An indomitable governess...a brooding Highlander...a forbidden affair...

An ill-fated elopement cost English-born governess Bernadette Holly her reputation, her unsuitable lover and any chance of a future match. She has nothing left to fear—not even the bitter, dangerously handsome Scot due to marry her young charge. Naive wallflower Avaline is terrified to wed Rabbie Mackenzie, but if he sends her home, she will be ruined. Bernadette’s solution: convince Rabbie to get Avaline to cry off...while ignoring her own traitorous attraction to him.

A forced engagement to an Englishwoman is a hard pill for any Scot to swallow. It’s even worse when the fiancée in question is a delicate, foolish young miss—unlike her spirited, quick-witted governess. Sparring with Bernadette brings passion and light back to Rabbie’s life after the failed Jacobite uprising. His clan’s future depends upon his match to another, but how can any Highlander forsake a love that stirs his heart and soul?

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Julia London

“Veteran author London entices readers.... Expert storytelling and believable characters make the romance between Arran and Margot come alive in this compelling novel packed with characters whom readers will be sad to leave behind.”

—Publishers Weekly on Wild Wicked Scot (starred review)

“London’s writing bubbles with high emotion... Her blend of playful humor and sincerity imbues her heroines with incredible appeal, and readers will delight as their unconventional tactics create rambling paths to happiness.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Devil Takes a Bride (starred review)

“This tale of scandal and passion is perfect for readers who like to see bad girls win, but still love the feeling of a society romance, and London nicely sets up future books starring Honor’s sisters.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Trouble with Honor

“The complexity of the relationship between Daisy and Cailean sets this novel apart from many in its genre.”

—Publishers Weekly on Sinful Scottish Laird

“Julia London writes vibrant, emotional stories and sexy, richly drawn characters.”

—New York Times bestselling author Madeline Hunter

Hard-Hearted Highlander

Julia London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the Scottish Highlands, fueling the fantasies of readers for hundreds of years.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Family Tree

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

The Scottish Highlands, 1750

HE STOOD ON the very edge of the cliff, the tips of his boots just over the crusty rim, nothing below them but air. It was quite a long way down—one strong gust of wind would do it.

He wondered how it would feel to fall. Would his body soar like the seabirds that leaped from the edge of the cliffs to glide above the surface of the water? Or would he fall like a rock come loose from the edge? Would he be alive when he crashed into the water? Or would his heart desert him well before that final moment?

No matter how he fell, Rabbie Mackenzie knew he’d be dead the moment he hit the water and was impaled on the rocks that lurked just beneath the froth. Likely, he’d feel nothing. The water would recede and carry his body out to sea like so much detritus.

He watched the waves crashing against the wall of the cliff as the tide rose, spellbound by the violence of them. It was true that he wished himself dead, but it was also true that he’d not found the courage to die. It was the height of irony—what he wished, what he longed for, was the Highlands of his youth, when Highland men were not afraid to die.

And yet, here he stood, afraid to die.

Rabbie wished for the prosperity of those years before the battle between the Scots and the English on the moors near Culloden, for plaids and the armaments of a mighty clan, now all of it outlawed. He wished for the feills, where he once measured his strength against men in rousing contests, and for the bonny lasses who carried ale to quench the men’s thirst. Those Highlands were gone. It was a wasteland now, entire settlements burned by the English, the people either hanged or dispersed to lands across the sea. Farmland stood empty. Cattle and sheep had been rounded up and sold. The land was devoid of color and life.

Even Balhaire, the seat of the Mackenzie clan for centuries, had not gone unscathed. They had kept apart from the Jacobites, the rebels who wanted to restore Charlie Stuart to the throne. The Mackenzies had let it be known to all Highlanders they wanted no part in the rebellion. Even so, after so many Highland clans had seen their men slaughtered on the moors of Culloden by English forces, half the Mackenzie clan had been chased away by fear and false accusations. Rabbie himself had been forced to flee, hiding away in Norway for a little more than two years like a bloody coward.

Aye, he’d been sympathetic to the rebel cause, but he’d not taken up arms. He held no love for the English, no matter that his mother was a foreigner, a Sassenach, and his brother’s wife an English viscountess. Rabbie had agreed with Seona’s family—that Scotland would be drowned under the weight of taxes and excises as long as George ruled them.

He’d agreed with it, but he’d not spoken publicly against the crown. They’d come looking for him all the same, had burned more than half the village about Balhaire before the flames could be doused, had seized their cattle and laid waste to their farms.

Aye, Rabbie longed for the days of his youth.

He also longed to know what had happened to Seona. Was she dead? Was it somehow possible she was still alive? He would never know.

A movement at the entrance of the cove caught his eye. The prow of a ship was emerging, bobbing up and down in the waves as the captain negotiated the granite wall and the rocky entrance to their hidden shelter.

That would be his brother, Aulay, just returned from England.

Rabbie looked down at the water once more, wishing for a gust of wind to make the decision for him. He watched a bit of seaweed ride out from the rocks and into the center of the cove, and then, with the next wave, disappear altogether.

He stepped back from the edge. He’d not jump today. Today, he would meet his intended bride.

* * *

RABBIE TRUDGED WEARILY up the high road of what had once been a bustling village surrounding the fortress of Balhaire. Many of the shop fronts were shuttered, and with the exception of a smithy and an inn that also served somewhat as a dry goods shop, there was hardly any commerce to be had.

He walked through the massive gates and into the bailey of the old castle fortress, Balhaire. No one but a few men were about. Even many of the dogs that had once roamed this bailey had left for places unknown. He carried on, into the old castle, past walls stripped of their historic armaments, save those they’d managed to hide away.

His boots echoed on the stone floor as he made his way to the study where he’d find the laird, his father, the head of what was left of Clan Mackenzie. He was inside, as Rabbie knew he’d be, his brow furrowed as he studied a ledger at his desk. He was still quite robust in spite of a bad leg. His hair had been turned to silver by the events of the last few years.

His father didn’t notice him at the open door. “Feasgar math, Athair. Ciamar a tha thu?” Rabbie said in greeting.

“Rabbie, lad, come in, then,” his father said, waving him in. “I am well, very well.” He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. “We missed you at breakfast this morning.” He repositioned his spectacles and glanced at his youngest son. “Where might you have gone, then?”

Rabbie shrugged. “I walked.”

His father looked as if he wanted to say more, but did not. Rabbie was aware that his family worried about his state of mind. He worried about it, too. He’d tried to hide his restlessness from them, but it was no use—a man could not create a pleasant mien out of thin air, could he?

He walked to the sideboard and poured a dram of whisky, which he tossed back before holding up the container to his father with a questioning look. His father shook his head. His gaze fell to the container, apparently waiting for Rabbie to put it aside.

Rabbie didn’t put it aside—he poured more. “The ship has come,” he said. It wasn’t necessary to say which ship—they’d lost one of their fleet of two to England and now relied on the oldest ship. They’d been expecting Aulay for a day or two now.

“Good,” his father said. “I donna like my second son in England any more than I like my first there.”

