by Cara Colter
He’d been angry about something even before they’d met his cousin, even before his cousin had revealed his name, even before she had announced she would go to the ceilidh without him.
Sophie reminded herself, with a sigh, the goal had been to help Lancaster have fun.
Thinking of the look of thunder on his face as he drove her silently home, she thought her grade was probably an F. She should probably give up on her plan to save Lancaster from a dour life. It was a mission that seemed more hopeless than when she had set out tonight.
Of course, partway through the mission, she’d totally forgotten it was supposed to be about Lancaster, and just given herself over to the pure merriment of the evening. Except for that man grabbing her at the end, and that moment of overwhelming panic until she had remembered Lancaster was there, the outing had been perfect. The music, and the dancing, the joyous spirit of celebration in the room, had been totally contagious. It was the first time since her breakup that she had glimpsed the possibility she might be happy again.
Forever single, but happy, she told herself firmly.
So, she had found hope for herself, but failed in her mission to Lancaster.
“I think you are selfish and self-centered at heart,” Sophie assessed herself glumly. She took her feet out of the tub, toweled them off and then went and grabbed her computer.
Internet tonight! It was spotty on Havenhurst at best.
Surrendering the utter weakness of it, she typed in meaning of the name Connal. It was, as she had thought it would be, a pure Celtic name.
And it meant mighty, ferocious, respected and respectful.
Who looked into the face of a tiny newborn baby and knew these things of him? Knew he would grow into that name, and be all those things, even as he left the name behind him?
Sophie put down her computer, put on her pajamas and climbed into bed.
Just before she slept, it occurred to her that maybe the evening had not been such a total failure after all.
Lancaster had enjoyed parts of the evening, maybe even most of it. She had seen his toes tapping to the music, seen him watch the dancing with enjoyment.
Had it been when Brody had spoken to her that something had shifted in Lancaster? Had he overheard the words, then?
Had he been angry with himself for letting his guard down, for giving himself over to the evening, for coming back among the people who held him in such respect, but also pitied him his loss?
Even anger was movement, Sophie realized. He was a man who was contained. He prided himself on control. He had disciplined himself to feel nothing.
So even anger was a step in the right direction, wasn’t it?
So, not an F.
“C minus,” she upgraded herself sleepily. It wasn’t a complete fail, after all. Plus, he’d agreed to accompany her to the ceilidh, even if he had done so grudgingly. She realized it was all the encouragement she needed. She wasn’t ready to give up on Lancaster’s happiness just yet.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AS SHE CHOSE an outfit for the ceilidh, Sophie reminded herself it was about Lancaster’s enjoyment, not her own. So, she’d tone it down. Casual. Not drawing attention to herself.
Still, one had to show respect for the hosts. She could hardly show up in yoga pants and a T-shirt.
She put on an oversize soft white cashmere sweater with a cowl neckline, a pencil-line skirt and low heels that were painful in two respects. Her modest height remained modest. And her feet hurt. Sneakers, unfortunately, were out of the question.
The outfit, she decided, might have been too subdued. When she met Lancaster at the car, he seemed totally focused on her feet!
“Are you suffering from blisters, lass?”
When he called her lass in that sexy, deep voice, it tickled along the back of her neck as if he had touched her, somehow making it okay that he had not even said hello, and that he was focusing on her feet!
“Yes. The boots the other night were a mistake.”
He held open the car door for her, then slid into his side.
“What are you doing about them?”
He was thinking of her feet and she was so aware of him: the forest scent, the squareness of his wrist as he touched the steering wheel, the clean lines of his profile. She looked away from him before he caught her peeking.
She tried to focus on the question. What was she doing about what? Her wayward thoughts? No! The blisters.
“I’m soaking my feet in hot water every chance I get.”
“The hot springs would be good. The minerals are very healing.”
Something in his tone made her glance back at him. Maybe he wasn’t quite as focused on her feet as she had thought, because unless she was mistaken, the inscrutable Major Lancaster was blushing ever so slightly.
She decided a trip to the hot springs was in her very near future, but she mustn’t be distracted by that.
Today was her chance to redeem herself. To help Lancaster back to the land of the living.
Though, really? She was not sure what would make either of them feel more alive than being in the hot springs together!
She recognized she was getting off track in a very dangerous way.
His aunt’s home was a modest stone house on the edge of Havenhurst, already surrounded by cars and bicycles, the sounds of merriment spilling out every time the door opened.
Lancaster gave her a warning look when she reached for her own door handle, and because today was about making him happy, she sat there feeling like an idiot until he came around and opened her door.
Then he went to the trunk and opened it, retrieved what was inside.
Her eyes went very wide.
“You’ve stolen Sammy.”
“It’s my standard gift for a christening,” he said.
She registered that Lancaster had given the young prince his favorite toy. Was it because it had been given to him by his godfather that he loved it so?
