Page 39 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

It was that Cassandra wanted it as well.

She was acutely aware of her husband sitting next to her on the picnic blanket, acutely aware of the fact he did not look at her like that, acutely aware of the fact he might never.

Not for the first time, she wondered what exactly had happened between him and his late wife. He must truly have loved her,if he had cut himself off from feeling such things for another woman, even one he was married to.

And, despite herself, she felt a strong surge of jealousy rise up inside of her. It was unfair, and even macabre, to be jealous of a dead woman, but Cassandra could not help it. Ewan had locked some part of him away after her passing, and she was unsure if she would ever find the key to open it again.

At that moment, she looked up, and, to her surprise, Ewan was looking directly at her. For a moment, she forgot to breathe. Everything else melted away except for the two of them. His gaze was so intense that she could no longer even hear her own thoughts.

At last, he looked away, and she forced herself to return to her lunch. Heat had risen to her cheeks, and she wondered if he had been able to read what she was thinking in her eyes. If he could guess at the stirrings that were beginning inside of her.

They worked for a few more hours, until finally, there was one small plot of earth that was ready for planting.

“Annabelle, I want you to help me with this,” Cassandra said, as she carried a small seedling from the wheelbarrow the servants had brought over to the patch of earth. The little girl touched the small leaves curiously.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It is a sprig of rosemary,” Cassandra explained. “I brought it with me from Cornwall. And I want you to be the one to plant it.”

“Why me?” Annabelle asked, her eyes wide.

Cassandra tweaked the end of her nose. “Because the rosemary is a symbol of my old life,” she said, “and you are a symbol of my new one.”

Annabelle grinned toothily at her, then stretched out her hands, and Cassandra set the seedling in them.

“Just bury the roots in this hole,” Cassandra said, showing her where to set it. “Not the stem. That will stay above ground.”

“And what will it grow into?” Annabelle asked. “Will it become a tree?”

“It will become a shrub,” Cassandra explained, as she helped Annabelle pack in the dirt around the seedling “And when it is ready, we will be able to pick its leaves and use it in our food.”

“We will eat it?” Annabelle sounded amazed. “But will it not be dirty?”

“Most of what we eat comes from the earth,” Ewan said, crouching down next to her and helping her pack in the earth. “Any vegetable we eat is grown first in the dirt. We wash them, then cook them, then eat them.”

He took her hand, and Annabelle smiled up at him. “I like growing things with you, Papa,” she said. She looked at Cassandra, then took her hand as well. “I like growing things with both of you.”

Cassandra could only nod, emotion making it difficult for her to speak.

She liked growing things with Annabelle and Ewan, as well, and she could only hope they would continue to grow.

Chapter 15

“My father is arriving this afternoon with Lord and Lady Whitmore,” Cassandra announced at breakfast several mornings later. Ewan, who was sitting at the end of the table eating his breakfast in silence, looked up.

“Your father?” he asked. “I thought that he returned to London after the wedding.”

“Apparently he went to Edinburgh,” Cassandra said, shrugging. She was in a simple white muslin dress this morning, her coppery hair caught up in a low coiffed style. She looked so comfortable and casual, as if the castle had already become hers after so little time in it, that Ewan was almost as stunned as he was by the news of Lord Pembury’s return. “He met several people there that he thought ought to come to Calder Castle and meet you.”

She looked Ewan over carefully. “Do you know Lord Whitmore?”

“We have… met,” Ewan said cautiously. “He is in charge of many of the redevelopment projects in the Highlands after the war. If I want to introduce radical improvements to farming, he is one of the men that I have to convince.”

Cassandra nodded. “I wonder if my father is aware of that. It is possible that he wants Lord Whitmore to help you.”

“Why would he want that?” Ewan asked.

“Because you are my husband,” Cassandra said, raising an eyebrow, and Ewan shook his head.