“I’d like to stay here, in case.”
“Of course.”
“After today, I wouldn’t blame you if you took to your heels and didn’t stop until you reached Inverness.” Weariness deepened her voice to a contralto murmur.
“Not a chance in hell,” he said softly. But she’d collapsed against him in boneless exhaustion.
He muffled a wry laugh and arranged the oilskin more securely. When he’d imagined sleeping with Charlotte, this wasn’t what he’d had in mind. He tightened his grip on her shoulders and stared contented out into the gloomy day.
* * *
“Wake up, bonny lassie.”
The soft voice emerged from Charlotte’s dreams; confused, upsetting dreams where Lord Lyle held her in his arms and kissed her until she forgot her name. And then he walked away.
When she stirred to alertness, she discovered at least part of her dream was true. She snuggled up to Ewan Macrae, her cheek resting on his chest and his powerful arm holding her near. His heart beat hard and steady beneath her ear, and she was warmer than she’d been since she’d left the manor that morning.
“What is it?” she asked groggily. “Was I asleep for long?”
Her dreams had been disturbing. While she mightn’t remember details, her body was heavy with arousal.
“Only an hour or so, by my reckoning.”
Clumsy, still half-asleep, she sat up and shoved the heavy fall of damp hair back from her face. She curled cold toes in her boots to restore circulation. What she’d give for a good fire and a dry gown. “How’s the ewe?”
; He tilted his chin toward the ground. “See for yourself.”
“Oh,” she said.
“She seems to be managing.”
“Yes, she does.”
Ewan unwound his arms from her with a reluctance she couldn’t mistake and jumped down. “I’ll just make sure everything is fine.”
Fascinated, Charlotte watched as the lamb emerged from its mother and dropped to the straw. Then when silent seconds followed, she became afraid. “It’s not moving.”
Lyle edged the exhausted mother aside, so he could reach the lamb. “There’s a trick.”
With the air of unruffled competency that invested everything he did, he took off his gloves and picked up a few strands of straw. He tickled the motionless lamb’s nose and spoke encouragement in what she assumed was Gaelic.
“It hasn’t worked.” Charlotte scrambled to her feet and was halfway down the ladder when she saw Lyle lift the lamb by its back legs and swing it carefully side to side.
Hot tears sprang to her eyes. Every season, they lost lambs. It was the reality of farming. And this little one had arrived premature and noticeably small, and on a foul day more like winter than spring.
But Charlotte couldn’t bear to think of that tiny, fragile life ending before it began. Her gaze fixed on Lyle, who continued the gentle swinging.
Suddenly the lamb coughed and kicked against its captor. Relief flooded Charlotte, lodged in her throat.
“There,” Lyle said in satisfaction, but his touch as he laid the squirming bundle near its frantic mother was tender. His final blessing to the wriggling lamb sounded like music. She shivered at the sheer beauty of his voice, the way she’d shivered the first time she’d heard him speaking Gaelic to Saraband. “Go to Mamma.”
Mamma butted Lyle out of the way and began to lick her baby. Lyle lifted his head, a smile lighting his dark face to brilliance. “That’s what I call a happy ending.”
A happy ending for the ewe and her lamb, true. A happy ending for Charlotte Warren? She wasn’t so sure. But as she stared down transfixed at this man who had teased her and kissed her and battled the elements with her, at last she recognized that there was no escaping her fate.
Curse her father for being right. The only man she’d ever consider marrying was Ewan Macrae, Earl of Lyle.