“He’s a laird,” Leanna said dully, staring down at her hands in her lap. “In the Hebrides.”
“Well, that’ll make ye a lady,” Nicola said brightly.
Aye, it would, and that would be the penance Leanna would accept in order to have Kenneth in her life.
Abruptly, her sister stood, causing the mattress to shift. “Well, I didnae come here to try to talk ye into loving Kenneth. ‘Tis his responsibility. He’s waiting for ye in the kitchen garden.”
Leanna’s head jerked up. “What?”
Her sister rolled her eyes. “Kenneth. Is. Waiting. For—”
“I heard ye.” Leanna scrambled to the edge of the bed. “He’s awake? He’s mobile?”
“He’s in the garden,” Nicola repeated drily. Unhelpfully.
“And he’s—”
Her sister chuckled, on her way to the door. “He asked me to tell ye he wants to speak with ye. He’s still determined to ‘make ye see reason’ and marry ye, although I told him ‘twas impossible to make ye see reason.”
Instinctively, Leanna muttered the sarcastic, “Ha-ha,” her sister was expecting, but her attention was more on the message. Kenneth was not only alive and mobile, but he wanted to speak with her. He wasn’t angry?
He wants to marry ye.
Aye, that should be her focus for now.
She scrambled out of the bed. In her excitement, she tripped over the coverlet and had to catch herself on one of the posts. When she glanced up, her sister held up a hand, palm out.
“Afore ye go rushing down to the garden, do consider washing up. And mayhap changing. This place smells like a sickroom.”
That’s because it’s been a sick-at-heart room.
And when Leanna realized she was thinking that maudlin, she knew it was time for a change. Sending her sister a tight smile, she shooed Nicola out of the room.
“Then get out so I can wash. Oh! And, Nicola?” she called as her older sister stepped into the corridor.
When the healer turned to glance back, Leanna smiled.
“Thank ye.”
* * *
Kenneth saton a bench beside a bush which smelled of rosemary, scowling down at the cane he held propped between his knees. He didn’t need the cane; he wasn’t so old nor so injured! But Nicola had handed it to him on his way out of the sick room and told him ‘twould make Leanna feel sorry for him.
He didn’t want Leanna to feel sorry for him. He wanted her to love him.
Love him?
Aye, he’d fallen in love with the woman the first time she’d opened her mouth—mayhap even before then—and he wanted her to love him in return.
The kitchen door was permanently open in this fine weather, so he didn’t have any warning Leanna had entered the garden until a flash of dark red caught his eye. He looked up to see her hurrying toward him, wearing the same gown she’d been wearing that first afternoon by the waterfall.
Or rather…not wearing.
The memory of her slipping her gloriously damp body into that silk had him stirring beneath his kilt, despite the thick bandage. He smiled, but the expression on Leanna’s face was stricken. Her eyes were puffy and red, as if she’d spent their time apart crying.
For him?
Before he could say anything, she threw herself toward him.