“A career uninterrupted by the arrival of more children.” Sadness dimmed the light in her eyes. “Samuel would have loved a family, but it wasn’t to be.”
Malcolm had already guessed that there were no other children. If there were, they would be here with her now.
Her gaze remained somber. “Don’t hate me for finding my way after we parted.”
His gesture was dismissive. “Hate you? I’m in awe that you became the toast of London.”
Her expression didn’t ease. “But you would have preferred me to be with you.”
He shrugged, although it wasn’t a matter he took lightly. “What can I say? Losing you was like having a limb amputated. I’ve only limped through life ever since. I always wanted you with me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t applaud the talent that saved you. I’d rather have you alive and well and happy with Samuel than dead in a garret somewhere, worn out with poverty and vice. I might be a selfish devil, Rhona, but I’m not a monster.”
A wry smile twisted her lips. “Yet still I feel I ought to apologize for my contentment.”
“Don’t,” he said sharply, his fist clenching against the tabletop. “You lived. Patrick lived. Now I’ve found you again.” He forced himself to speak the words. It felt like his mouth was full of broken glass, but they had to be said. “Thanks to Samuel.”
“Yes, thanks to Samuel,” she said in a quiet voice.
A silence fell while Malcolm reminded himself of all he owed the man she’d married. His anger faded, his envy didn’t. What a blasted lucky sod Samuel had been to have all those years with Rhona.
He sighed. “Finish your story. You still haven’t told me how you ended up in Muirburgh.”
He couldn’t mistake the sorrow shadowing her eyes. But he’d risen beyond his jealousy at last. Samuel had loved Rhona, too. He must have, to have treated her with such extraordinary generosity and to have discerned the burning soul of the artist within the starving waif who tried to rob him.
From the first, Samuel had been Rhona’s savior. In fact, the nauseating truth was that Rhona’s husband had done a much better job of protecting her than her young lover ever had.
“We had a run of good years, successful in business and happy at home. Samuel loved Patrick and was a wonderful father to him.”
“You can see that when you meet Patrick,” Malcolm said.
“Yes, you can,” Rhona said in that soft tone that always made Malcolm’s bones melt.
He’d spent an eon living with no touch of affection to soften his isolation. He was magnanimous enough to be thankful that love had surrounded both his darling and his son. He wouldn’t wish the hell of his last years on his worst enemy. And Rhona was far from that.
She went on. “Samuel was fifty when we married.” That wry humor reappeared. “Onstage, he always played my father. When his health failed, I stopped acting, so I could nurse him. Luckily, we’d made good money while we worked together.”
“A dozen years of full houses as Londoners flocked to see the superb Mrs. Ashley.”
“Our company was the fashion.” She paused. “Samuel died five years ago. I could have gone back to my career, I suppose. Everything was in place for me to take over the company. While Samuel was sick, the actors toured under a manager. But losing Samuel took away my enthusiasm for acting, and I didn’t want Patrick to grow up in London. Nobody knew I was a good Scots lass. But I knew, and I wanted to come home.”
“So you bought a farm and settled near Loch Lomond. Did you never think of coming back to Dun Carron?”
She shook her head and a faint bitterness darkened her face. “Dun Carron holds too many painful memories. Even if your father would let me settle there. As far as I knew, he was still alive and in charge. And how could I take Patrick to a place where everyone would recognize him as Malcolm Innes’s child? Better my son and I retired to a place where we could make a new start. Me as a respectable widow with no connection to old scandal or to the notorious stage.”
“I don’t care what the world says about you.” He never had. Now even less than ever. “I take my hat off to you. Your courage makes me want to cheer.”
She eyed him as if suspecting some trick, but his admiration was sincere. “I did what I had to.”
His hand sliced the air, dismissing her self-effacing response. “You did more than that. You created something magnificent out of pain and failure. My father had it so wrong when he said I was too good for you. You’re too good for me. You always were.”
“Malcolm, I…” She looked stricken, although he hadn’t meant to upset her.
He spoke before she could argue with him. “It’s been a night of overwhelming revelations.” He dared to tell her what he intended, although he knew he risked ruining their uncertain truce. “Don’t make any decisions now. Sleep on it. But I’d like to court you, Rhona. I always wanted you to be the lady of Dun Carron.”
Her expression turned stormy, and her hands bunched on the table. “What if I don’t want to be courted?”
He stared at her steadily, seeing so much that had changed from the girl he’d loved and so much that stayed the same. “Are you saying you feel nothing for me?”
Rhona waved a despairing hand and stood to clear away the plates and glasses. She looked spent, not just physically but spiritually. He felt much the same. Too many impossible dreams had come true tonight. The way his life had changed in the space of mere hours left him reeling.
“I don’t know what I feel.”
That wasn’t true. The sexual awareness vibrating between them was almost visible. But he didn’t push for confessions. Tomorrow they’d talk again. More, he’d have a chance to spend time with Patrick, God willing.
And it was Christmas. If ever there was a time for wishes to be granted, it was Christmas. The signs were good. For the first time in eighteen years, Malcolm was spending the holy festival with people he loved.
Chapter 7
Malcolm lay awake in the comfortable room that Rhona had shown him into. A fire blazed in the hearth, and he stretched out under a pile of eiderdowns in a big oak bed.
The snowstorm seemed to have blown itself out. The house around him was silent, and he was drained, not just from the last few days, but from years of bracing to discover the worst.
Whatever happened next, his obsessive searching had reached a happier outcome than he’d ever dared imagine. Even if Rhona decided she couldn’t bear to see him again and Patrick evinced no interest in his long-lost father, the world was a brighter place now that Malcolm knew that both Patrick and Rhona remained in it.
Yet still he couldn’t sleep. His head was buzzing with Rhona’s astonishing story. How marvelous she was. If only he could tell his stiff-necked father just what a treasure he’d scorned all those years ago. She was a queen and a goddess, unlike anyone else.
He’d cherished the memory of the young Rhona, but already the woman she’d become, so much more complex and fascinating, encroached on that image. His faithful soul was doubly pledged to her. Even with Rhona doing her best to maintain the distance between them, he’d tasted something like happiness in her kitchen tonight. The nearest he’d come to happiness since she’d left him.