Elias nodded and began picking up the wood. He let Charlie carry one log under each arm, and no more—despite the lad’s protests.
He was fond of Charlie. In fact, he believed he might love the boy. He didn’t want to leave him when he returned to Invergarry one day. His parents would like Charlie. Aye. Elias would finish raising him. He felt better just thinking about it.
What about Lily now that she was a widow?
Hell, he still couldn’t believe that Richard had succumbed to the sickness. Richard had been his friend and Elias missed him. He missed working with him and learning which plant or root was best for what. He was filled with guilt over the way he felt about Richard’s wife. Worse, Richard knew and was glad! When Elias had pleaded his forgiveness, Richard granted it easily and made him promise to take good care of her and not let her die. He’d sounded more like a father than a husband. Elias had promised.
They would live through this and he hoped she would become his wife. She was everything any man could ever want in a woman. Loyal, beautiful, kind, thoughtful, loving. So many things. So many reasons to love her.
She was balm for his aching soul. He’d killed too much, saw too much—and only she had made him forget. Lily was his chamomile. He smiled then laughed at himself.
Even in the midst of preparing to do what he had to do, he laughed because of her.
“What makes you smile, Eli,” Charlie asked with a shred of hope for some happiness, too. “Share it with me.”
Elias slanted his gaze at the boy. He should have known the lad was watching him. “I am in love with Lily.”
Charlie smiled, glad for him, without any judgment about her being so recently a widow. “Does she love you?”
He thought about it for a moment and his smile deepened. “Aye. I hope so. She was loyal to Richard and never gave me a reason to pursue her. But now her bond is broken.”
“Will you marry her?”
“If she will have me.”
“But you are a Scot.”
“So?” Elias wondered what he meant by that.
“Do Scots not take their wives with or without her consent?”
Elias laughed. “Try to force a Scottish lass into anythin’ and ye will be fortunate to escape with yer life. What ye have been taught is incorrect.”
“I was not taught it,” Charlie reminded it. “I saw it with Bertram and Lily two years ago when I was ten.”
Elias saw his point and assured him that neither he nor any man in his family had or would ever do such a terrible thing. His father had been raised a slave to the Governor of Berwick. He told the boy the story of his parents.
“So,” Charlie asked as they approached the house. “When you marry Lily, will you have children with her?”
“Aye,” Elias told him. “Ye and Annabelle to start.”
Charlie dropped his logs and threw his arms around him. “Thank you,” he cried.
Elias could not let go or else some of the logs might fall on their feet. He leaned in though and touched his forehead to Charlie’s. “Ye are a good lad. ’Tis my honor.” He swallowed his heart and the wish that Cecily was here with her brother.
“Now, come. Let us get this done. And dinna spread the news of my heart to anyone.”
Charlie promised and picked up his logs.
“I have aboot six or seven more trips,” he said. “I dinna want ye comin’ along. ‘Tis too rigorous.”
“Eli, I—”
“Charlie.” He said nothing else. The matter was closed. He wouldn’t lose Charlie.
He walked to the back of the house and set down the logs then clapped his hands together, wiping the dirt from them, and set out again.
“Oh, Elias, there you are!”