Page 73 of A Highland Duke to Claim Her Heart

“But that is where I need your help, Mama,” Cassandra said, taking her mother’s hands and pressing them. “I need someone to keep Christopher distracted, and you are the perfect person to do so. You can play the part of the worried mother-in-law. Keep him answering your questions and regaling him with stories. Keep him close most of all. While you do that, Alaric will secure the rest of the evidence from his room and from any friends he might have in Edinburgh and Inverness. We just need to make sure that he is distracted so that he does not notice Ewan is improving.”

Lady Pembury nodded. “I can do that, my love.”

“Really?” Cassandra asked, relief coursing through her.

Her mother laughed coolly. “Oh, yes. I have been handling difficult men in drawing rooms all my life. What is one more?”

Something shifted in Cassandra, and she looked at her mother clearly for the first time in a long time. She had always had conflict with Lady Pembury, always butted heads against her mother’s insistence on duty and doing the right thing, sometimes at the cost of one’s heart.

This had always bothered her, even if she had eventually succumbed.

But she saw something different now: She saw a survivor. A woman who was shrewd and smart and knew how to navigate her way through hostile situations.

And for the first time, she admired her mother. Most of all, she felt lucky to have her on her side.

***

The next morning, Cassandra went to check on Ewan, relieving Alaric who had been guarding him overnight. When she came into the room, he was still sleeping gently. She watched for a while from the doorway as his chest rose and fell. He looked so peaceful that it was almost possible to believe he was not ill, his life not in danger—that he was merely resting.

Then a wheezing sound escaped him, and he began to cough. As the hacking intensified, he opened his eyes. They were bloodshot as they found hers.

“Cassandra…” he murmured, as the coughing finally subsided. “What is going on? How long have I been asleep?”

“Shhh,” she whispered, as she padded over to the bed and sat down on the side. “Do not strain yourself. The doctor still does not want you speaking more than you should.”

“I feel much recovered from yesterday,” he said, peering up at her. “My lungs hurt less, and the fog… It is less overwhelming.”

“That is good,” Cassandra said, smiling down at him. Unable to resist, she rested a hand on his forehead. He was still warm, but not as hot as he had been earlier. “The doctor is taking great care of you. He is giving you clean water, monitoring all your meals, and has even given you a binding agent…” She trailed off, unsure of how to explain what a binding agent was without revealing to him that he had been poisoned. For now, she and Dr. Ludley had agreed it was better not to tell him. In his delirium, he might reveal something to Christopher and alert him that they were onto him.

Fortunately, Ewan was still too sick to listen closely to her words.

“You are taking such good care of me,” he said quietly, and his smile was so warm and loving that she felt her heart flutter in her chest.

“I am trying,” she said. “I know that you would take care of me, if our positions were reversed.”

“I will,” he said, “once you are with child. Then I shall make sure that you want for nothing, that you are comfortable and rested all the time.”

This made her heart actually skip a beat. Ewan had not mentioned children before, not like this, as if they were a certainty. In his illness, did he not remember that they had not consummated their marriage? That they were still to one another less like husband and wife and more like two people courting?

But she did not say any of this. She did not want to cause him any distress.

“Yes,” she said, stroking his forehead gently. “You will take the best care of me once I am with child. I am sure of it. We must get you better first.”

She was unable to keep the emotion from her voice as she said this, and he frowned slightly.

“What is wrong, dearest Cassandra?” he asked, and she shook her head.

“N-nothing. I am just… I made a promise to myself, you see, that I would not let you go. And I intend to keep that.”

Ewan grinned. “I am not sure you could get rid of me even if you tried.”

His eyelids fluttered closed again, and for a moment, she thought that he had fallen back asleep. But then he stirred, opening his eyes once more. They were focused behind her, on the door.

“Annabelle…” he muttered, and she turned to see the little girl standing in the doorway, clad in a white nightrail and clutching a stitched rabbit to her chest.

“Papa?” she asked in a small, squeaky voice. “I came to check on you.”

“Come here, my love,” he said, holding out his hands.