Chapter 26 #2
“And that’s a truly remarkable ring, my laird.”
He couldn’t smile. “’Tis a wait-for-me ring, Sunny. I can’t offer you anything else.” He paused. “I would understand if you didn’t want it.”
She picked it up and looked at it. He had to admit it was a lovely ring, with diamonds that went all the way around it. He’d had it engraved on the inside, in Gaelic, so she wouldn’t forget what was in his heart.
To Sunshine, the light of my life, I love you, Cam.
He watched her read the inscription and watched a single tear run down her cheeks. She wiped it away, then handed him the ring.
“I’ll take it and wait, then.”
It was with a profound sense of relief that he put the ring on her right hand, knowing he owed Madelyn MacLeod a very large bouquet of flowers. He leaned over and kissed Sunny on the cheek.
“Lose the lipstick,” he suggested.
“Meet me in the loo.”
“We’d never get out of it,” he said with a smile.
“Probably not.” She stared at her ring for quite a while before she looked back at him. “It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“You look at it, then, whilst I look at you, and we’ll share that thought.
” He took her hands carefully in his, avoiding the scrapes that still weren’t healed, then smiled.
“Now, if you please, distract me with tales of Switzerland before I get myself in trouble in the loo. How did you find yourself there?”
She smiled, looking grateful for the distraction.
“My parents had gotten teaching exchanges in Russia and didn’t want us going to school back in the States unsupervised—even though I was almost seventeen and Madelyn just a year behind me in school— so off to Switzerland we went.
My grandmother paid for it, but we were still definitely the bottom of the food chain when it came to family income. ”
“That couldn’t have been pleasant.”
She shrugged. “We survived. Well, I survived. Madelyn had a harder time. She refers to it as the Dark Alpine Period, if she’ll even acknowledge she was there.
Most of the time when I bring it up, she just takes a deep breath and walks away.
I imagine Patrick didn’t even know about it until after they were married. ”
“Why ever not?” he asked in surprise.
“Because she thought it was frivolous and wouldn’t look good on her résumé. She’d always threatened to claim on her law school applications that she’d been homeschooled that year.”
He ran his thumb over her ring for a bit, then looked at her. “And those things you learned? The society bit?”
“Never thought it would do me any good,” she said with a half smile, “but I don’t think I can think about it anymore without crying. ” She pushed a strip of paper his way. “Let’s talk about something else.”
He agreed without protest. By the time they reached Paris, he had learned that Sunny loved blue but not orange, the magical tingle of twilight but not the unrelenting heat of noon, bare feet instead of shoes, and Gaelic over German.
He’d told her that his favorite color was also blue, his favorite place was home, and that his favorite thing to do was go through the purses of beautiful women he loved who wore skirts that were too short and throw out their lipsticks.
She’d laughed and promised to visit the loo in the station so he could be about it.
He wondered during that pair of hours if what he felt for her was something new, or an echo of loving her before.
He came to no useful conclusion. All he knew was that he loved her not because he had loved her in a different life, but because she was light and laughter and the easing of his heart.
He could scarce believe he’d survived all those years without her.
He prayed he wouldn’t have to much longer.
It was early evening by the time he stood with Sunny just outside Alexander Smith’s hotel room.
It had been a perfect day spent rummaging through market stalls and hunting in out-of-the -way antique stores.
Sunny had changed her skirt and shoes, he’d put on jeans he could breathe in, and he’d kissed her as often as he could behind obliging sellers of fruit and flowers.
He looked at her. “I love you.”
She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly. “I love you, too.” She sank back down on her heels and smiled. “All right, now that we’re standing outside his door are you going to tell me whom we’re meeting with?”
He clasped his hands behind her back. “He’s an attorney, Alexander Smith.
I had the misfortune of trying to fight him off in Manhattan several years ago, but I’ve managed to avoid him ever since.
Geoffrey was the one who took his life in his hands to set this meeting up.
I understand Alexander has given up his corporate raiding in the States to spend his time terrorizing poor, hapless Brits over here.
” He realized that she was looking at him in astonishment. “Have you heard of him?” he asked.
She didn’t have a chance to answer because the door opened suddenly and the pirate himself stood there, dressed professionally in ratty jeans and a T-shirt that proudly proclaimed that The Countess is in Charge. He was missing his shoes and looked as if he’d just woken up from a nap.
