Page 63 of The Last Debutante
Daria walked over, then knelt to examine the contents of the cloth. “Is it a picnic?” she asked, and made a sound of delight. “Berries!” She popped one in her mouth.
Jamie stretched out on his good side and propped himself up on one elbow. He opened the collar of his shirt, then helped himself to some dried meat. “I’d wager you’ve no’ picnicked like this before, aye?” he asked, glad to change the mood.
“Never.” She reached for some cheese. “In England, if one attends a picnic, there are servants to put up the tents and tables and to serve.” She laughed softly and put another couple berries into her mouth. “It seems so pretentious now. I think all of England should be made to picnic precisely like this, out in the open, without tent or servant or even utensil to help them.”
“Perhaps you will be the one to introduce all of England to the Highland picnic when you return.”
“I shall be in high demand, I’m sure.” Daria laughed again, then eased down on her side, facing him. “Perhaps you might try the English way of picnicking,” she suggested, smiling impishly. “One never knows—it might improveyourchance of matrimony,” she added coyly, and popped another berry into her mouth. “Ah, but yours is all but finalized.”
He smiled at her blatant attempt to ask him.
Daria examined the dried meat. “Do you miss your fiancée?” she asked casually.
“Isabella?” He thought about her. Or rather, he thought about the recent blows to the Campbell coffers. There was no denying that a union between them was the easiest way to keep intact the little corner of the world they’d inhabited for more than two hundred years.
But surely it meant more to him than that—he’d been set to marry her, by God. He’d been genuinely fond of Isabella, had he not? Did he not miss her company, if only a little, even now? “A wee bit, aye,” he admitted.
Daria dropped her gaze. “What is she like?”
He found the question strangely discomforting. Isabella was everything a man in his position might have hoped for. She was beautiful. She was charming and clever and knew how to manage a very large house. She was the daughter of the Brodie laird, the equivalent of a Scottish princess. She had seemed to care for him—and yet, there was something about Isabella that seemed to pale compared to Daria. She didn’t have that same quality of being that Daria seemed to possess—a lightness about her, an ability to greet any situation with charm and grace. Daria was like summer: light, air, warmth.
He could not say the same for Isabella.
That he was even thinking such things about the wee English rose was most disconcerting. It was imprudent, dangerous, and unwise. His fate, his destiny, was Dundavie, and he had a duty to maintain the clan. A dalliance with an English rose would be nothing short of disastrous. Yet he could not seem to think of anything else. She was here before him, her countenance bright and warm, her body a man’s fantasy.
“Hmm. You hesitate,” Daria said lightly. “I think you do not care to tell me that she has a wart on the end of her nose and eats puppies in her soup.”
He grinned. “No warts, no, but I canna vouch for the puppies.”
Daria laughed.
Jamie sobered. “In truth, Isabella is bonny and kind.”
“Ooh,bonnyandkind,” Daria said with mock gravitas. “It is a wonder that an entire continent of gentlemen have not offered for her.”
“What would you have me say?”
“Truly, must I tell you? You were to marry her, Jamie Campbell! Did you not love her? If you did, I think you would say that she is beautiful beyond compare, and that her smile lights the entire northern sky, and her eyes are the source of great poetry, and her lips are the pillows on which yours might rest for an eternity.”
He arched a brow in surprise. “I should have said all of that?”
“You loved her, did you not?” Daria asked again, looking him directly in the eye.
“Aye.” At least he hoped that he had, in some way.
He noticed Daria’s smile was not as bright as it had been, and he dipped his head to catch her eye.
But Daria did not allow her feelings to show. She smiled. “Mark me, Laird, one day you will thank me for my tutelage in love, in dancing, and in managing your vast estate,” she said gaily. “I cannot bear to think what you will do without me when I am ransomed.”
“I donna know,” he said softly. “Walk about in a stupor, I should think. Drink too much of the barley-bree to ease my pain.”
She gave him a playful shove of his shoulder and then flopped onto her back, her arms folded beneath her head, her ankles crossed as she gazed up at the blue sky. “Whatwillyou do when I am gone? Who will play the pianoforte? Who will your dogs adore? What, in heaven’s name, will Duffson do without me to follow about each day?”
She was smiling, but the questions made Jamie feel strangely empty. Whatwouldhe do?
“I suppose you shall go about the business of Dundavie,” she mused. “You will no doubt marry Isabella, and you will produce the heirs all the Campbells so desperately want, and you will find Geordie a wife, and you will drain your bogs and plant your grains and chase sheep from your fields...”
It sounded very tedious to him in that moment. But it was close to the truth—he had a duty to do all of those things, and sooner rather than later. Still, he didn’t like to think about it. “And what of you,leannan? What will you do when you are properly ransomed?”
