Page 75 of Keeping Kate

“You need not tell me. I can see it clear. There would be a kerfuffle over her marrying you, but you can get ‘round it.”

“Her kinsmen would object.”

“Perhaps, but seeing her happy and safe would change their hearts over a red soldier for a kinsman.”

“I am a Fraser, Scots-born and bred.” Too often of late, he found himself defending the worth of his name and upbringing due to the color of his coat.

“Aye, that, but these days a Scotsman may need to prove where his loyalties lie.” She gave him a grim look. “You do know the MacCarrans believe strongly in their fairy legends? Their tradition says that those who have the fairy ways, as Kate and Sophie do, must only marry for true love, or the entire clan will suffer. So it is said.”

“True love?” Startled, he wondered if such was possible—and suddenly, he knew.

“It may be a lot of blather. Though Sophie and Connor found each other despite all,” she added. “Well, I say marry the one what makes yer heart flippit, who makes you laugh and knows you like no other. Marry the one you want to see on your pillow for all your life. That is good enough for me. But they go on about true love at Duncrieff.”

“Mrs. Murray,” Alec said, “you are a woman of wisdom.”

“I am.” She grinned. “And if you wed that lass, you can protect her when she goes to Edinburgh to face the courts.”

“She does not intend to face the courts, so she tells me.”

“Och, but if you are there as her husband—and I hear you are not just an officer but a long-robe lawyer and a wealthy man too—”

“Wealthy?” He nearly laughed.

“You have tins with your name on them.”

“Family’s name.”

“Well, that may be. But if you marry Kate, I know you would find a solution to the kerfuffle she is in and lift the threat to her.”

“It is not so simple as that. Marrying her may only complicate matters.”

“Not to my thinking. Rest now, sir, and think on it.”

“I will,” he murmured. Mary took the tray, bid him farewell, and left.

He frowned, thoughts racing, and shoved a hand through his hair. Mary Murray spoke some truth. He had not seen all of it in quite that way before. Could this indeed be part of the solution?

At the inn, he had let the MacLennans believe he and Kate were married so that he could keep his rebellious charge close. Since then, he had held her, cared about her, made love to her as if she were indeed his bride. She deserved his respect, and he ought to marry her. More, he wanted to, felt stunned to realize it. For several years, marriage had been the last thing on his mind, ever since he had lost his chance at that happiness. Until now, as Mary Murray had said.

A life with Kate—he could glimpse a future with her, if she wanted it. He wanted it; he realized that now. But the accusations against her were serious enough to undo her future if things did not go well in the courts. He shook his head, concerned.

Yet suddenly, wildly, marrying Kate MacCarran made perfect sense. A solution to all lay there somewhere. He just could not quite grasp the thread.