Page 50 of Eloping with the Laird
‘What?’
‘I am with child.’
Rory stilled, his features softening in awe. For moments, he didn’t move but just stared into her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. Finally, he moved, resting his hand gently on her stomach, the heat of his touch easing through her thin shift.
‘Moira,’ he murmured, his voice husky and deep with emotion. ‘Such a miracle. I am beyond words. Tressa told me she thought you might be, but it was not official until now.’
His grey eyes were shiny and bright. He leaned forward and kissed her. His lips soft and gentle against her own. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered as he began to pull away, his breath warm and sweet against her cheek.
‘Well, I could not have done it without your help, my laird.’ She chuckled.
He laughed aloud and kissed her once more. ‘You amaze me, Moira McKenna.’
‘Most likely, I offend you. I have been in this bed for days it seems. Help me to bathe.’
He paused, his gaze half-lidded and eager to see if it was an invitation for more.
‘You may stay, my laird. I find I have missed you. Perhaps you shall make it up to me in time.’
‘Challenge accepted.’ He scooped her up in his arms with ease and carried her to the tub. He lowered her feet gently into it and removed her shift in one deft movement. He pulled her to him tightly and kissed her until she could scarce breathe.
‘You seem a bit overdressed, my laird,’ she murmured.
‘Nothing I can’t remedy in but a mere moment,’ he answered, yanking his tunic over his head.
They sunk down into the warm water and despite being inside a small metal tub Moira felt like she was out in the loch, floating once more along with the current as Rory held her in his arms.
The letter and its contents would wait until tomorrow. All worries would wait until the morrow.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Rory woke with his limbs draped possessively over his wife’s body as she continued to slumber. He studied her gentle sloping nose with its sweet tip and her long dark lashes that contrasted her pale, flawless cheeks. Her dark hair lay in rivers of onyx against the cream of the sheets. The woman was perfection.
How in the world had she ever become his?
And now she carried his child. Tressa’s speculation was a fact now confirmed by Dr Wilkes. His son or daughter grew even now in her womb. He ran his fingertips over her bare stomach. The miracle of it struck him anew as a wave of reality and sadness banked against it. He would not live to see his child’s face or grip their tiny hands. They would never know him, and he wouldn’t be around to protect his family. He allowed his palm to flatten and cover her entire abdomen. What he wouldn’t give to secure a future with Moira and their child, but such a dream was for another man. He had to face the truth: while he couldn’t secure a futurewiththem, he could secure a futureforthem once he was gone.
The terms with the Camerons could still be agreed to, and with Moira carrying their bairn, it seemed less of a risk that the clan would lose everything. As long as there was a male McKenna heir, then the Camerons would be allies and protectors against whatever the other clans schemed against them once he passed. Based on the Frasers angry letters, he imagined what they might still be planning would be fierce and horrific. He had quelled Bran with coin, but the Frasers seemed unwilling to back down on their belief that Moira had been responsible for the death of their son.
Rory had no idea what to think.
And then there wastheletter. The one he could not make sense of. The three lines of script that hummed along in his head in a deadly loop.
I know you killed Peter.
I have proof.
You will hang.
He stared at his wife. Her chest rose in a smooth, even rhythm. Could she have truly killed her first husband as the letter claimed? She didn’t look like a killer, and Moira seemed far too intelligent to put herself in such a position to be brought to the gallows. She was no fool. If she killed him, she would have known the risks. It was an offence that could not be defended, at least not in the eyes of the Fraser clan.
He tensed. But Fraser had been a bastard and his mistreatment of Moira had been fierce based on what she had and had not told him in so many words. Perhaps something worse than he could imagine had driven her to kill him in anger. Nay. He frowned. More likely, it would have been in defence of herself done in a moment of desperation not as part of a larger plan. Moira was a woman who loved life, nature and all that the world possessed. She nursed potted plants and spoke to them as if they were wee babes. She would not have taken anything from this world lightly.
Unless she had been forced to.
His stomach knotted, and he sucked in a breath as pain rippled through him and then abated.
But if she had killed her husband, why not tell him? He could protect her from the Frasers and the courts. Did she not trust him, even now? Had they not grown closer, as a true husband and wife, far beyond anything they might have believed possible when they’d first agreed to marry one another?