Sophie realized she had not even thought to bring a gift. So much for giving up her self-absorbed ways!
“It can be from both of us,” he said, reading her sudden embarrassment with discomforting accuracy.
She cocked her head at him. “But then people will think we’re a couple.”
He scowled at that, and tried to give her the bear, anyway, but she shook her head. He had an ulterior motive, she was certain. She was not going to spare him—warrior-like, self-contained, utterly masculine—the discomfort of walking into the gathering of his friends and family with an adorable teddy bear riding in his big, strong arms.
She was pretty sure, from the awkward way a plaid bow had been attached to the bear’s neck, no one was going to think it was from her regardless of what he said.
They entered the house, and Lancaster was met with shouts of greeting from the men, and squeals of delight from the women.
Sophie quickly realized this was his other life, where everyone called him by his name.
She soon lost track of who everyone was, and how they were related to him. He was absorbed into the crowd and Sophie did not want to intrude on what seemed to be a reunion of sorts. Everyone wanted to hug him, and to talk to him, as if he was the focus of this gathering, not the baby whom she had yet to lay eyes on.
Somewhere along the line, Lancaster managed to lose the bear, but not before the sight of him with it had melted every female heart in the house, whether they were six or sixty.
Children, in particular, were scrabbling for his attention, and it seemed, as she watched, he was always bending, picking one up, throwing him or her in the air and then planting a quick kiss on a cheek before putting them back down and sending them on their way.
“We meet again.”
She turned to see Lancaster’s cousin had come up behind her.
“Calum,” she said. “Nice to see
you again.”
“Have you met everyone?”
“I haven’t. I’m kind of hiding because I’ve a way of massacring names.”
He smiled at her. “Thank you for making him come.”
“What makes you think that I made Lancaster come?”
He laughed. “You canna call him Lancaster here. At least forty people will answer you. I know you made him come because we have not seen him for a long while.”
“I wonder why?” she said, softly. “You’d think all this love would help.”
“You know about his tragedy, then. I think it’s the wee ones who do him in.”
They both turned to watch just as the babe whom this event honored was put in Connal’s arms.
Sophie noticed a deep comfort in how Lancaster held the baby. Only a man who had had a child of his own held a baby like that, with no tension, sure of himself, completely confident in his ability to adapt his strength to this delicate task.
Lancaster and the baby regarded each other solemnly for long enough for Sophie’s heart to feel as if it would break in two.
“Ah,” Calum said, watching her, “it’s like that, then.”
“Like what?” she said, brushing defiantly at the tear that raced down her cheek.
“You’re joining a long lineup, lass. The other reason I think he doesn’t come to the gatherings.”
“I—I—don’t know what you mean,” she stammered.
“But you will,” Calum said. “Come on. I will introduce you to me mum. She’ll be delighted to have such an exotic creature in her home.”
“I’m not exotic!”
“You are to us. A friend of the princess, and an American to boot! And don’t worry about pronouncing names. Everyone will just be charmed by your accent.”
“Promise you won’t make me eat a blarneycockle,” she said, relieved they had moved away from the topic of the only Lancaster in the room who stood out to her.
Calum took her completely under his wing, and he was right about his mother’s—and everyone else’s—reaction to her. It was a little embarrassing, but Sophie was treated like a celebrity.
And, unfortunately, Calum was right about her understanding why Lancaster avoided his family gatherings. Just as at the pub the other night, the celebration grew wilder. The furniture was pulled back. There was singing, and spoon playing and dancing.
And it was soon apparent that to every single woman here, the star of that show was not the baby.
It was Connal Lancaster.
Calum caught her watching as yet another beautiful young woman threw her arms around Lancaster, took both his hands, tried to persuade him onto the dance floor.
“He’s a romantic figure,” Calum said. “A widower. A soldier. Not hard to look at. He walks with kings and yet remains of the earth. A lot of the girls here have their sights set on being the next missus.”
Sophie noticed that Lancaster didn’t seem to not be enjoying the attention.
In fact, more than once, she heard his shout of laughter, saw him tilting his head toward some gorgeous young woman, a little smile tickling across his lips.
This is what she had wanted, she told herself. She had wanted to see Lancaster relax, enjoy himself, have fun.
But it was a complete lie. It was not what she wanted. It stung. It brought back terrible memories of Troy, lapping up the attention his position with the band had given him.
Except that Lancaster’s interactions were different from how Troy’s had been. Looking back, she should have seen that Troy’s flirtatiousness with other women had a certain openness to possibilities that she could clearly see Lancaster’s did not. There were no casual touches. He paid equal attention to women of every age, to men, to children. He did not linger in conversation, even with the loveliest of those who vied for his attention.
And yet... Was she jealous?
“You needn’t worry about him going home with any of them.”