“Hey, Sunny,” he said with a yawn. “Slumming today?”
She disentangled herself from Cameron’s arms. “Shut up, Alex,” she said, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “Where’s Margaret? ”
“Trying to get the kids to bed. Go help, if you dare. Baldric’s reading them the Canterbury Tales in the appropriate vernacular, but they’re not impressed. Amery keeps bellowing for his Game Boy.”
Sunny only laughed and walked off as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “I’ll see what I can do,” she threw over her shoulder.
Cameron looked at Alexander in surprise. “You know Sunny?”
Alexander stepped back away from the door. “I’d be a lousy know-it-all if I didn’t know it all, wouldn’t I? Now, why don’t you come right on in, my lord, and let’s have a little chat.”
Cameron walked into the room and felt more uncomfortable than he should have at the sound of Alexander Smith shutting the door behind him.
The man scowled at him, then jammed his hands into his pockets in a gesture that was so reminiscent of Zachary Smith, Cameron had to do a double take.
He realized only then that he’d obviously missed a very vital connection.
“You’re Zachary’s brother,” he stated, dumbfounded. “And Elizabeth’s as well, then.”
“Boy, nothing gets by you, does it?” Alexander said with a smirk. He held out his hand and clasped Cameron’s with a grip that was uncomfortably firm. “Now, before I deck you why don’t you tell me why the hell you were mauling my sister-in-law out there in the hallway?”
Cameron pried his fingers from Alexander’s because he thought he might stand a better chance of protecting himself that way.
Damn it, when was he going to stop running into MacLeods, and half MacLeods, and MacLeods by association—all of whom seemed to think he had less than honorable intentions where Sunny was concerned?
“I don’t suppose,” he said slowly, “that it will serve me to point out that I’m paying you to pry into something besides my private life, will it?”
“Not when you’re snogging with my sister-in-law while you’re still engaged to Penelope Ainsworth it won’t,” Alexander said sharply. “Or has something changed in the past five minutes? ”
“Nay, nothing has changed,” Cameron said evenly, “but that’s why I’m paying you all that bloody sterling, isn’t it? So things will change.”
Alexander folded his arms over his chest. “I suppose I should be curious how you can go from not knowing Sunny, all the way to really needing a good deal of privacy—which you’d damn well better not be looking for, by the way—in such a short time.”
Cameron resigned himself to a rather long evening. "’Tis complicated—”
“Aye, it is, isn’t it, my laird,” Alexander growled in Gaelic, “when you arrive in the future with your head half bashed in and a dirk sticking out of your back.”
Cameron gasped. He didn’t mean to, but he couldn’t help himself. “How—” he spluttered.
“Isn’t that why you’re paying my ridiculous fee?
” Alexander continued on in Gaelic that Cameron would have bet his favorite horse Alexander hadn’t polished so thoroughly in the current century.
“To ferret out details your enemies don’t want you to know so you can use them against them ruthlessly?
Why in the hell do you think I wouldn’t do the same in regard to you? ”
Cameron would have answered, but he was saved by Sunny coming out of one of the bedrooms with a woman Cameron could only assume was the Countess of Falconberg.
She was a lovely woman, obviously several months into a pregnancy and glowing because of it.
She crossed over to her husband and pulled him away.
“Put away your blade, my love, and have pity on the poor man,” she said. She reached out and took Cameron’s hand in a grip that rivaled her husband’s. “Lord Robert.”
“Lady Margaret,” he said with a smile. “What a pleasure.”
Alexander wasn’t smiling. Cameron felt Sunny put her arms around his waist, which certainly didn’t improve things any. Alexander’s expression darkened considerably.
“I don’t imagine you stopped to think you could have solved this all before you dragged Sunny into the middle of it, did you?” Alexander demanded.
“Actually, he did think about it,” Sunny said placidly. “He thought about it so much that he was willing to let me fly home day before yesterday. I’m the one who decided to stay.”
“He should have had the backbone to strap you in your seat himself, ” Alexander said shortly. “It isn’t safe for you to be anywhere near him, or couldn’t he be bothered to tell you that, either?”
“Alex,” Margaret began with a sigh.
“They’re fair questions,” Alexander said, still wearing a formidable frown. “He can answer them—if he has the guts to.”