Page 58 of Sinful Scottish Laird
Another son? Why?In case something happened to Ellis? The very idea made her shiver. Daisy didn’t know if she wanted a large family—she hadn’t thought of it in so long now that she wasn’t entirely sure. She knelt to pull the weeds.
“Daisy...”Robert was suddenly on one knee beside her as she pulled weeds from beneath the wild orchids. He took her hand, brushing the dirt from it. “You shouldn’t do this.”
“What?”
“Pull weeds,” he said, grimacing slightly.
“But I like—”
“You are a great lady with other responsibilities. You need someone to care for you as you have for your family. Someone upon whom you can lean and look to for advice and guidance.”
She didn’t feel as if she needed that at all. “You?” she asked softly. She was struck with the memory that she’d tried to lean on him once before and his guidance had been to accept her fate.
But Robert stroked her face, his gaze admiring. “Is it not obvious?” he asked. “Haven’t I shown you my devotion by making this journey to find you? I’ve always loved you, darling.Always.Scarcely a day passed that I didn’t think of you. I never dreamed I’d have another opportunity, but...” He hesitated.
“But?”
He boyishly bit his lip. “I can only hope you feel the same for me, or at least can find some affection for me that remains with you after these many years.”
“Why haven’t you offered?” she whispered, suddenly desperate to know.
“Daisy—”
“Isn’t that why you have come?”
“Of course it is,” he said flatly.
“Then why?”
He sighed heavenward, then met her gaze once more. She could see his affection for her. He was earnest; she could feel it in her heart. “Because I must speak with the bishop first. I have been a captain in the Royal Navy, and my situation is greatly improved...but still, I am not good enough for a woman like you. I have to prove to the bishop that I am worthy of your hand.”
It was a declaration of esteem, and once Daisy’s heart would have burst with love for him. But her thoughts, so many jumbled questions and doubts, raced. “How do you know about the bishop?” she asked. She hadn’t told him about the bishop. She hadn’t told him how Clive had betrayed her. She’d been too ashamed to admit that her late husband had not trusted her to care for her own son, and the only way he could know it was to have heard the gossip about her.
Robert blinked. And then his brows dipped. “Lady Beckinsal told me,” he said. “She told me everything.”
Daisy dropped her gaze to the weeds beneath the wild orchids, still there, stubbornly clinging to that tiny patch of soil. Was that why he’d come to Auchenard? Because Lady Beckinsal had made him aware of a deadline after which she would no longer possess a fortune?
“So now you see why I am so eager to return to London,” he said, squeezing her hand lightly. “I will waste no time in speaking to the bishop. I hope to tell him that you return my affection.”
Daisy felt a little as if she’d just taken a blow to her belly—she had no breath. None. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think clearly. She hadn’t told him of the bishop...and neither had he told her that he knew of her unique circumstances. Not until she’d pressed him.
“You don’t have to answer just now, of course,” he hastily added. “You will at least consider it?”
Daisy swallowed down the lump in her throat. She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I will consider it.” She was considering it even now. But she didn’t care for the suspicious thoughts rumbling around in her head as she did.
Robert studied her with some concern. He abruptly leaned forward and kissed her. It was a real kiss, not the chaste and proper sort he’d given her the last day or two. And yet he stopped the moment he began, shyly backing away. “We ought not to allow our emotions to overcome our good judgment,” he said. He leaped to his feet and pulled her up. “Come, darling.”
But she hadn’t finished her weeding. Daisy looked down at the weeds as Robert put her hand in the crook of his elbow. The weeds were staying. They had rooted here; they were staying.
He led her out of the garden, and as they emerged onto the path, they were startled by a burst through the lodge door. Ellis was racing toward them. “Mamma!” he cried. “Is Cailean coming to dine?”
Robert stopped Ellis with a hand to his shoulder. “Hold there, lad. That is not the way you approach a lady.”
“It’s all right—” Daisy started, but Robert interrupted her.
“He needs to learn. The boy will never be the man you want him to be if you don’t teach him properly.” He dropped Daisy’s hand, put both hands on Ellis’s shoulders and turned him around, marching him away a few steps, then turning him back around to Daisy. “Now then. Approach your mother with respect. Bow your head. Ask her permission to address her.”
Ellis looked as confused as Daisy felt. He looked mortified as he took two tentative steps forward, woodenly bowed, then said, “May I speak now?”