He was referring to Cailean, who had married Lady Chatwick. They resided at the northern estate of Chatwick Hall, away from politics and trouble...except that a Scot was never far from trouble in England.

His father didn’t mention the bridal party. Rabbie drank a second dram of whisky, felt the warmth of it cut through the clawing in his throat. His drinking had been a source of contention between him and his mother of late, and for good reason. In addition to battling his dark thoughts, Rabbie was also drinking too much. He just couldn’t seem to help himself on either front.

He walked to the window and away from the temptation to drown his despair in whisky, and stared down at the empty bailey. “It’s decided then, is it?”

“What is?” his father asked.

His father knew very well what he meant, and a moment later he sighed, as if he was weary of discussing it. “I’ve said it before, lad, I’ll say it again. You must be the one to decide—I canna make the decision for you, aye?”

But hadn’t he made the decision for him? Hadn’t the decision been made the first time his father and mother approached him?

“Have you changed your mind, then?” his father asked.

Rabbie laughed with no small amount of derision. “Changed my mind? What, and leave Balhaire unprotected? Allow them to come in and dismantle it completely?” He shook his head. “No, Athair, I’ve no’ changed my mind. I’ll do as I must, I will.”

“It’s no’ ideal, no,” his father said.

A blatant understatement.

“Cailean has said she is bonny,” his father suggested. “That eases you a wee bit, aye?”

No, that pained Rabbie most of all. No one was as bonny to him as Seona MacBee had been, she with the dark red hair and deep brown eyes. A Diah, why hadn’t he married Seona before the war? If he had, she’d have fled to Norway with him. She’d be alive.

A sharp pain sliced behind his eyes and Rabbie squeezed them shut. “As if that matters to me now,” he muttered.

“Rabbie,” his father said. Rabbie could hear him coming to his feet, the labored drag of his bad leg and cane across the floor until he reached his son. He put his hand on Rabbie’s shoulder. “The lass is young. She’ll bend to your will, she will. She’ll become what you want of her.”

What Rabbie wanted of her was to become Seona, and that was impossible.

“See here,” his father said quietly. “Marry the lass. Put her in your marital bed and then take a mistress.”

Surprised, Rabbie turned to look at his father.

“Spend your time at Balhaire, or send her to England for long summers. You need no’ lock yourself away with her at Arrandale.” At Rabbie’s baffled look, Arran Mackenzie merely shrugged. “Desperate times demand desperate measures, do they no’? This is no’ what your mother and I want for you. Unfortunately, we’ve no other options. If there was an Englishman in want of a Highland wife—”

Rabbie instantly shook his head. It is one thing for him to marry into an English family, but he would never wish that on his free-spirited younger sister, Catriona. “No,” he said firmly. “It must be me, aye?”

“No’ if you donna want it.”

“I donna want it,” Rabbie said. “But I’ll no’ leave Balhaire without hope.”

His father smiled sadly, patted Rabbie’s shoulder and then, leaning heavily on his cane, started for the door. “Then we’ll seal the betrothal tonight.” He paused in his trek across the study and glanced back. “Unless you say the word, lad. You need only say it.”

There was no word Rabbie could say—he was trapped like a mouse behind a door with a cat waiting on the other side, no way out but death. If he didn’t marry this woman, her father, who had bought Killeaven from the crown after the Somerleds had deserted it, would buy up lands around Balhaire, including those that had been abandoned by Mackenzies that had fled. Lands his family could not afford to purchase from the crown, not with their sea trade cut in half, their smuggling brought to a halt by war and the fact that there was no one left to buy their goods.

If the land around Balhaire was bought, and sheep installed, there would not be enough land to sustain the Mackenzies that were left. No land for food, no land for livestock. They were struggling to rebuild after the rebellion and the destruction it had wrought across the Highlands. If Rabbie took this Sassenach girl to wife, and Killeaven with her, the Mackenzies could at least control the erosion of their livelihood.

He truly had no choice.

* * *

THE BRIDAL PARTY had arrived with quite a lot of commotion. Sixteen in all, Frang, the butler, said—servants, the girl’s parents, an uncle, he thought. And a governess.

“A governess,” Rabbie repeated disdainfully. “Is the lass no’ seventeen years of age? Is she still in need of a governess?”

“Not a governess, precisely,” his mother said, patting his arm. “I’d venture she is a governess turned lady’s maid for lack of a better occupation.”

“What, then, am I to feed her, too?”

His mother frowned and managed to look elegant while doing it, a feat that he’d never seen matched in another woman.

Rabbie and his parents were in the great hall. They’d taken their places on the old dais above the tables, where Mackenzie lairds and their families had sat for two centuries. They could hear the arrival of the Sassenach, could hear the voices chattering merrily at the entrance. They watched silently as Aulay led the English contingent into the hall.

At the head of the Sassenach party was a tall, slender man with a face powdered as white as snow and who, judging by his dress, was the Baron Kent. He paused to glance around, his expression one of amazement, as if he’d never seen the inside of a castle. When Cailean and his wife, Daisy, had come a few months ago with the news of their discussions with Baron Kent, Daisy reported that Bothing, the Kent home, was quite grand. “Three stories tall, with long wings,” she’d said. “Grander than Chatwick Hall.”

Rabbie had never seen Chatwick Hall, but he’d noted the way Daisy’s eyes had widened and had supposed the Bothing place must be very grand indeed. Perhaps Balhaire was more rustic than what he’d anticipated. He wondered what the baron might expect of Killeaven, the estate he’d purchased sight unseen.

Aulay walked briskly to the dais ahead of the group. His blond hair had grown too long, and the sun had browned his face after so many days at sea. He looked leaner than the last time Rabbie had seen him. He swept his hat off his head and bowed to his parents, then spoke in Gaelic, greeting them both, and then Rabbie.

“So then,” his father responded in Gaelic. “How do you find them?”

“No trouble,” Aulay said with a shrug, and looked at Rabbie. “The lass is meek.”

Rabbie said nothing. He didn’t want a meek lass. If he had to do this, he wanted a woman. He looked to the group for a glimpse of the lass in question, but the only woman he noticed in that gaggle of Sassenach was one standing slightly apart from the group, leaning insouciantly against the wall. She was tall, dark-haired and plainly dressed. She’d crossed her arms across her middle and her gaze was fixed on the hound sniffing around her hem. She looked a wee bit as if she was inconvenienced, which he thought was rather odd. If anyone here was inconvenienced, it was certainly not she.

Rabbie’s father stood. “My lord, Ceud mile failte—welcome to Balhaire.”

“Bit of an unusual place you have here,” the man who looked like a ghost said as he strolled forward. Behind him, another man waddled after him like a fatted pig. Both of their wigs were ridiculous. “How good of you to receive us. I understand Killeaven is a bit of a drive yet from here?”

“Four miles through the hills,” Arran Mackenzie said. He picked up his cane and began to make his way down from the dais. In spite of that cane, Rabbie’s father was still a commanding figure, and he dwarfed Lord Kent. “You and yours are most welcome in our home tonight, aye? Rest here before carrying on to Killeaven.” He turned partially as Rabbie’s mother stepped off the dais to join them. “My wife, the Lady Mackenzie.”

