When Patrick appeared the next morning, Rhona was sitting in the kitchen, enjoying a cup of tea in front of the fire. He was a young man now, and one she was proud to call her son. But at times like this when he was all untidy hair and sleepy eyes, she couldn’t help remembering the sweet toddler who had always been so happy to see his mother.
He bent to kiss her cheek. “Happy Christmas, Ma.”
“Happy Christmas, Patrick,” she said, hugging him, then pulling back to smooth the lock of hair sticking up above his forehead. “You’re up early.”
His pointed glance made her wonder if he guessed that she hadn’t spent the night in her own bed. The blood rose to her cheeks. She’d always been a martyr to blushing. She’d hoped she might grow out of the affliction. She’d hoped in vain.
“So are you,” Patrick said in a neutral voice.
Rhona lifted her cup to her lips to hide her embarrassment. She suspected she hoped in vain there, too. She was up early because she didn’t want her son to know she’d slept with Malcolm. Even if that phrase held only its most innocent meaning.
Except that wasn’t the full truth. Oh, Malcolm had kept his word and treated her with a chivalry that had filled her heart with tenderness. But she’d woken to find his hand curled around her breast and his leg thrown over hers. His body was pressed against her back and his rich scent surrounded her, enough like the scent of the boy she’d loved to make her feel safe and cherished.
Which was dangerous in itself. It would be so easy to drift into a sentimental dream, where she and her first love picked up where they’d left off. But that was impossible. They were different people, and it had been so long since they were lovers. How could whatever had brought them together in the first place survive all the pain and separation?
But however she arranged the future, in the here and now, Malcolm’s arrival had stirred her dormant carnal needs to life. Even if she ignored their past, Malcolm was an attractive man. And she was attracted. Powerfully so. The breast he’d cupped with such gentleness had swelled with longing, and her nipples had formed hard points, begging for a man’s touch. For Malcolm’s touch. The hot, heavy weight in the base of her stomach might have been long absent, but now it returned and she recognized the restless demands of arousal.
She’d found it far too difficult to leave that warm bed and that sleeping man without waking him to seek satisfaction. It might be best if she sent Malcolm on his way today, before she made a fool of herself over him yet again.
But as she’d stood over the rumpled bed and stared down at the man who had held her in his arms all night, her heart had sorrowed over what she saw.
Asleep, he looked vulnerable and drawn, and there was no chance of mistaking him for the beautiful boy she’d once adored. Even in slumber, his thin face showed the marks of strain, and the thick, silvered hair told its own tale of what these last years had cost him. She’d found herself blinking back tears of pity for all he’d endured. Worse, she’d had to fight the urge to crawl back into bed and take him in her arms.
She could imagine where that would end up.
So she left him to sleep. He was so deep in oblivion that when she left the room, he’d only made a drowsy murmur without surfacing to awareness. She’d come out to sit by the kitchen fire and give herself a lecture full of dispiriting common sense, about what a disaster it would be, to try and turn back the clock to a boy and girl who no longer existed.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked Patrick, setting down her cup and lifting the pot.
“Yes, please.” Patrick brought a cup and saucer across from the dresser and watched as she poured for him. “I’m going into the church to practice my solo. The storm seems to have passed, so I shouldn’t have any trouble getting to the village.”
Patrick had inherited her talent for singing, and he’d become a mainstay of the Muirburgh church choir. Because he was such an important part of the services, she and her son usually postponed their Christmas celebrations until the midday meal, when they ate roast goose and plum pudding and exchanged presents. Most years, Rhona traveled into the village with Patrick for the early service, then came home to cook.
She rose and crossed to lift a heavy frypan from a hook on the wall. “You’ll have breakfast first?”
“No, thank you. I slept too late for that. I’ll take some fruitcake. That will have to do. Are you coming to church this morning?”
She noticed that they were both very careful not to mention that a man was sleeping in her guest bedroom. She put down the pan. “Not this year.”
Patrick’s searching stare reminded her that he wasn’t a child anymore. “Are you going to ask my father to stay for Christmas dinner?”
Oh, dear, the subject was broached, forcing Rhona to stop pretending that this was a Christmas like any other. “Would you like me to?”
“Yes, I would.” Patrick’s gaze remained steady. “But then, I don’t have anything like your history with him. If you still hate him, I’ll understand if you don’t want him to stay.”
“I don’t hate him. It turns out I misjudged him all these years. He never stopped searching for us.”
“Then I’m glad he found us.”
Rhona had told Patrick that the man who had fathered him had deserted her, but nothing much beyond that. “He should tell you his story.”
“And you should tell me yours. I don’t know much more than that you’re Scottish and you came to London to seek your fortune.”
“Not exactly,” she said with a grim twist of her lips. “Oh, the Scottish bit is true. But I had no choice in coming to London. I fell in love with the laird’s son on the isolated estate I grew up on. His parents didn’t like the idea of an ignorant crofter’s daughter marrying the heir, particularly after they discovered I was carrying you. So they arranged my abduction. Until last night, I thought Malcolm had also been in favor of getting me out of the way. It turns out that his father locked him in the dungeons to stop him following me.”
“Dungeons?” Patrick picked up on the least important part of what she’d said, reminding her that the child still existed inside his tall body. Her son was young enough to find the idea of dungeons romantic.
“Yes. Malcolm is the Laird of Dun Carron, and he lives in a castle.”
Patrick sent her a direct look. “So he really is a questing knight.”
Rhona gave a wry laugh. “Where do you get your imagination?”
Her son looked unimpressed. “Perhaps from my father. Do you think I can visit Dun Catherine—”
“Carron.” It should feel odd to hear Patrick call Malcolm his father, but instead it felt right.
“…and see this castle?”
Given Malcolm’s intention to make Patrick his heir, Rhona would pretty much guarantee it. But that piece of news was for Malcolm to deliver, not her. “I’d say it’s likely.”
“Capital.” Patrick sobered, proving that the grown-up was there inside him, too. “And you were only my age when this happened.”
Rhona was always fascinated with the way he was maturing. Watching him change from that affectionate toddler to this kind and clever young man was the greatest joy of her life. A joy she was aware that life had stolen from Malcolm. She’d been luckier by far in their separation than he had.