eager to see that she’s taken care of.”
“Of course,” was the response, delivered with just the right amount of enthusiasm. “I’m certain we do indeed have her suite prepared. A porter will—”
“Not be necessary,” Cameron said. He signed the credit card slip when it was presented to him, held out his hand for the key, then picked up Sunny’s suitcase. “After you, Miss Phillips.”
Sunny went with him because it was the lesser of the two evils—the other being remaining behind at the reception desk. She waited until they were in the elevator before she turned on him.
“I’ll ride to the top with you, then I’m turning around and going back down.”
“Sunshine, you may not stay at that rat-infested slum you reserved for yourself.”
“It’s what I can afford, buster, and who the hell are you—”
“In charge of your care, that’s who I am,” he said firmly, “so allow me to see to it properly. You promised me twenty-four hours. You didn’t put any stipulations on where it was to be spent.”
She found, to her horror, that her eyes were starting to burn. She wrapped her arms around herself. “I hate these kinds of places. I don’t like feeling small.”
“I understand completely and I agree with you,” he said seriously.
“’Tis a safe place, though, Sunny, and I’m asking you to endure it for my sake.
If someone is fool enough to look down his nose at you, just think of those endless meadows of flowers behind your house and that you have the right to enjoy them whilst he does not. That’s what I do.”
“I’m sure you do, Mr. High-and-Mighty Earl of Assynt,” she groused, dragging her sleeve across her eyes and happily latching on to something else to discuss. “That’s a little tidbit you didn’t see fit to share with me.”
“I didn’t think you’d care.”
“I couldn’t care less,” she said stiffly.
He actually laughed. “As I suspected.” He smoothed his hand down the back of her hair. “Do this for me, Sunshine, that I might not worry about where you’re sleeping.”
At that point, she supposed she didn’t have a choice, but she wasn’t going to enjoy it. She dragged her feet as she followed him out of the lift, down the hallway, and into a suite that looked like something from a magazine.
Fruit and juice stood on the table, along with fresh flowers. She had a sniff, but it didn’t make her feel any more comfortable. She walked over to the window and looked out. The view wasn’t exactly spectacular, but she supposed that wasn’t what Cameron was paying for.