His mother curtsied and greeted them. Kent turned quite jovial at the sight of his mother, no doubt pleased with her English accent and her beauty. He introduced the man with him as his brother, Lord Ramsey.

“May I introduce you to our son?” his mother asked pleasantly, and gestured toward Rabbie.

Kent’s head snapped round, and he eyed Rabbie through a squint as Rabbie came to his feet and began to make his way down from the dais. “Well then, you’re a fine specimen, are you not? As physically fit as your father and brother, I dare say. Look here, Avaline, here is your future husband,” he said, and turned back to his group.

Someone nudged the pitiful lass forward. She stumbled slightly, found her footing and curtsied. She had hair the color of barley, green eyes and cheeks flushed to the color of plums. She was a wee thing, and the only thought Rabbie could summon was that he would crush her on their wedding night. He’d have to put the virgin on top of him.

He approached the group. The lass would not look at him. “My lord,” he said to her father, and bowed. He glanced again at the girl, who had yet to meet his gaze.

“A strong young man,” Kent said, taking Rabbie in, nodding approvingly, as if Rabbie were a prized cow. “You’ll give me heirs, I dare say you will. May I present my daughter, Miss Avaline Kent of Bothing,” he said, and took his daughter’s arm, drawing her forward. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

Rabbie looked at her fair complexion. She was chewing her bottom lip. Her hands were quite small, suitable for nothing useful as far as he could see. “Bonny enough, I suppose, aye,” he said.

With the exception of the startled cough from the woman leaning against the wall, no one said a word for a moment.

And then Baron Kent laughed roundly. “Good enough!” he jovially agreed.

Rabbie’s mother managed a kick to his ankle. He moved forward lest she kick him again and presented his palm to receive Miss Kent’s wee little hand. “How do you, Miss Kent.”

“My lord—sir,” she said, and curtsied again, as if she hadn’t noticed his hand at all. And when she did sink into that curtsy, Rabbie happened to glance at the woman by the wall. She had dark hair, quite dark, like Rabbie’s sister, Vivienne. And hazel eyes. She was frowning at him, and not in an elegant way like his mother. And then she looked away, as if annoyed by him.

Rabbie was slightly shocked. Who was she to judge him? And what did she bloody well expect?

“Miss Kent, please, do come and sit. You must be exhausted,” Rabbie’s mother said, and took Miss Kent’s hand, pulling her away before wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

“My wife. Where is my wife?” Lord Kent asked, as if he’d misplaced her somewhere. Another woman appeared from the huddled group. She was small and meek, too, her gaze downcast as she shyly greeted Rabbie’s mother.

For the love of Scotland, that’s who his bride would become.

Rabbie sighed heavenward as the English party was seated, and glanced over his shoulder, to where the mysterious woman had stood frowning at him as if he was a naughty child.

But the woman was nowhere to be seen. She’d just...disappeared.

“Rabbie, darling, perhaps you might sit with Miss Kent and put her at ease,” his mother said, her cheerful voice belying the murderous look in her eye.

“Aye,” he said, and reluctantly moved to the table where the wisp had been seated. He couldn’t help himself—he glanced back over his shoulder once more.

The woman with the dark hair and piercing hazel eyes was gone.

CHAPTER TWO

BERNADETTE HOLLY LOOKED around the dank room to which she’d been assigned. Or rather, the room to which Avaline had been assigned. Bernadette had been given the small antechamber attached to this room, where she was to sleep on a straw mattress so that she might serve her mistress in the event the girl couldn’t find the chamber pot in the middle of the night.

If Bernadette ever uttered such a thing aloud, one would think she was ungrateful for her position and disdainful of Avaline. Nothing could be further from the truth—she was grateful and she was not the least disdainful of Avaline. But she was a bit uncertain if the girl possessed a full head of brains.

The room was quaint if not medieval in its appearance, and quite drafty—Bernadette could feel the gusts of wind coming through the windows. She shivered and walked to the window, pushed aside the heavy brocade draperies, then sneezed at the dust collected in their folds. The window rattled with another gust of cold air, which seeped in around the edges of the old panes.

Bernadette leaned forward over the deep sill and looked out. The sun was just sliding down behind the hills, its golden light turning the hills red, which in turn cast dark green shadows onto bright yellow rapeseed.

She found the landscape stark and barren, but strangely beautiful. England was scenic country, too, but Bernadette had never seen anything quite so severe in its allure as this landscape.

Avaline, however, had found the land intimidating. Worrying a knot of ribbon at her waist, she’d stood beside Bernadette at the bow of the ship as it had glided toward the harbor earlier today. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone about. It looks...bleak.”

Behind Bernadette, the door of the room suddenly swung open, startling her. She dropped the drapes and turned around to see Avaline backing into the room, profusely thanking whomever had delivered her here. When she had gone well past the point of polite thanks, and the person had tried to dart away into the dark corridor, Avaline leaned forward, craning her neck around the doorframe. “Good night!” she called out, then shut the door very quietly, as if she feared she might disturb someone, and turned to Bernadette.

“Well?” Bernadette asked brightly. “How did you find him?”

Avaline looked as if she might collapse at any moment. But then again, Avaline often looked near collapse. “He’s so big,” she said in a near whisper.

He was certainly that. A tall, ruggedly built man, with very dark, cold eyes.

“Oh, Bernadette,” Avaline moaned, and staggered to the bed, sinking onto it. “I don’t know how I shall ever manage.”

“Now, now, you mustn’t despair,” Bernadette said, and moved to sit beside her charge. “It’s the first meeting, after all. Everyone is on tenterhooks. Mr. Mackenzie was undoubtedly as nervous as you,” she said kindly, although she sensed, having observed him, that the man hadn’t a single nerve in him. He’d appeared insouciant, overly confident and quite secure in his idea that he was much grander than the girl he was meant to wed. A rooster, if one wished to put a name to it.

“Do you really think so?” Avaline asked.

“Yes, of course.” That was not true—she didn’t believe it at all.

Neither did Avaline, and she fell over onto her side, distraught. “They are negotiating the terms of our betrothal now. My father and—and him, naturally, and his father, and his brother. He is so distant and he seems unfeeling, and yet his brother has been very kind, has he not?” she asked anxiously, pushing herself up again. “Don’t you think the captain is kind? I said as much to my mother, but she said I was not to think of him at all. I wasn’t thinking of him. I was merely pointing out that he seems kinder than his brother.”

“Where is your mother?” Bernadette asked curiously. She often lost track of Lady Kent, who was as quiet and unobtrusive as a mouse. Avaline was boisterous in comparison.

“She is with Lady Mackenzie somewhere in this huge and wretched place,” Avaline said morosely, and gestured lamely to the walls around them. “Lady Mackenzie bid me join them, but I begged her pardon and said I was so very tired after the journey, but really, Bernadette,” she said. “Really, I thought I might burst into tears if I remained another moment.”

