Chapter 23
Sunny stood in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror.
She was pale. Time traveling did that to a person, apparently.
Or perhaps it had been a lack of sleep. She had unpacked the night before only far enough to find pajamas and one of the plaids of Cameron’s she had brought with her.
She’d put herself to bed, but found that sleep would not come.
Closing her eyes had only made things worse.
Every time she had, she’d been confronted with a vision of Cameron.
She’d seen his head bowed at the theater, seen him simply stroking her hand as if he strove to memorize how it felt in his.
She’d remembered the look on his face when she’d told him about Breac.
She had been unable to forget how it felt to be in his arms with his knowing who she was and what she’d meant to him.
No wonder she had tossed and turned until dawn.
She’d gotten up, showered, dressed, then dithered.
If she’d had any sense at all, she would have dragged herself and her faulty suitcase through the lobby and down the street to the nearest Tube station.
But since she apparently had left any sense she’d once had behind in Scotland, she’d spent the past hour pacing and returning periodically to the bathroom to see if she looked any less devastated.
The phone rang, startling her. She took a deep breath, then went to find it. She put her hand on it for a moment or two before she picked up. “Hello?”
“Is this too early?”
She had to close her eyes. Even the sound of his voice on the phone was ruinous to her poor heart. “No, I’m awake.”
“Are you ready to come be a plebeian with me?”
She swallowed. “Is it too late to beg off?”
“Aye. Get your fetching self downstairs, woman, and make sure you’re wearing walking shoes. We’re tourists today. And hurry up, Sunny. You’re still on my clock.”
“All right.” She hung up before she dropped the phone. She wanted to remind herself that she was an idiot to be going along with his plans, but she wasn’t an idiot.
The simple truth was she had never before and would never again meet anyone like him.
She could have easily gone to the airport in the middle of the night, but she hadn’t.
What she’d wanted deep down was another day to soak up what it would have been like to have had him in the twenty-first century.
It would probably be what kept her warm at night for years to come.
She tried to bring to mind Cameron’s flaws that Emily had listed for her yesterday while she’d been doing her hair, but she couldn’t.
There just hadn’t been very many except his propensity to work too much, his tendency to be prickly when people asked him questions that were too personal, and his complete inability to choose a decent fiancée.
Emily had listed in great detail all his virtues, many of which Sunny had already known.
She’d wanted to know why Emily had seemed to be so determined to sell Cameron, but she hadn’t dared ask.
She also hadn’t dared tell Emily that no selling was necessary because she’d already bought the product with all her heart and soul.
She left her suite and kept herself busy by thinking about the other things she’d learned from Emily.
She’d found out, along with that enormous list of Cameron’s virtues, that Emily was Madame Gies’s granddaughter, she had known Cameron since he’d come home from the hospital, and she had worked for him for the past six years as his personal dogsbody. Oh, and she hadn’t ever slept with him.
Sunny supposed she could have gone all day without having known that last bit.
She’d pleaded with Emily not to give her a list of women Cameron had slept with.
Emily had shrugged in a particularly Gallic way and informed her that the list would be very short and it would be very discreet.
It would also contain no one who had touched his heart. Sunny supposed that was a good thing.
She got into the elevator with a couple who were dressed to the nines. After a first look of contempt, they didn’t pay her any attention. Reason number 357 why she shouldn’t ever become involved with Robert Cameron. She couldn’t possibly function in his London world.
She turned her mind to thinking about Highland meadows and was surprised to find it actually helped.
She followed the couple out and across the foyer. She noticed that the woman gave Cameron a lingering look, which Cameron completely ignored. He was leaning back against the reception desk with his arms folded over his chest, watching her.
That helped as well.
He looked exactly as he had the morning when she’d seen him standing under the eaves of the forest, waiting for her.
All that was lacking was the crooking of his finger.
She took a deep breath to still butterflies that had no business being in her stomach, reminded herself that he was not hers, then continued on her way to him.
“Good morning, Sunshine,” he said with a small smile. “Sleep well?”
“Terribly.”
