Chapter Thirteen #2
Portia placed a hand on Lizzy’s arm. “You don’t remember anything you said before you swooned?”
“I swooned?” Lizzy tilted her head in happy surprise. “Aren’t I fancy now? Swooning!”
The light was growing dark outside. Portia knew she needed to leave. “I must return home. Will you be all right?”
“Let me escort you home,” Harry said.
Portia shook her head. Lizzy might have forgotten what she’d said but Portia hadn’t. She needed a moment to herself to clear her head and steady her nerves. “Perhaps if you would stay with Lizzy a moment until we are certain she is all right.”
“I’d be happy to do. She can explain to me what all these herbs are for,” he said.
“I will, if you wish,” Lizzy answered.
“Then I’ll go,” Portia said, and went out the door. Harry followed.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“I don’t know. She seems to have forgotten everything we had discussed.”
“And what were you discussing?”
“Fenella,” she said, knowing the impact of that one word on him. “But she doesn’t seem to remember now.”
“Or else she is pretending.”
Portia glanced back at the hut. “If she is, hers is an excellent performance. I truly believe the conversation is gone from her mind.”
“What did she mean that you would be my death?”
She drew a deep breath and released it. “She says she has the gift of sight . . . or the person she was at the time claimed to have it. Right now, she acts completely different. Harry, she referred to Rose as ‘Rose of Loch Awe.’ She told me her family was distant cousins of Rose, Fenella’s daughter.
Perhaps that is how Rose met Charles Chattan of Glenfinnan. She may have come to visit.”
“What else did she tell you?”
“Not very much. I asked her if she was a witch.” To his raised eyebrow, she explained, “Well, I never knew. Everyone in the valley claimed she is. I believed she wasn’t but all this talk of strange things has made me curious. Perhaps I am the one who is wrong.”
“And what did she say?”
“Lizzy said she isn’t, but she has the gift of seeing the future. That’s when she claimed I would cause your death, and then she swooned.”
He made a scoffing sound. “How could you cause my death?”
“I don’t know.” She crossed her arms. “Aren’t you worried?”
Harry shook his head. “No, are you?”
“I would not want your death on my conscience.”
“Well, it won’t be there,” he answered. He walked over to Ajax and picked the reins up off the ground. Only then did the well-trained horse move. Harry tied the reins to a low-hanging tree branch.
He was so vital and alive, so self-confident. He was the warrior, the rebel, the man who feared nothing.
Yet there was a gentler side to him as well.
He cared for his family enough that he would sacrifice his life for his brother’s.
She had come to know this side of him well.
He was a man who understood her yearnings and pleased her in a way she knew no other could.
He was a man who had regrets, who was vulnerable, who had fears but persevered anyway.
He was the man with whom she’d fallen in love.
Yes, she loved him.
She had not intended to do so, but perhaps she’d had no choice.
She’d started falling in love with him at the dance when he had pleaded General Montheath’s case. Or had she felt the first inklings of love that night when he had knelt in front of her in the moonlight and begged for his brother’s life?
Crazy Lizzy’s warning now made sickening sense.
Portia knew Harry valued her, but did he love her?
No, not yet.
Could he? Was that what Lizzy had been warning her against? He was a Chattan male. Even as a second son, the curse could apply to him. If he loved her, he would die.
But that didn’t mean she couldn’t love him.
For a second, her world was transformed with the knowledge. The green of the firs around her was more green, more vibrant. The air was sweet with their scent. She’d not noticed before, but now, the world was perfect. She loved. Two words more powerful than any magic.
And that was why she’d grown so unreasonably annoyed with him earlier. I care for you wasn’t enough. She wanted more.
And yet he couldn’t return her love. Not without paying a price, and that price was too high.
“I don’t think we should meet any longer,” Portia heard herself say.
He frowned. He’d been walking toward her but stopped. “Portia, that is nonsense. Of course we should meet—”
“No,” she said cutting him off. “And I’m not saying this because of Lizzy. I don’t want to see you any longer.” I don’t want you to fall in love with me. But she kept that to herself. “We’re done.”
He rocked back as if she’d physically hit him but Portia knew better than to linger. She loved him. And she could never let him love her in return.
In that moment, she felt her heart break.
He took a step toward her, his expression concerned. She couldn’t let him touch her. She mustn’t.
This time Portia didn’t walk away from him, she ran, dashing headlong into the woods.
Harry started after Portia. He understood what was happening with her. Her responses, her behavior were like those of so many women who had thought they’d caught him. She was angry, disappointed.
He should let her go. The truth of their relationship would be easier for her this way, except Harry didn’t want to just let her go.
Portia was more than some woman he bedded. He’d never slept with a woman longer than a day or two, and yet, for the past week and a half, he’d been meeting her in the bothy, and it hadn’t all just been sex.
When he was around Portia, he relaxed. He valued her honesty, her wit, her view of life. She was a bit of a rebel like him, and yet traditional, and a survivor. Those were all qualities he would have used to describe himself.
Of course, Portia was more passionate about what she believed in than he was. Harry knew he was jaded. The world had made him that way, but Portia was still untouched and he found her refreshing.
Now, everything had changed, and he didn’t understand why—no, that wasn’t true. He understood.
He’d wager all he owned that Portia was still angry at him for referring to her as his mistress. He needed to explain more . . . although he’d already attempted to explain himself.