Highland Outlaw (Campbell Trilogy #2)(99)
“But I didn't,” she said quietly.
Her calm certainty angered him. “Not this time, but what about the next? Because there will be a next. I'm an outlaw. You've no idea what it's like to live on the run. To be without a home. To not know where your next meal is coming from. This isn't the life for you.”
“Am I not allowed to make that decision?” She put her hand on his chest and gazed up at him, her mouth so soft and tempting. He wanted her so badly, he couldn't think.
Patrick's blood pounded; he was holding himself by a very tight rein. It scared him how much he wanted to take up her offer. But he loved her too much to do that to her. She had no conception of the life she would be thrown into, the desperate situation of his clan, and what she would be giving up. He couldn't allow her to make such a sacrifice for him.
His face turned hard, his mouth twisting in a sneer. “You've been raised in the finest castles in Scotland, surrounded by servants who tend to your every wish, you have never wanted for anything. Can you imagine what it's like to go to bed with nothing in your belly? To hear your babe cry with hunger? To go for months being so cold you can't move your fingers? This isn't some romantic girlish fancy—something you can end when you get tired of it. It never ends.”
Her face flushed. “I won't pretend that it will be easy.”
“Easy?” He laughed harshly. “You wouldn't last a month.”
Her eyes flashed, and he knew he'd gone too far. “How dare you condescend to me like this! Have I in any way proved myself less than any of the women in your clan? I am not some pampered princess, and I will not be treated as such. I can make my own decisions, and I certainly don't need some overbearing, overprotective knight in shining armor who thinks he knows what's best for me doing it for me. What you describe is horrible, and I won't make light of the situation of your clan or pretend that I know what it is like, and God knows why with the way you are acting right now, but for some reason you make me happy. I love you and I'd rather endure hell with you than hell without.”
Jesu, he thought, taken aback. She had a feisty little temper beneath that sweet façade.
“If you don't want me for your wife, just say so, but don't try to scare me away because it won't work.”
He swore, standing stone still, willing himself not to pull her into his arms and ravish her senseless. He was only trying to save her from herself. “This has nothing to do with what I want.” His eyes met hers. “God, Lizzie, you're killing me. I'm just trying to do the right thing.”
She leaned toward him. Her soft br**sts pressed against his chest enticingly, but it was the flash of hope in her eyes that proved the death knell of his resistance. “Then stop. This is the right thing.” She reached down and clasped his hand in hers. Her soft, warm fingers entwined with his. “Give me a year to prove it to you. If I'm wrong, you can walk away with impunity.”
He stilled, understanding exactly what she was proposing. A handfast. The old Highland custom was frowned on by the Kirk, but not as uncommon as it would like. A year? Hell, once she was his, he'd never wish to let her go. But it would give her a way out.
Gazing into her big blue eyes, he knew that he couldn't fight destiny. He loved her, and he was done trying to find reasons for them not to be together.
He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Here, before God, I, Patrick MacGregor, do pledge to you, Elizabeth Campbell, my troth. I agree to be bound to you for a year and a day under the ancient custom of hand-fast.”
“Here, before God, I, Elizabeth Campbell, do pledge to you, Patrick MacGregor, my troth. I agree to be bound to you for a year and a day under the ancient custom of hand-fast.”
When she was done, a wide smile broke across her face, unleashing a swell of something inside Patrick that he hadn't felt in many years—happiness.
His mouth brushed over hers softly, tenderly, sealing their vows with a reverent kiss. The poignancy of the moment was forever etched on his soul.
He swung her up in his arms and carried her over to the pallet near the fire.
“Your leg,” she protested.
“It doesn't hurt.” In truth, right now he was so happy that he could feel no pain.
He set her down and removed the plaid from her shoulders, arranging it on the pallet as a covering. He shirked off his unbuttoned jerkin and removed his boots, but when he started to pull off his shirt, she stopped him. “Let me.”
The soft huskiness in her voice filled him with heat, but it was nothing to the incredible sensation of her hands on his body.
She slid her hands under his shirt, skimming her palms over his belly and chest, lingering, exploring the ridges of muscle with her fingertips, driving him mad with her feather-soft touch. His skin heated, and every nerve ending flared at her delicate caress. She drew out every movement, taking her time in lifting the linen shirt up and over his head.
She knew what she was doing to him, the little minx, and when her hand dipped to play the same game with the ties of his breeches, he clasped her wrist. “My turn.”
He knelt before her, running his hands up her calves and looping his thumbs under the edge of her torn sark. He raised the fabric inch by inch as his hands stroked her long, shapely legs. Her skin was like velvet—so incredibly smooth and creamy under his rough fingertips. The contrast between them could not be more profound, but it no longer worried him. She might be tiny and delicate, but she'd been made for him. She wouldn't break—he smiled wickedly—though he intended to make her shatter.