He might have to talk to Jamie after all—perhaps beginning the conversation by conceding that the man had good reason for his rules—but maybe he could take a day or two and make a few strides in wooing the woman in his arms. Now that he had his phone back and Ewan on speed dial, his success was likely almost guaranteed.
But carefully. He might have lost control of the introduction of Mairead MacLeod to the future, but he would make up for that with a proper wooing, perhaps in the style of the Duke of B. who she seemed to think the epitome of all things heroic.
Slow. Patient. Ginger.
With watchwords like those, how could he fail? He would defy Ewan Cameron himself to come up with a better plan for the wooing and winning of Lady Mairead MacLeod, Renaissance clanswoman, and the girl he simply couldn’t stop looking at.
“I love you,” he murmured.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, then smiled. “I love you, too.”
He smiled, tightened his arms around her briefly, then closed his eyes.
Tomorrow was another day full of possibilities.
He could hardly wait to get to them.
Twenty-four
If Oliver Phillips did not,as they said on the telly, make his move soon, she thought she might either slay him for making her wait so long or perish from that waiting and go to her grave a maid.
Mairead stood in the clan Cameron’s great hall and surveyed a place that definitely smelled better than it had in her day. She’d been inside a pair of times before as a guest of Giles and Dougan and felt perfectly safe given that she hadn’t been much of a temptation to anyone there. The hall had been large, but the Cameron clan had needed all that space to accommodate their rambunctious selves. Whoever had tidied up the place over the past four hundred years had certainly done a fine job.
But what made it truly spectacular were the souls who inhabited it currently. Cameron and Sunny were lovely people who had graciously welcomed her into their family circle without hesitation and shown her every courtesy. She was still struggling a bit with how to accept their kindness, which she imagined said more about herself than she wanted it to.
What was easier was to watch the way that collection of Camerons and Camerons by either marriage or affection treated Oliver.
His friends were seemingly very fond of him, teasing him ferociously about his book of ridiculous tasks, and engaging in the same sort of rough camaraderie she’d witnessed between Giles, his brother, and a few of her more tolerable cousins. Oliver’s lads there, though, would have stepped up to guard his back without hesitation, of that she was certain.
The women of his family seemed to be equally fond of him, treating him as another treasured member of the clan, with Madame Gies especially lavishing extra love and attention upon his deserving head. Perhaps that could be accounted as a success for his governess who had turned out to be his… aunt…
She closed her eyes and let the memory wash over her.His governess Maud who had turned out in the end to be his father’s youngest sister. She couldn’t say it happened with any more or less frequency, that remembering of things she had never seen whilst in her mortal frame, but she was almost growing accustomed to them.
Time was an odd thing, indeed.
She opened her eyes and found Oliver looking at her from where he stood on the far side of the comfortable collection of Future furniture there before the fire. She smiled and shook her head. He shot her a look she had no difficulty interpreting, but he was drawn back into the conversation at hand before he could possibly have mouthed any delicate sentiments. The saints only knew it wasn’t exactly the place for any scorching looks.
“Mairead?”
She jumped a little when she realized Ewan Cameron was standing next to her, wearing a more serious look than usual. He was, she would freely admit, exceptionally handsome. He looked actually a great deal like Robert Cameron himself, tall, dark-haired, with lovely, bright blue eyes.
“How can I help?” he asked frankly.
She considered. She wasn’t one to speak freely of things that should have been held close, but perhaps there was no harm in asking the opinion of a man who obviously knew Oliver very well.
“I’m studying the battlefield,” she admitted.
He smiled. “Is there any particular prize on that field?”
She didn’t dare nod across the comfortable padded benches to where the object of the conflict was standing, rolling his eyes at the things Derrick said whilst glancing her way often, perhaps to see how she fared.
“That one there,” she said, then she looked at Ewan. “If I’m not looking too far above myself.”
He smiled dryly. “There isn’t a person in this hall who doesn’t realize he’s absolutely mad for you.”
“He did say as much yestereve,” she admitted. “And I returned the favor.”
Ewan only smiled. “What advice can I offer, then, to nudge this budding romance along?”
