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“Only when I’m right,” she muttered.
That night the McDougal manor became a love nest.
June elapsed in uneventful ease. The McDougals participated in the summer festivals around the Highlands. Though people fizzled with curiosity, nobody dared ask who the woman with Sam might be. They got word that she was a widow from Oxford and it became the end of it.
Sam’s eyes were like jewels of happiness. He showed Harriet his old hothouse where he used to grow the plants he studied. Both took walks with Roy and Errol. The six of them sat for picnics in the loch where they talked a lot and got to know Harriet better as much as she did them. Nobody mentioned the future in a tacit agreement. And nobody interfered with Sam and Harriet, who continued to share the nights together. Discretely, that is, or as discretely as possible.
He wished this lasted forever. Harriet had expressed her appreciation for the Highlands on several occasions which made him proud of his homeland. And made him dream of her accepting him on a permanent basis.
But as July came in, they needed to plan for their return to Oxford since the trip took a week with good weather. It saddened him that this idyll would end so soon.
She loved him! Blasted soft heart she unfortunately had. Him, and the Highlands, and Roy and Errol. Many afternoons she sat in the garden and imagined what life with Samuel would be like if they stayed together. He made her so elated. So complete.
Naturally, this should be regarded as a situation of exception. Summer, free time for them, no worries, no work. Even so, his company complemented her. Everything she contemplated doing, she wondered if he would like to do it with her. In her view, they might live anywhere, with any income, she did not mind, she wished they could be together. She would not thwart his role as a leader of his clan though. His father was right, she was just a widow eager to make Samuel’s life less…constrained. Back at her position, they would not be able to meet in private so often, if ever. This was at an end, much to her chagrin. And it would be better if she accepted the end with stoic elegance. It had been precious, and she would store the memories as keepsakes.
With these thoughts in her mind, she headed to the study where Samuel asked her to meet him. At the entrance, she saw not only him, but also Laird and Lady McDougal. She froze.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Please, Mrs Stratham, don’t just stand there, come in and close the door.” The Laird ripped her out of her surprise.
They all sat around his massive desk, and the three of them looked at him. “It’s time we put this in the open,” he started with his authority dripping from every word. “My son says you did not accept his proposal,” his gaze bore into her. “Why was that? Don’t you love him?”
Harriet eyed him in astonishment. It seemed he conceived no woman in her right mind refused his son. Her mouth opened, no sound came; she breathed once, twice, and tried again. “It’s not that,” she blurted.
“So you love him,” he insisted.
Her eyes snapped to Samuel, then to Aileen, and to the Laird. Samuel sat there as if he had no hope left. “Well, yes.” At that, his green eyes clashed with hers with extreme amazement and exhilaration.
“What are you not telling us?” Taran pushed.
Her hands twisted on her lap as she lowered her head and blushed. “In five years of marriage, I never conceived.” She let the obvious conclusion hang in the air.
Aileen looked at her quizzically. “But we’ve seen widows conceive in their second marriages, which lead to the fact that men must also be liable in these cases.” The Lady McDougal had been trained by her mother to be a healer and she observed these contingences.
“Y-yes,” she stammered, “there’s no guarantee though.”
“If not for that, would you marry him?” the father asked.
Would she? Harriet mused. The arguments she gave Samuel when he proposed did not go away by themselves. She still was a penniless widow with no lineage or dowry unsure of her own fertility. Yet the unsurmountable problem here must be his family’s stand where she was concerned. What if they did not oppose the match? Would it be so bad if Samuel and her tried to be happy? Laird McDougal showed signs of flexibility no doubt by Lady Aileen’s influence. The clan’s interests and alliances were the pivotal issues here. Should the Laird decide to shift priorities, what did her heart wish? The answer stared her in the face. She wanted Samuel in her life with his tenderness, energy, intellect and the cosy home they could make together.
Why not own to her love for him?
The question made her look directly at the clan’s leader. “Yesterday, if possible.”
“Harriet!” Samuel exclaimed.
“Alright,” his father proceeded, “so here’s what. I have two spares so far,” and looked suggestively at his wife. “If no issue comes from Samuel, Roy can succeed him.” In the case of The McDougal, that was a compromise the size of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Scotland.
The four of them stood. Samuel came and took her in his arms. “My treasure! My Harriet, I love you so much!”
Her head tilted up to him, for he had the same height of his father, “I love you, too, Samuel.” She said rather shyly.
Aileen approached them and took one hand from each in hers. “Sam, you deserve to be happy more than anyone else,” she said with warm conviction.
“And I am,” he replied with a big smile. “I am the happiest man alive.” He kissed Harriet on the cheek.
“I’d dispute that, but I’m not spoiling the moment,” quipped his father as