“Then it’s good you came here,” Bernadette said, and put an arm around Avaline’s shoulders.

Avaline suddenly burst into tears and buried her face in Bernadette’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I must marry him!” she wailed.

Neither could Bernadette, frankly, but it was the way of things for a girl born to Avaline’s station in life. They married men who strengthened their families’ connections and made them all richer. “Men always appear much fiercer when they are unknown,” she said, patting Avaline’s back. “It’s natural for them to appear so.”

“It is?”

No, of course it wasn’t natural. Had the girl learned anything from Bernadette in the last six years? “Yes, always. They must preen and show their fierceness to attract a mate. Much like a rooster.”

“Like a rooster,” Avaline repeated, sounding hopeful now. She sat up again and folded her hands primly in her lap.

“Avaline...” Bernadette stood from the bed and kneeled down before her, so that she was looking her in the eye. “You must reserve judgment of him. In situations like this, the first meeting is truly the hardest. But when you are alone with him—”

“Alone!”

“Not alone. You know I’ll be nearby,” Bernadette said soothingly. “Say you are invited to walk with him. You might use that opportunity to converse with him, ask him questions about himself and assure yourself he is not as...” Boorish. Primitive. Savage? “As distant as he has appeared to you,” she said, and smiled. “Men are quite eager to speak of themselves and need only the slightest encouragement. I’ve no doubt you’ll find him a wonderful companion if you allow him to focus his attention on himself.”

Avaline seemed highly skeptical. Bernadette would have to improve her powers of persuasion, but her belly chose that moment to growl with hunger. And rather loudly, too. She hadn’t had a bite of food since early in the morning.

Avaline looked at Bernadette’s belly. “Oh, dear! You haven’t eaten!”

No, she’d not eaten, because that craggy old bastard of a butler had instructed her to come and prepare her lady’s bedchamber. Firstly, Avaline was not a lady. Secondly, Bernadette was not a bloody chambermaid. Granted, she was scarcely a rung above it, but she had her pride. She was, after all, the daughter of a recognized knight, Sir Whitman Holly, and his wife, her mother, Lady Esme Holly.

“How very careless of us,” Avaline said.

“You mustn’t give it another thought,” Bernadette said. She would be thinking about it all night, enough for the both of them.

“No, I am going to summon them now, and tell them—”

“I’ve an idea,” Bernadette said. “I’ll help you ready for bed, then I’ll go and seek out the kitchen. I shan’t disturb anyone—they’ll be quite well occupied with putting the house to bed.”

“Well...” Avaline said uncertainly, and bit her bottom lip again. Bernadette pointed to her own lip, and Avaline stopped chewing at once. It was a dreadful habit the girl had, and on more than one occasion, she’d ended the day looking as if someone had slapped her across the mouth.

“Come,” Bernadette said. “I’ll brush your hair.”

When she’d brushed and braided Avaline’s hair and put her in bed with a book she wouldn’t read, Bernadette said good-night and went in search of the kitchens. She was not accustomed to missing her supper and she didn’t much like it. She hoped she was not too late.

The castle was a confusing maze of winding corridors, some of them poorly lit, but Bernadette possessed a keen sense of direction and found her way to the great hall. It was empty now, save for four dogs that had staked their places before the massive hearth and the warm embers there. They scarcely lifted their heads when she paused to look inside.

She walked on, turning down one of the more brightly lit corridors. She heard voices, and realized the sound was coming from an open door. She moved closer. The voices were male, and she paused just outside the door, listening. She couldn’t make it out, really, and honestly didn’t care what they were saying—she only wanted to sneak by. She darted past the open door, but realized, too late, that in the shadows just past the open door was another door that closed off the hallway. “Of all the bother!” she whispered, and tried the handle, but it was locked.

Bernadette turned around, prepared to dart past the open door once more, but she realized with significant consternation that she was plainly visible from the room where the men had gathered, and they were visible to her. And there, facing the door, sat Avaline’s intended. Or was he now officially her fiancé? Whoever he was, he was staring at Bernadette, his expression unreadable...unless one looked at his eyes.

She didn’t know the man’s eye color, but from here, it looked as black and as hard as obsidian. His gaze moved over her, slowly and deliberately, as if he found her wanting. His casual perusal felt as if it had singed her, leaving a tingling trail down her chest to her abdomen. He was a beast! An uncivilized beast.

Bernadette glared right back at him. Men didn’t scare her as they did Avaline. Quite the contrary.

She lifted her chin and walked on, aware that his gaze followed her for the space of that open door.

“Madam?”

Bernadette had been so intent on showing that wretched man she was not the least bit intimidated by him that she hadn’t seen Captain Mackenzie moving down the corridor toward her, and almost jumped out of her skin.

He smiled at her obvious surprise. He was carrying a bottle in one hand.

“I beg your pardon, Captain,” she said as he neared her. “I’m a bit lost. Would you kindly point me to the kitchen?”

“The kitchen?”

“I, ah... I was tending to Miss Kent’s things during the supper hour,” she said, wincing slightly with apology.

“Ah. Come then,” he said, his warm smile returned. “You’ll be quite lost if you attempt to find it on your own, you will. Our ancestors didna think much of efficiency when they built this fortress.” He gestured for her to come with him.

He had such a lovely smile and even lovelier light blue eyes. He’d been unfailingly kind to them all since the moment they’d boarded his ship, and Bernadette couldn’t help but smile now, happy to have been rescued by him.

“Miss Kent, she’s well, is she?” he asked pleasantly as they took another turn into another corridor.

“Quite. A bit tired, what with the journey, but very well, thank you.”

“Aye. Here we are then,” he said, opening a door and allowing Bernadette to pass through before him. A wooden table stretched long through the middle of the kitchen. On one wall were the many pots used for cooking. On another wall, jars of spices. The smell of lamb roasting made her stomach growl, and she smiled sheepishly at her escort.

Captain Mackenzie walked to the bell pull and tugged on it. A moment later, a woman appeared. Her gray hair was knotted on the top of her head and her apron was wet from the chest down, as if she’d been washing.

Captain Mackenzie spoke to her in Gaelic. She responded in kind and disappeared through the door from where she’d come. The captain turned to Bernadette and bowed. “Barabel will prepare something for you, aye?”

“Thank you,” she said gratefully.

“Will you find your way to your room, then? I’ll have Frang come and—”

“No, please. I am confident I know the way.” She wasn’t the least bit confident, but she’d as sooner wander all night than see Frang again.

“Aye, verra well. Oidhche mhath, Miss Holly,” he said, and walked out of the kitchen with his bottle.

Bernadette watched him go, marveling at the way nature worked. How on earth could two brothers be so entirely opposite of one another in both looks and mien?

Barabel returned with a platter of brown bread, cheese and meat. She very unceremoniously slapped it down on the table in the center of the kitchen with a pointed glare for Bernadette.

“My apologies for the inconvenience,” Bernadette said, and smiled.

Barabel did not return her smile.

“Do you speak English?”

