When he growled his dissatisfaction with that answer, she couldn’t blame him. “You can do better than that.”
She bit her lip and spread her hands in bewilderment. “I want you.”
“Aye.”
She gulped for more breath to feed her starved lungs and battled to answer him in a way that kept her vulnerable heart safe. He was asking her to risk so much on what she’d felt as a girl. “I like you. A lot. I like how you are with Patrick. I’m overjoyed that you two are likely to grow closer. You’re so similar.”
He sliced the air with a decisive hand. “This isn’t about Patrick. This is about you and me.”
She backed away, shaking her head. Butterflies the size of elephants danced a jig in her stomach. “I’m afraid.”
His expression softened. “I know you are.”
Her lips flattened in annoyance. “So why are you forcing this issue tonight?”
He sighed and once more, ran one hand through his hair, leaving it charmingly ruffled. “You’re right. It’s not fair to push for a commitment so fast. I promised to court you, and I meant it.” His voice was low and vibrating with intensity. “But that was before you came to my bed. That was before I spent Christmas with you and my son. Everything has changed. Yet nothing has changed.”
“Malcolm…” she stammered, both dreading and longing to hear what he said next.
His eyes burned into hers. “Rhona, my heart has never wavered from loving you. It never will. I hoped…I think you might still love me, even if you’re not ready to admit it. I’ll woo you until doomsday if you want, but we’ve already lost so much time when we could have been happy together. Must we waste even more time, when you have to see that you and I belong together? We always have.”
She swallowed to ease a throat crammed with thorny emotion and told her heart to stop leaping about in her chest like a mad thing. “You…you’re asking me to throw caution to the winds.”
His smile was so full of unconditional love, she wanted to cry. “I am. Not to mention I don’t want to spend the next few months sneaking around every time I want to hold you in my arms. We had quite enough of that back in the old days.”
He had a point. After this morning, how could she settle for a chaste courtship? “I don’t want that either,” she admitted reluctantly.
His eyes locked on her with an implacable purpose that she felt to her bones. “Will you marry me, Rhona?”
She stared at him while the silence extended. And extended. A sensible woman would say no, but the refusal wouldn’t pass her lips. Instead, her mind winnowed their long and agonizing history. Love. Tragedy. Loneliness. And now, at last, perhaps a chance that they could mend all the rifts and step forward into life as man and wife.
“It would take so much courage,” she murmured, her voice unsteady.
He extended his hand toward her. “You’ve never lacked courage, my darling. I love you. Do you love me?”
Tears rushed to her eyes and those butterflies collided hard in her stomach, but how could she lie? “Yes, plague take you, I love you.”
She watched the strain of years ease from his face. “And will you make a life with me?”
Ever since she’d been ripped so violently away from her home and everyone she loved – including, most of all, the man standing before her now, asking her to make an impossible promise – she’d done her best to stay safe and to keep her son safe. Accepting Malcolm’s proposal after all these years apart wasn’t safe at all. But perhaps it was time to seek some adventure and trust that her heart knew best.
Trembling, she took his hand. “I think you and I are going back to Dun Carron.”
His fingers curled around hers with a firmness that she knew would never fail her. She hadn’t seen that glittering light in his eyes since their days at Dun Carron. “Is that yes?”
The tears overflowed as she stepped closer on shaky legs. The truth, long-hidden but always present, surged up to find voice. “Yes, Malcolm. I’m yours. I’ve always been yours.”
“Oh, my beloved, that was worth waiting almost twenty years to hear,” he whispered and drew her into his arms for a kiss of invincible love.
Epilogue
Dun Carron Castle, Western Highlands of Scotland
Christmas, 1834
“I wish Patrick Ashley-Innes, my beloved son, and his bonny wife-to-be, Sheena Balfour, many joyful years together. May Patrick and his lovely bride be as happy as I’ve been with my sweet and biddable Rhona.”
From where he stood halfway up the staircase, Malcolm heard a general rumble of mirth from the people crowded into the castle’s cavernous great hall to celebrate both the festive season and Patrick’s engagement to the daughter of a neighboring landowner.
Over the last ten years, Christmas at Dun Carron had turned into a lively, cheerful occasion, not least because the laird and his family always made sure they joined their kinfolk for the holiday. This year with the announcement of Patrick’s forthcoming marriage, the day was doubly bright.
Malcolm tightened his grip on Rhona’s still-slender waist and glanced down into her glowing eyes. She’d brought laughter back to the castle from the moment she’d returned as his wife, a few days after he’d found her that snowy evening in Muirburgh.
On that long ago night, he’d been sure that he couldn’t love her more than he did. He was wrong. A decade of marriage had strengthened the bond between them, forged in youthful passion, tested through lies, separation, and grief, only to emerge stronger and surer than ever at the last.
“It’s a fortunate fellow who is possessed of an obedient wife, my darling,” she said, the voice that had once enthralled the theatergoers of London effortlessly rising above the hubbub.
Her impudent reply sparked another fond laugh from their guests. While Malcolm might tease her about her dauntlessness, he was delighted that his wife was brave enough to stand up for what she believed was right for her family and her people. His soul had always recognized her as a true equal. He had reason to be grateful for that courage and spirit. Without it, she’d never have survived to come back to him.
Rhona had returned to the glen to make her mark as his genuine partner, and while a few people remembered the old shame and scandal, Malcolm had made it very clear that an insult to the lady of Dun Carron was an insult to the laird. In truth, the clan had accepted Rhona as chatelaine and Patrick as heir more easily than he’d expected. The old Highland tradition of handfasting, where a couple married by making their vows before witnesses, meant that in many minds, Malcolm and Rhona were wed before her banishment from the estate.
“Och, how would the Innes ken anything about an obedient wife, my lady?” Old Billy McIntyre called out from below. “He didnae pick a lily-livered Sassenach, but a fiery Scots lass to keep him warm.”
Malcolm laughed. “Aye, that’s true, Billy. Rather, I’ll say fortunate is the laddie who married Rhona Innes and brought her back to where she belongs.”
A murmur of approval greeted that statement, as Rhona’s expression softened with the love that illuminated every minute of Malcolm’s life. “I belong with you, my dear husband,” she said, her words meant for his ears only. “I thank the Good Lord every day that you found me all those Christmases ago.”