Page 37 of His Forgotten Highland Bride

Chapter Fourteen

Ronan had pushed himself too hard today, but he’d needed to follow his wife to catch her in the act of…helping someone. He frowned at the ceiling as she set a flame to life in the hearth and built up the fire.

He’d thought to find her in the throes of passion in that small cottage, just as his mother had done. But instead, she was easing someone’s misery. Much as she was doing now, heating water and gathering linens to help him.

Shame brought heat to his cheeks in the already warm room.

She carefully wrung out the hot water from one of the cloths and lifted his kilt slightly to place it on his thigh, just above the knee where the scar marked his injury. He hissed from the contact, then shook his head at his weakness. His wife had just touched the same hot linen with her bare hands and hadn’t so much as murmured a complaint.

“What happened here?” she asked when she changed out the cloth, taking in the scars on his leg.

“The enemy thought I didn’t need this leg anymore. I decided I did, despite what the surgeon preferred.”

She nodded. “How long ago? The wound doesn’t look that old.”

“I woke from the fever in time to get the message that my grandfather needed me to come home.”

“I’m glad you recovered from the fever.”

He felt her sincerity in the way she clasped his wrist. “You would have been fair in wishing me worse after what I did.”

She shrugged. “There may have been a few times I stooped that low, but they were brief.”

His lip pulled up at her admission. He rather liked her spirit. He couldn’t be sure she spoke the truth about everything, but that he knew was true.

“You’ve overused your leg on your long journey home. It can’t heal properly if you continue to use it.”

“There was no time to wait. I needed to get back. I left as soon as I was able.”

“As soon as you could ride well enough that you didn’t fall from your horse, you mean.”

“Aye.” He nodded in agreement. “Shane would have caught me, I’m sure of it. Or at least seen me properly buried.”

She winced as if she truly feared such a thing. She cared about him as she did the Campbells. What he didn’t know was how much she cared for him. He had a lot of ground to cover if he had any hope of repairing this marriage. “I was not so bad. Though it’s not the worst thing to have someone see to me.” It was far from the worst thing and more than he deserved from her.

“You need to let your leg heal. I understand you wanted to get home, but you’re home now. You should rest so you don’t cause more damage.”

He smiled at her nagging. He must be daft to enjoy such a thing, but her scolds amused him. She cared, even though she didn’t want to.

“My leg is fine. Just a little sore.”

“I disagree, but expecting you to stay in bed until it’s healed would be too much.”

She crossed her arms in that haughty way he was coming to enjoy because it called his attention to her breasts. He’d also noticed them when she bent to hand him the baby. He was a man, and his wife was appealing to the eye.

“Aye,” he answered. “It would be too much to ask.”

At his answer, her lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile. He remembered that smile. It had once been open and ready to break into laughter at any moment.

She’d been a happy lass the day they’d married, though he wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to marry him in the first place. She’d overheard Ronan and his grandsire speaking of the situation.

Had she mentioned it to her father, she would have been spared the marriage and the Grants would have been at war with the Innes clan. It was something he’d wondered about all these years. “Why did you agree to our marriage?”

Her brows went up in obvious surprise, but other than tilting her head to the side, she didn’t respond.

“You heard my grandsire. You could have told your father, but you didn’t. You went through with the match. But why?”

She let out a breath and glanced briefly at him before answering. “It wasn’t like a long line of suitors were waiting to ask for my hand. Perhaps it would have been the more merciful thing to do so you’d not have to wed someone you disliked, but I guess I was selfish. I wanted you to be my husband. I often thought your leaving was my punishment for greedily trapping you in the marriage.”