Barabel responded to that by turning about and walking through the door. A moment later, Bernadette heard the clink of china and the slosh of water.

She moved cautiously to the table and looked around for a stool. There was none. Neither were there any dining utensils. Well, that wouldn’t deter her, not when she was this hungry. She hoisted herself up onto the table and put the platter on her lap and ate with her fingers, listening to the moans and groans of the wind moving through this heap of stones, sighing with relief at the taste of food.

She had managed to have some bread, some chicken and a bit of cheese when she heard footsteps coming down the hallway toward the kitchen. She assumed it was the captain, and looked up, smiling self-consciously.

It was not Captain Mackenzie at all, but his darker, gruffer, angrier brother. He paused just inside the kitchen door and fixed his gaze on her. His expression was hard, unyielding. He reminded her of the granite face of some of the hills around here—she didn’t think he could possibly smile if he tried.

Bernadette needed a moment to collect herself. Judging by the way he looked at her, she didn’t know if he intended to give her a tongue-lashing or hang her. Or...well, she didn’t want to think about what else he might intend. She licked the grease from one finger for lack of a napkin, then another, and carefully moved the platter off her lap and onto the table before hopping down. She realized, now that she stood before him, that he was even bigger than he’d first appeared across the great hall. Quite broad of shoulder and powerful. And with waves of enmity rolling off of him and lapping over her.

No wonder Avaline was so shaky.

He didn’t say a word, but continued to stare at her, and she could feel that look piercing clean through her as a muscle worked in his jaw, as if he was biting his tongue. Bernadette stared back at him. Did he want to speak? Then speak. Did he want something of her? Ask. Was he perhaps only surprised to find her here? Or did he always stomp about looking so displeased and disgruntled?

Barabel returned to the kitchen, dipped a curtsy to him and spoke in the Scots language. He responded with few words in a tone so low and silky that Bernadette suppressed a small but surprising little shiver. Barabel disappeared once more, and he sidled up to the table, staring down at her plate. He picked up a piece of chicken and ate it.

Well, then. She could add ungentlemanly to her growing list of dislikes about him.

“Have you had your fill, then?”

The beast spoke after all. No, she hadn’t had her fill, and yes, she was still hungry. But she resisted the urge to look longingly at her food. “Yes. Thank you.”

He ate another bite, then folded his arms across his chest and turned away from her a moment. Then back again, those dark eyes piercing hers again. “Is it the custom in England for a servant to invade the kitchen of another man’s house?”

Invade? He made it sound as if she’d entered with an army demanding bread. “Not at all. Unfortunately, I missed—”

“Aye, my brother has told me.”

Then why, pray tell, did he ask? “I beg your pardon,” she said, and moved to pass him. But he shifted slightly, blocking her path. Bernadette lifted her gaze to his—she could see nothing but hardness in his eyes, could feel nothing but coldness radiating off of him. There was something very dark about him that Bernadette was certain there was not a bit of kindness in him. She thought of Avaline, how gentle and young and naive she was. To be married to this man? She couldn’t help herself—another shiver ran down her.

He noticed it. “Do you find the Scottish night too fuar for your thin English blood?”

“I hardly know what that means. But I will own that my thin English blood finds churlishness to be jarring.”

Her remark surprised him, clearly—she saw something spark in him, and one brow rose slowly above the other. “You are bloody well bold for a maid,” he said, his gaze moving over her body, taking her in so boldly and unapologetically that she could feel her skin begin to heat under his perusal.

“And you are bloody well discourteous for a gentleman,” she returned. She tried to slip past him, but he refused to move, and her arm brushed against his chest as she maneuvered around him. Once clear of him, she refused to sprint, as she very much wanted to do. She walked calmly away from him in spite of her racing her heart, her back ramrod-straight, her chin lifted. She could feel his gaze on her back, could feel it slicing between her shoulder blades and piercing her through.

It is no small miracle that Bernadette found her way back to her small antechamber. She dressed for bed and collapsed onto the straw mattress, her heart still beating faster than it ought to have. She tried desperately to sleep, but she kept seeing his dark eyes, the color of a stormy sea, boring into her.

CHAPTER THREE

THE TERMS OF the tochradh, or dowry, were agreed upon the next morning while Bernadette was at breakfast, a meal she was determined not to miss.

She noticed that the other people in the hall sat as far from the Kent party as possible, looking askance at them if acknowledging them at all. She had never in her life met with such inhospitable surroundings and was quite relieved when it came time to gather her and Avaline’s things and depart that gloomy castle.

The Kent family, including Bernadette, would travel to Killeaven by means of an old coach. She couldn’t guess where his lordship might have come by it, but it looked ancient, the paint having faded and the wheels on the verge of rot. The rest of the party, including Avaline’s uncle and the servants, would come by foot and in a wagon. The furnishings they’d brought with them would be carried up from the ship in a separate transport.

Lady Mackenzie had introduced them to Niall MacDonald, who was to accompany them on horseback. She explained that Mr. MacDonald had been dispatched from Balhaire to help them settle in. He appeared younger than Bernadette’s twenty-nine years, and had a bad eye that wandered aimlessly as the other one looked directly at you.

Avaline’s brutish fiancé did not appear to see them off, which Bernadette thought the height of uncivilized behavior. But his mother was there, and the lady was quite warm in her smiles and well wishes for them. “You will see some of our loveliest views on the road to Killeaven,” she assured them. “The glen is lush this time of year.” She took Avaline’s hand in hers. “Miss Kent, please do forgive my son’s absence this morning. Something has come up at Arrandale, our smaller estate, and where he currently resides. It required his immediate attention and he regretted deeply that he had to depart early this morning.”

Bernadette turned her head so no one would see her roll her eyes.

“Oh. I see,” Avaline said. But she clearly didn’t see, as her cheeks were coloring with uncertainty.

Lady Mackenzie noticed it, too and said quickly, “But he means to call straightaway, just as soon as you’re settled.” She smiled reassuringly.

Bernadette thought the lady’s smile was lacking something. Conviction, perhaps.

They piled into the coach—Lord Kent going first, as was his habit. The coach lacked sufficient springs and swayed badly as each one climbed in. Bernadette sat next to Avaline, across from her parents, as they set off for the four-mile journey to Killeaven in the company of several armed men.

“Why are they armed?” Avaline asked, looking out the window.

“Hmm?” her father asked, distracted. He’d already been at the bottle. “Mackenzie sent them.” He shrugged, stifled a belch, then said, “Now then, girl, you’ll marry Mackenzie in three weeks’ time.”

Avaline gasped and looked to her mother, who, as usual, remained silent. “So soon?”

“Yes, so soon,” he said, mocking her. “Your mother and I can’t stay on forever.”

Avaline gasped again. “You mean to leave me?”

“Avaline, for heaven’s sake,” Lord Kent said with exasperation, and turned to his wife. “You have raised a simpleton, madam. Will you not say something?”

Lady Kent clearly didn’t want to say anything, but she began hesitantly, “That—that is what your father—”

“Something useful!” Lord Kent spat, and turned his burgeoning rage to Bernadette.

