Highland Outlaw (Campbell Trilogy #2)(40)



Forget that it had ever happened.

But what if I can't?

She quieted the voice in her head the only way she knew how, by attacking the duties for the day with even more than her usual zeal. The remainder of the morning she spent changing the bed linens in each chamber, and fluffing and airing the pillows and hangings. Not hungry, she skipped the midday meal to polish the silver candelabra, and then the furniture. In the afternoon, she swept and mopped the floors until they sparkled. Usually the maids performed such tasks under her supervision, but Lizzie needed the distraction. It worked. The physical labor finally succeeded in clearing her mind.

Only when every muscle in her neck and back ached and she could no longer move her arms did she stop, collapsing in her room in an exhausted heap. So tired that had she not been covered in dirt, she would have simply gone to bed. But when her bath was brought up, she roused herself sufficiently to sink into the warm water of the deep copper tub.

She closed her eyes, wanting to drift away into nothingness, but the memories found her. The more she tried to push them away, the harder they came.

Even bone-deep exhaustion, it seemed, could not cure what ailed her: the knowledge that she'd acted disgracefully. Not just in allowing him to kiss her, but in her reaction afterward. It wasn't Patrick Murray's fault that she lived in fear of repeating her past mistakes. She'd welcomed his kiss, even encouraged him, and then when he'd taken her up on her wanton offer, she'd lashed out.

Though he'd covered it quickly, she'd seen it in his eyes—her cold rebuff had hurt him. He thought she'd rejected him because of his station. But it was much more complicated than that.

Patrick Murray was confident, powerful, decisive—a rock even in the most precarious of circumstances. The ultimate warrior. How could he ever understand what it was like not to trust yourself? To no longer have faith in your own judgment? To know how it feels when every instinct tells you something is right and then to later discover that it was wrong—terribly wrong?

She'd never told another living soul about the sheer depths of her stupidity with John Montgomery.

In the weeks following their engagement, he'd stolen kisses, a chaste peck here, a slightly longer kiss there. But one day—a few days before the gathering—she'd accidentally stumbled upon him in the middle of the night on her way back from the garderobe. He'd been drinking in the hall below and had only just come upstairs for the night. He'd kissed her. At first she'd giggled nervously and swatted him away. But then the kiss had turned more insistent, and she'd realized that she no longer wanted to stop. He'd pulled her into a mural chamber inset into the stone wall and down onto a cushioned bench. His hands stroked her body, touching her, awakening wicked sensations that she'd never imagined.

Your skin is like velvet.

He'd nuzzled his face in her chest.

Your br**sts are so soft and round.

The things he'd whispered in her ear had excited her. She liked the way he made her feel. Loved. Protected.

Feel what you do to me.

He'd slipped her hand around his manhood, and she'd wondered at the solid strength of it.

Let me love you.

He'd told her it would be all right. That they were to be married. Told her that if she loved him, she would want to bring him pleasure.

Like a fool, she'd believed him. And truth be told, after an initial moment of pain, he hadn't been alone in his pleasure. She'd liked the weight of him on top of her, liked the way his hands caressed her br**sts, the way he'd moved inside her. Except for the mess when he'd released himself on her stomach, it had been quite pleasant.

That night she'd given John her virginity, and two days later he'd broken her heart.

He'd found her after the fiasco at the gathering and apologized. Said he hadn't meant his cruel words—his laughter. She'd even believed him. A little. But by then it didn't matter. Her illusions of this handsome man loving her were gone, and in their place she saw the man he was—not the man she wanted him to be.

“Please, Elizabeth, you must reconsider. Think of the contracts. Of what this will mean to our families.”

To his family. Hers did not need her tocher or his cousin's influence in a feud with the Cunninghams. “Nothing would compel me to marry you.”

His handsome face turned as petulant as that of a spoiled child. “But you're ruined.”

She despised that word. She wasn't ruined. She was different. Changed. No longer naïve. “I'd suggest you keep that fact to yourself,” she said coolly. “You'll sign your own death warrant if either of my brothers discovers what you've done.”

He paled. She didn't blame him. Jamie was well-known for his ruthlessness, and Colin, if not as skilled a fighter, possessed an edge of cruelty that made him equally terrifying. “Someone will find out eventually,” he pointed out.

A husband. Her chest squeezed as she thought of all she'd wasted on a man who didn't care about her at all. Who didn't love her—not the way she deserved to be loved. The pleasure she'd shared with him should have belonged to her husband. She clenched her jaw. “That will be my problem.”

Then, she'd still thought she would find a husband to love her. A man who would be able to overlook a foolish girl's mistake.

But time had run out. When she married, love would not be part of the bargain. She would have to tell her cousin what she'd done, and if Robert Campbell could not look past her loss of maidenhood, she was confident that her tocher would blind many an eye.

Monica McCarty's Books