His smile faded. “I understand.” He pushed away from the counter. “You can nap in my arms in some darkened corner. We’ll ride about on one of those tour buses until we find an appropriate spot.”
“Is this discreet?” she managed.
He took her arm and led her toward the door. “It will be if I can keep my mouth off yours.”
She tried to muster up a stern look. “Stop that.”
He only smiled again, a more sincere one this time, and pulled her through the door with him.
He bought them both fruit and water at a street stand, then paused with her in front of a tour bus stop.
He seemed to be watching what was going on around them, so perhaps he was looking for photographers.
Perhaps he was looking for Penelope. Perhaps no one cared about him and it was Penelope who alerted the photographers to every opportunity to snap her on Cameron’s arm.
She didn’t suppose she really wanted to think about any of it, actually.
“Here’s our ride, lass. Let’s go.”
She pulled herself back to the task at hand, then climbed on the bus and continued on to the upper deck. She walked to a pair of seats in the very back, then collapsed onto the window seat. Cameron sat down next to her and plopped his backpack on her lap.
“Hold that. I want my hands free.”
She looked at him in surprise. “Why?”
“To take pictures with,” he said, unzipping his pack. He shot her a look from under his eyebrows. “You’ve a rather carnal mind, lass, for being a—”
“Shut up.”
He laughed, then pulled the camera out and pointed it at her. “Smile, love.”
She did her best. He pursed his lips, put his head close to hers and took a picture of them both. Then he leaned back against the seat and smiled at her.
“Thank you for staying.”
“Thank you for asking me to,” she said quietly. She watched him put his camera in his pocket, then unfold the map they’d been given and study it. “I wouldn’t have figured you for a touristy sort of lad,” she said in Gaelic. “Being a Scot and all.”
He held the map up as a shield, then leaned over and kissed her, a soft kiss that had her closing her eyes in defense.
“Tourist maps can be very useful,” he whispered conspiratorially.
“Stop kissing me,” she managed.
“Are you in earnest?”
She wanted to tell him yes. She wanted to tell him to leave her alone, to walk out of her life and not look back.
She knew there was nothing but heartache in front of her if she spent the day with him, touched him, kissed him.
She would go back to Seattle and he would marry a shrew who didn’t deserve him.
But she was apparently a glutton for punishment because she put her hands on his face, then leaned over and kissed him herself. “You’re too damn accommodating,” she murmured against his mouth. “What’s happened to you?”
He caught his breath, then let it out slowly.
“I’m trying to behave, ” he said evenly.
“I am trying, if you can imagine it, to keep my hands off you. I thought that keeping you captive in your hotel chamber would have been an extraordinarily bad idea, so I am keeping you out in public and trying to be damn accommodating.”
She shivered. “I see.”
“So you do.”
She started to pull away, but he caught her before she could and kissed her quite thoroughly. In fact, she was fairly certain they had missed a stop or two before he lifted his head and looked at her with stormy eyes. “Give me the day, Sunshine.”
“You’re adding hours.”
“Don’t think about that. The only thing that matters today is the fact that we have each other within arm’s reach. We’ll leave tomorrow to sort itself by itself.”
She smiled, though it cost her a bit. “All right.”
He dispensed with the map and merely kissed her again before she could protest.
Not that she tried very hard.
By the time he pulled away, she was more than a little breathless.
“Stop that,” she managed. “Really, this time.”
“Why?”
“Because I feel faint, that’s why.”
He smiled and pulled his arm out from behind her.
He put on a pair of sunglasses, then reached for her hand and took it in both his own.
Sunny looked at him for a moment, a medieval laird in a windbreaker and Ray-Bans, then put on her own sunglasses and looked at the scenery that was starting to go by.
She was appalled at how little of it she was able to pay attention to.
They crossed the bridge to the Tower of London late in the afternoon after a day spent seeing things she never had time for usually. She couldn’t say she’d paid any attention to them. Her eyes had been too full of Cameron for that.
The day had taken its toll on her. She’d been perky and cheerful, but it had been difficult. She wasn’t sure she could keep it up any longer. Not even the thought of looking through the Tower dungeon with a man of about that vintage helped.