“Ah...you will be married with your own house,” Bernadette said quickly. “It wouldn’t do for you to spend the first weeks or months of your married life with your parents, would it?” She glanced at Lady Kent, hoping for help, but Lady Kent had dropped her gaze to her lap, her confidence demolished years before Bernadette had come along.

“That’s better,” Lord Kent said. “Stop weeping, Avaline,” he said, sounding resigned to it, and with a loud sigh, hunched down in his seat and propped his foot on the bench next to Bernadette. He turned his gaze to the window and closed his eyes.

Bernadette put her hand on Avaline’s knee and squeezed tightly. She knew, after six years in the family’s employ, that nothing undermined Avaline worse in the eyes of her unforgiving father than her tears.

Avaline didn’t stop weeping, but she did manage to stifle the sound of it.

Bernadette turned her attention to the window, too, unwilling to talk to any of them any more than was absolutely necessary. As she watched the landscape slowly rolling along, she noticed a trio of riders. They were at a distance, but they had come to a halt, and the men on the horses were watching the coach. As the coach turned east with the road, the riders began to follow at a parallel for at least a half hour, at which point, they turned into the woods and disappeared.

The coach began to slow, and they started down a hill, the road curving slowly to the floor of the glen. Bernadette could see the house on the banks of a river, backed up to a hill. She counted twelve chimneys—the house was not small. It rather reminded her of Highfield, her family’s home and where she’d happily grown up. Unfortunately, Highfield was not a happy place for her now.

“See, Avaline?” Bernadette whispered, leaning across her to point. “This will be your house.”

“What?” Lord Kent said, waking from his nap. He rubbed his face as he sat up.

“It’s Killeaven, is it?” Avaline asked. She had long since ceased her tears, but her face was swollen and splotchy.

“It is,” Bernadette said.

They wended their way down and onto a drive that was overgrown, the shrubs and trees untended. “Is it empty?” Avaline asked.

“Of course it is,” her father said impatiently. “Do you think we would move furnishings into another man’s house? The Somerleds have departed for greener pastures.” He chuckled. “Chased out like the traitors they were, I’ve heard told,” he added as the coach rolled to a halt. “Now, let me see what I have bought.” He opened the coach door and leaped to the ground. He didn’t bother to help anyone out, but let the carriage man do it. But the carriage man was apparently so unaccustomed to the job that he fairly flung them out of the coach.

In the drive, Lady Kent slipped her arm through Avaline’s and held her close—for her own comfort or that of her daughter’s, Bernadette couldn’t guess. They followed behind Lord Kent as he marched forward to the door, threw it open and disappeared inside. Niall MacDonald was just behind them.

Bernadette paused as the Kents entered and looked up at the house. She noticed some pocks in the stone facade. The windows looked rather new to her, but the door was weathered and shrubbery growing wild. It was a curious mix of neglect and new. She started for the door, looking at the land around the house, and noticed, with a start, the three riders again. They were on a hill overlooking Killeaven, watching.

She hurried after the others.

She found them all in the foyer, looking around. The foyer was very grand, two stories tall, with a double staircase curving up like two sides of a human heart, meeting in a wide corridor above. At their feet there were marble tiles with some rather curious gashes and marks. The walls were stone here, too, and Bernadette noticed the same pocks as outside.

Mr. MacDonald stood with his hands clasped behind his back as Lord Kent marched about, opening and slamming doors.

“What are these marks?” Bernadette inquired curiously, touching one of the pocks with her fingers.

Mr. MacDonald glanced at the wall. “Left by musket fire, then.”

“Muskets!” Bernadette repeated, sure that he had meant another word entirely.

He fixed his good eye on her and said, “There was quite a fight for Killeaven, there was.”

A fight? Bernadette looked around again, noticed the pocks everywhere in this grand entry and tried to imagine men firing guns at one another in such a grand home.

“Miss Holly!” Lord Kent shouted from some interior room.

Bernadette went in the direction of his voice and found him and his wife and daughter in what she assumed was a dining hall. “We’ll need a mason to see to these things,” he said, pointing to plaster molding overhead, which was crumbling in one corner.

She didn’t understand why he was telling her and looked curiously at him.

His gray brows floated upward. “Well? Make note, make note!” he demanded, and walked on.

But she had nothing with which to make a note.

She followed his lordship, and in the next room, he pointed out more things that, presumably, she was to make a note of, uncaring that she had nothing with which to write his wishes, and apparently expecting her to commit it all to memory.

When he’d toured the house he said, “MacDonald has assured me the furnishings will arrive this afternoon. Go, go, now, busy yourselves,” he said, waving his hands at the ladies in a sweeping motion. “Where is my brother? Has the second coach not come along?” He marched out of the room.

Bernadette waited until she was certain he was gone before looking back at Lady Kent and Avaline. “So much to do,” she said, smiling a little. “At least we’ll have something to occupy us.”

Neither Kent woman looked convinced of that.

The furniture did indeed arrive that afternoon, on a caravan of carts and wagons. The servants who had the misfortune of being dragged to Scotland scampered about, with the Kent butler, Renard, directing things to be placed here and there. It quickly became apparent that even with all they’d brought, filling the hold in the Mackenzie ship with beds and cupboards and settees, there was not enough to furnish this large house. Three bedrooms sat empty, as well as a sitting and a morning room.

In the evening, before a cold meal was to be served, Lord Kent called Bernadette to him in the library. Its shelves still sported some of the books of the previous owners. There was no sign of muskets in this room.

“Make a list of all we need, then send it to Balhaire,” he said without greeting.

“Yes, my lord. To someone’s attention in particular?”

“Naturally, to someone’s attention. The laird there.” He perched one hip on the desk and folded his arms across his chest. “Now, listen to me, Bernadette. You’ll have to do the thinking for Avaline.”

“Pardon? I don’t—”

“She’s a child,” he said bluntly. “She can’t possibly run a house this large, and her mother has been an utterly incompetent teacher.” He leaned forward, reached for a bottle and poured brandy into a glass. “You need to prepare her for this marriage.”

Bernadette swayed backward. “I can’t take the place of her mother.”

“You’ve been doing it these last few years,” he said. “And you have experience in this...inexperience,” he said, flicking his wrist at her. “I doubt her mother can recall a blessed thing about her wedding night.”

Bernadette’s face began to warm. She was very uncomfortable with the directions of this conversation.

“Come now, I don’t say it to demean you,” he said impatiently, trying to read her thoughts. “I say it to point out that you know more than you think. Teach her how to present herself to her husband. Teach her how to please a man.” He tossed the brandy down his throat.

“My lord!” Bernadette protested.

“Don’t grow missish on me,” he snapped. “She must please him, Bernadette. Do you understand me? As much as I am loath to admit it, I need those bloody Mackenzies to look after my property here. I want to expand my holdings, and I want access to the sea. Why should they have all the trade? If I fail to have them fully on board with me, I will not make these gains in a pleasant way, do you understand me? I am trusting you to ensure that little lamb knows to open her legs and do her duty.”