Sophie’s mouth dropped open at how she carried Troy’s betrayals with her to be so easily spotted by a nearly complete stranger! Still, Calum was right. He had spotted her worry, the residue of a relationship where trust had been broken. Sophie found herself glad, for the first time, that she was Lancaster’s job. Despite Calum’s saying she didn’t have to worry about it, she was glad Lancaster couldn’t dump her and leave with someone else.
“He’s become quite the legend at saying no. I think it makes some of them see him as even more of a challenge.”
Something snaked along her spine. No denying it any longer. Jealous.
And angry with herself for being jealous. Because, really? You could just lump her in with all the rest of some of them.
“I think he’s pretty much only got one love left.”
“And who is that?” Sophie asked. Was her voice strangled?
“Not who. What. He loves to fish. I think it’s saved him, really. As much as anything else.”
All these years she’d known him, and she had not even managed to ferret that one piece of personal information out of him? That he loved to fish?
“And here he is,” Calum said, “the man of the hour.”
She thought he meant Lancaster. Unfairly, if it was Lancaster, she felt as if she wanted to slap him. Not for reminding her how fickle men could be, because she knew, at some deep level, he would never be like that. No, she felt angry at him for just for being too...everything. Sexy. Good-looking. Strong. Contained.
Thankfully, it was not Lancaster.
A fat baby had been plopped into Calum’s arms. Like Lancaster, he seemed very comfortable with the baby. “This is my nephew Rowan.”
Before Sophie could properly prepare herself, the baby was placed in her arms. Unlike the two men, she didn’t feel comfortable at all. She had seen Ryan when he was a baby, but not enough to give her that natural way of dandling the baby as if he was just an extension of herself.
Rowan was a surprisingly solid little fellow, with one shock of bright red hair. He seemed to be in no danger of breaking, and he was apparently quite used to being handled by strangers. He looked up at her, and gurgled. Then cooed. His eyes were that startling shade of green that seemed to repeat in the Lancaster family over and over again.
He wagged his pudgy arms at her, then tested each of his legs. And then he smiled.
The longing she felt was so sudden, it felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She passed the baby quickly back to his beaming uncle.
“I have to go outside for a minute,” she said.
Calum looked at her with concern. “Are you unwell?”
“It happens. Sharing a room with blarneycockles.” She tried to make light of it, but she managed to give Calum, who was still holding the baby, the slip. She found her way out the door and took deep, gulping breaths of the clean air.
But it didn’t help. The weight of the baby felt as if it had wormed its way into her heart, and made her feel bereft in a way she had not even known she was capable of.
For a young woman from a small town, she had achieved so much. She’d had a great career and would again. She’d traveled the world. She was in the inner circle of a royal family. Even right now, she was living in a palace!
But holding the baby had made her aware that none of those things had ever fulfilled her. Inside her, in a place that had been secret, she still harbored the most simple of dreams. A man who loved her unreasonably and a tiny house filled with the laughter of children.
Strangely, when she’d been engaged, they had been a sophisticated couple. Well-heeled and well traveled, there had been no pleasure money couldn’t buy. She’d eaten at the best restaurants, been to the best shows, vacationed in the most exclusive places.
Of course they had talked about children. What engaged couple did not talk about children? But, it had been a far-off someday where the imaginary children
slipped seamlessly into their busy, successful lifestyle.
Seeing Lancaster surrounded by all those adoring women had put her own teen crush on him in perspective but also sharpened some longing she had successfully dulled.
And holding the baby had made her aware that the longing she felt for Lancaster, despite her betrayal by Troy, had not gone anywhere, and would never go anywhere.
The simple fact was she wanted Lancaster to be more in her life. Substantially more.
Sophie felt furious with herself as she stormed out the door. Had her experiences with Troy not taught her anything?
She was pretty sure that fury would carry her all the way back to the castle under her own steam!
Despite the labyrinth of twisting cobblestone streets, she knew which way to go: the castle, perched high on its cliff, loomed large over the entire village. She sighted it and headed that way.
She had not gone far when she heard footsteps coming behind her. Not running, but not going slow, either. She did not have to turn and look to know who it was.
“Sophie, come on.”
She deliberately lengthened her stride.
“You just had to tell me if you were ready to leave,” Lancaster said, his tone reasonable, but underneath it she could hear the definite edge of irritation.
“And pull you from your adoring fans?”
He was silent for a moment. “Are you feeling okay? Calum said you might not be well.”
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
“Are you angry?”
“No!”
“Come on, then, turn around. I’ll drive you home.”
Home. The place she didn’t have. The place that baby had made her long for unreasonably. A place to call her own. People who loved her.
Whom was she kidding? Not just any people.
The people whom all the girls shared the same dream about.
“I’d prefer to walk.”
“It’s farther than you think.”
“I don’t care.”
“You’re a good twelve kilometers from the castle. Look, you already have blisters. Maybe it would be more sensible—”
