He was staring at her, processing what she’d said. He sounded desperate, on the verge of anger. “Perhaps it never will be perfect. If it’s perfection you long for, Olivia, then—”
She put her fingers to his lips. “Rory, you must be patient with me. We must be patient with each other.”
He waited again, frowning as if she was a particularly difficult problem he was trying to solve. “But you will stay?”
“Yes, I will stay.”
He was going to ask her how long, she could read it in his face, but then he changed his mind. He lifted her hand and kissed it lightly, a mere brush of his lips across her knuckles.
“Then we will both be patient,” he agreed.
Alone in her bed some hours later Olivia turned over with a sigh and wondered if she was doing the right thing. Denying them both the only solace available to them seemed unnecessarily cruel. But today they had spoken more than she could remember since they first met, and she had to believe it was worth it.
Chapter Ten
Summer 1816
Invermar Castle
Rory was halfway up the stairs to Olivia’s bedroom when he paused, suddenly uncertain. Over the past few days they had established a routine. In the mornings he dived for the sword while she occupied herself, writing letters to her friends in London, or helping Mrs Muckleford prepare meals. She had even taken his father’s dog for a walk along the edge of the loch, and returned flushed and breathless, waving at him as he stood in the boat.
In the afternoons they talked. She accompanied him about the castle and on a couple of occasions into the town, where he had business to conduct for his father. It wasn’t the sort of town she was used to. A couple of the cottages were miserable affairs, and he explained that poverty was very real in the Highlands. But there was an inn and some shops, and when he took his horse to the smithy to be shoed, she stayed to watch the procedure while Rory settled some bills.
By the time he returned for his horse and his wife she seemed on the best of terms with the blacksmith.
“He was a soldier,” she had told him, as they made their way home, her eyes shining. “Rory, he has travelled to so many places.”
He grinned down at her. “So have you. You have been to the land of the Macleans, and not many Englishwomen can say that.”
She seemed struck by his words. “You’re right. I’m one of the fortunate few Englishwomen.”
And I am a fortunate Maclean, Rory told himself.
She had told him she wanted them to get to know each other in a way that they hadn’t done when they married, and he was beginning to think she may be right. The anger and the bitterness had drained away, and smiles and laughter came more easily between them. He keenly missed her in his arms, in his bed, but he was hoping that would follow.
Now, on the bend in the stairs, he made up his mind.
Opening the bedroom door, he found Olivia still asleep. Her fair hair was in a braid, while her nightdress was voluminous enough to cover her even if his imagination was good enough to picture what was under it.
He cleared his throat. “Olivia?”
She began to stretch and yawn, and then stopped, blinking, and sat up in a rush. “What is it?” she asked him anxiously.
“My father is unwell. He needs to rest today.”
“Oh,” she seemed about to say more and then stopped herself. He was glad; he didn’t want to discuss his father’s health.
“He still wants me to dive,” he went on, with a droll look. “I need someone to cross off the squares on the map, so that we don’t cover old ground. I wondered . . . ?”
Her eyes sparkled. “I’d love to,” she declared, and swung her feet from beneath the covers to the floor. They were shapely feet, and shapely ankles, and his eyes wandered further before she tugged down the hem of the nightdress.
“When you’re dressed, father wants to talk with you. He is very particular about who he allows to use his map.”
She looked a little anxious, and he left her to it, hoping he hadn’t put her off. However, it seemed not, because a short time later she appeared on the side the loch with the map rolled up carefully and tucked beneath her arm. She was wearing his father’s straw hat, and he thought it suited her much better than it did Archie. He also noticed she hadn’t had time to do her hair, it was still in a braid hanging down her back, and she was bare foot.
He opened his mouth to tease her, perhaps to ask what her proper London friends would say if they saw her now, and then thought better of it. Olivia was enjoying being free of all of that. She was beginning to realise that life here at Invermar wasn’t just being marooned at the far end of the civilised world, as he had heard her father call it. There were compensations.
Could he really live for half the year in London, if she lived for the other half here in Invermar? He was beginning to