Bernadette gasped.

He clucked his tongue at her. “Don’t pretend you are a tender virgin. It was your own actions that put you in this position, was it not? You have benefited greatly from my employment of you when no one else would have you, and for that, you owe me your allegiance and your obedience. Do I need to say more?”

Bernadette couldn’t even speak. She thought herself beyond being shocked by anything that happened in the Kent household, but he had shocked her.

“Good. Now go and make sure her mother hasn’t frightened her half to death. And send Renard to me—surely we’ve brought some decent wine.”

Bernadette nodded again, fearing that if she spoke, she would say something to put her position in serious jeopardy. She was shaking with indignation as she walked out of the library.

It had been eight years since she and Albert Whitman had eloped, but sometimes it felt as if it was yesterday. So desperately in love, so determined to be free of her father’s rules for her. They’d managed nearly a week of blissful union, had made it to Gretna Green, had married. They were on their way to his parents’ home when her father’s men found them and dragged the two of them back to Highfield.

Bernadette had mistakenly believed that as she and Albert had legally married, and had lain together as husband and wife, that there was nothing her father could do. Oh, how she’d underestimated him—the marriage was quickly annulled, and Albert was quickly impressed onto a merchant ship. There was no hope for him—he was not a seaman, and was, either by accident or design, lost at sea several months later.

She had learned a bitter, heart-rending lesson—a father would go to great lengths to undo something his daughter had done against his express wishes. A vicar could be bribed or threatened to annul a marriage. Men could be paid to impress a young man in his prime and put him on a ship bound for India. A woman could watch her reputation and good name be utterly destroyed by her own actions, and a father’s invisible shackles could tighten around her even more.

After that spectacular fall from grace, everyone in and around Highfield knew what had happened. No one would even look at her on the street. Her friends fell away, and even her own sister had avoided her for fear of guilt by association.

No one seemed to know about the baby she’d lost, however. No, that was her family’s secret. Her father would have sooner died than have anyone know his daughter had carried a child of that union.

“Bernadette! There you are.”

She hadn’t seen Avaline, who appeared almost from air and grabbed her hand. “I don’t like it here,” she whispered as she glanced over her shoulder at Mr. MacDonald, who was standing in the entry. “There is nothing here, nothing nearby.”

“I’m sure there is,” Bernadette said. “I beg your pardon, Mr. MacDonald, but there is a village nearby, is there not?”

“No’ any longer,” he said.

“Not any longer? What does that mean, precisely?”

“I mean to say the English forces...” He paused. “Removed it.”

Removed it. “Ah...thank you, sir.” Bernadette glanced at Avaline. “It’s all right, darling—Balhaire is very near. Come and help me remember the things your father wants done, will you?” she asked, and pulled Avaline into a sitting room. Lady Kent was within, staring out the window, her arms wrapped tightly about her.

“What things?” Avaline asked.

“Pardon?” Lady Kent asked, turning about.

“I was reminding Avaline that there were several things his lordship wanted done, and asked that she help me remember them all,” Bernadette responded. “We must make this place pleasing for your fiancé,” she said to Avaline.

“Don’t call him that,” Avaline said.

“But that’s what he is. The betrothal has been made.”

“I don’t want the betrothal!” Avaline said, jerking her hand free of Bernadette’s. “He is ghastly.”

She was a petulant child, only a moment away from stomping her foot. “That’s enough, Avaline!” Bernadette said sternly. “Enough.”

Lady Kent gaped at Bernadette, shocked by her tone.

Bernadette groaned. “I beg your pardon, but you both know as well as I that there is nothing to be done for this engagement.”

Mother and daughter exchanged a look.

“This is what you were born to,” Bernadette said to Avaline. “To make your father rich and prosperous by furthering his connections. You can’t pretend it isn’t so or believe that petulance will change it.”

Avaline began to cry. So did her mother. They were like two kittens, mewling over spilled milk.

“For God’s sake, will you stop?” Bernadette pleaded. “Best you meet your fate head-on than like a tiny little hare afraid of her own shadow. He will respect you more if you don’t cower.”

“Oh dear,” Lady Kent said. “She’s right, darling.”

That surprised Bernadette. She watched as Lady Kent shakily swept the tears from her cheeks. “She’s quite right, really. I’ve cowered all my life and you know very well what that has gained me. If you are to make this marriage bearable, you must find your footing.”

Avaline’s eyes widened with surprise at this unexpected bit of advice from her mother. “But how?” she asked plaintively. “What am I to do?”

Lady Kent and her daughter both looked to Bernadette for the answer to that.

Good Lord, they were the two most hapless women she had ever known. Bernadette sighed. “You must prepare to meet him a second time and make him welcome. We’ll start there.”

Avaline nodded obediently.

Bernadette smiled encouragingly, but privately, she could think of nothing worse than having to meet that cold-hearted man a second time and pretend to welcome him. She’d known men like him, men who thought themselves so superior that civility was not necessary. Her first instinct had been visceral, and her humor when he was near quite deplorable. She would give a special thanks to heaven tonight that she was not the one who would have to spend the rest of her days in misery with him.

Poor Avaline.

CHAPTER FOUR

HE FIRST NOTICES her at the Mackenzie feill, an annual rite of celebration where Mackenzies and friends come from far and wide for games, dancing and song. She is wearing an arasaid plaid that leaves her ankles bare, and a stiom, the ribbon around her head that denotes she is not married. She is dancing with her friends, holding her skirt out and turning this way and that, kicking her heels and rising up on her toes and down again. She is laughing, her expression one of pure joy, and Rabbie feels a tiny tug in his heart that he’s never felt before. The lass intrigues him.

He moves, wanting to be closer. He catches her eye, and she smiles prettily at him, and that alone compels him to walk up to her and offer his hand.

She looks at his hand, then at him. “Do you mean to dance, then?”

He nods, curiously incapable of speech in that moment. Her soft brown eyes mesmerize him, make him think of the color of the hills in the morning light.

“Then you must ask, Mackenzie,” she teases him.

“W-will you dance, then?”

She laughs at his stammering and slips her hand into his. “Aye, lad. I will.”

They dance...all night. And for the first time in his twenty-seven years, Rabbie thinks seriously of marriage.

* * *

RABBIE’S MOTHER PUT her foot down with him, as if he was a lad instead of a man in his thirty-fifth year. As if he was still swaddled. “You will go and pay her a call,” she said firmly, her eyes blazing with irritation.

“She will no’ care if I call or no’,” he said dismissively.

“I care,” she snapped. “That you are not attached to her, that you do not care for her, is no excuse for poor manners. She is your fiancée now and you will treat her with the respect she is due.”

Rabbie laughed at that. “What respect is she due, Maither? She is seventeen, scarcely out of the nursery. She is a Sassenach.” She was pale and docile and hadn’t lived, not like he had. She had no experience beyond her own English parlor. She trembled when he was near—or when anyone was near, for that matter. He couldn’t imagine what he would even say to the lass, much less how he might inhabit the same house as her.

