Jeannie clutched his arm. Cameron glanced down at her worried face and leashed his anger. The man might be a miserable cur, but he was her only living relative. "If you care to return in a more respectful frame of mind, Leith—and when you're no' the worse for drink—you'll be welcome to visit. But for now, you're no' welcome in my—in our home."
Leith made a rude sound "You couldna pay me to come here again." He turned and marched unsteadily away.
"Grandad," Jeannie called.
He hesitated, then stopped and looked back.
"If you're ever in need, you will always have a place here," she told him. "Family is family."
His face twisted in scorn. "Family? Ye're no part of me! Ye're as useless and lazy and wicked as your mother was!" He stumped away.
Jeannie said softly, "Everybody loved Mam. But who loves you, Grandad?"
Chapter Sixteen
The old man staggered off out of view and, the show over, the watching crowd dispersed. Cameron wrapped an arm around his wife's slender waist and squeezed. "You handled him very well."
She was shaking. "I don't know about that—he's always been bitter and morose and impossible to please—but thank you for letting me try."
He pulled her closer. "Forget the cup of tea, how about a wee dram before dinner? Settle your nerves."
She nodded and they entered the castle together, his arm wrapped firmly around her waist.
Having met her grandfather, Cameron now had a clearer understanding of why, that day on the causeway, in the mud and the bleak surrounds, a young girl would accept a marriage proposal from a man she didn't know.
She'd had nothing to lose.
It wasn't exactly flattering.
JEANNIE HAD DISROBED and washed, and was waiting in her nightgown by the fire, snuggled in her favorite blue shawl when Cameron came up to bed.
"Something wrong?" he asked.
"No, I just wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"For letting me handle Grandad."
In the middle of pulling off his coat, he turned and quirked a brow at her. "Did you no' notice that rather fine punch I landed on the man?"
She rose from her chair, and stood before him, clutching the shawl tightly around her. "Aye, but you let me try first." He hadn't pushed her aside as if it were men's business, hadn't made her look weak in front of all those watching people.
She swallowed. "And I want to thank you for, for what you said. About . . . " She felt her cheeks heating, and swallowed. "For defending my virtue the way you did." So firmly and publicly.
He shrugged as if it were of little account. "You're my wife."
"But I'm no', am I? Not yet. And yet you declared in front of my grandfather and half the village that I came to my marriage bed a virgin."
He said nothing, just pulled his shirt off over his head and tossed it on a chair, then sat down on it to pull off his boots.
"You had no way of knowing it was true."
He snorted. "Aye, I did."
She frowned, puzzled. "How could you know? We haven't . . . " She glanced at the bed.
He stood to undo his breeches, dropped them and came to her in nothing but his drawers. He looked down at her, cupped her chin in his big warm hand and said gruffly, "Och, lass, the innocence of you shines from those bonny blue eyes. And in this . . . " He bent and kissed her, his mouth firm, warm. Possessive.