His mother sighed wearily at his pessimism. She sat next to him on the settee, where Rabbie had dropped like a naughty child when he’d been summoned. She put her hand on his knee and said, “My darling son, I’m so very sorry about Seona—”

Rabbie instantly vaulted to his feet. “Donna say her name.”

“I will say it. She’s gone, Rabbie. You can’t live your life waiting for a ghost.”

He shot his mother a warning look. “You think I wait for Seona to appear by sorcery? I saw her house. I saw where blood had spilled, where fires had burned,” he said, his gut clenching at the mere mention of it. “I’m no’ a dull man—I understand what happened. I’m no’ waiting for a ghost.” He strode to the window to avoid his mother’s gaze and to bite down his anger.

In his mind’s eye, he could see the house where Seona had lived with her family and a father who had abetted the Jacobites. A father who had sent his sons to join the forces marching to England to restore Charlie Stuart to the throne. They’d been slaughtered on the field at Culloden, and her father was hanged from an old tree on the shores of Lochcarron, so that any Highlander gliding past on a boat could see him, could see what vengeance the English had wrought on those who took Prince Charlie’s cause.

But Seona? Her sister, her mother? No one knew what had become of them. Their home had been ransacked, the servants gone, the livestock stolen or shot. There was no one left, no one who could say what had happened to them. The only ones to survive the carnage were Seona’s niece and nephew; two wee bairns who’d been sent to stay with a clan member when the news came the English were sweeping through the Highlands. There was no one else, no other MacBee living in these hills any longer. And judging by the devastation done to the MacBee home, a man could only imagine the worst—every night, in his dreams, he imagined it.

“If you’re not waiting for a ghost, then what are you waiting for?” his mother persisted as Rabbie tried once again to erase the image of the forsaken household.

Death. Every day, he waited for it. Perhaps in death he’d know what had become of the woman he’d loved. In death, there would be relief from this useless life he was living. From the searing guilt he bore every single day for having been unable to save her.

“And while you wait for whatever it is that will ease you, that poor English girl has been bartered like a fine ewe and has come all this way to a strange land, to marry a man she scarcely knows. A man who is older than her by more than fifteen years, and who is bigger than her in every way. Of course she is frightened. The least you might do is put her at ease.”

Rabbie slowly turned, fixing his gaze on his mother. “You are verra protective of a lass you scarcely know, are you no’?”

His mother’s vexation was apparent in the dip of her brows. “I was that lass once, Rabbie Mackenzie. I was a sheep, just like her, bartered to your father. I know what she must be enduring just now, and I have compassion for her. Just as I have compassion for you, darling—this isn’t what either of you hoped for, but it is what has come. If only you could find some compassion in your own heart for her, you might find a way to accept it.”

Rabbie didn’t know how to explain to his mother that words like compassion and hope were far beyond his capacity to fathom. He was merely existing, moving from one day to the next, contemplating his own death with alarming regularity.

His mother was accustomed to his surliness, however, and she didn’t wait for his answer, but turned and walked out the door of her sitting room, pausing just at the threshold. “Catriona will accompany you.”

“Cat!”

“Yes, Cat,” she said. “Your sister will be helpful in making Miss Kent feel comfortable and soothing any ruffled feathers.”

“Ruffled feathers,” he scoffed.

“Yes, Rabbie. Ruffled feathers. You have treated Miss Kent very ill.”

Rabbie shook his head.

“She’s a sweet girl. If you allowed yourself to stop thinking of your own hurts, you might be pleasantly surprised by her.”

Once again, his mother didn’t wait for him to say curtly that he couldn’t possibly be surprised by the likes of her, and quit the room.

Rabbie turned back to the window and stared blankly ahead. His mother’s words floated somewhere above him. His mind saw nothing but darkness.

* * *

WHEN RABBIE EMERGED in the bailey, having prepared himself as best he could to call on his fiancée, Catriona was already there, waiting impatiently for him. She was dressed properly, which was to say like a Sassenach. Highlanders were now banned by law from wearing plaid. His father had taken that edict to mean they should dress as the English would dress in all things. His father had softened with age, an old man with a bad leg who wanted no trouble from the redcoats that appeared from time to time at their door.

Catriona had a jaunty hat on her head, with a feather that shot off one side like an arrow’s quill. It was a hat that their sister-in-law, Daisy, had given Catriona when she and Cailean had come to Balhaire after brokering the marriage offer between the Mackenzies and the Kents.

Rabbie paused next to her mount and looked up at her hat. “That is ridiculous.”

“How verra kind,” she said saucily. “Should I inquire as to what has made you so bloody cross today, then?”

“The same that makes me cross every day—life,” he said, and hauled himself up onto the back of his horse. He gave his sister a sidelong glance. “I didna mean to wound your tender feelings,” he said, gesturing to her hat. “You know verra well what I meant by it, aye?”

“No, Rabbie, I donna know what you meant. I never know what you mean. No one knows what you mean anymore.” She was the second woman today to want no more words from him.

She wheeled her horse about and spurred it on, but then immediately drew up as two riders came in through the bailey gates. Seated behind each rider was a child.

“Who is it?” Rabbie asked as the riders turned to the right.

“You donna recognize them, then?” Catriona asked. Rabbie shook his head. “That is Fiona and Ualan MacLeod.”

The names were familiar to Rabbie, but it took him a moment to recall the children of Seona’s sister, Gavina MacBee MacLeod. The last he’d seen them they were bairns, Fiona having only learned to walk, and Ualan still toddling about on fat wee legs.

“Why are they here, then? Are they no’ in the care of a relative?”

Catriona looked at him. “Aye, the elderly cousin of a MacBee, I think. She’s passed.”

Rabbie’s gaze followed the riders with the children as they disappeared into the stables. “Who has them now?”

“No one,” Catriona said. “There are no MacBees or MacLeods left in these hills, are there? Aye, they’ve brought them to Balhaire for safe harbor until someone decides what’s to be done with them.”

Rabbie jerked his gaze to his sister. “Why was I no’ told of it?”

Catriona snorted. “Look at you, lad. Do you think any of us would add to your burden?” She sent her horse to a trot.

Rabbie looked back to where the riders had gone, but there was no sign of them. He reluctantly followed after Catriona.

The ride to Killeaven was quicker than by coach, which plodded along on old, seldom-used roads. Catriona and Rabbie rode through the forest on trails well known to them from having spent their childhood exploring the land around them. They splashed across a shallow river, then trotted up a glen, through a meadow. At the old Na Cùileagan cairn, they turned west and cantered across the open field where the Killeaven cattle and sheep had once grazed—but they were all gone, seized by the English and sold at market.

As they trotted into the drive—newly graveled—Rabbie noted the new windows and the repair to two chimneys. The weathered front door of the house swung open. Lord Kent, in the company of Lord Ramsey, strode out to greet them. Both men were dressed for riding. Behind them was Niall MacDonald. Slight and taciturn, he’d proven himself to be a keen observer. He was good at what he did for the Mackenzies—which consisted primarily of keeping his eyes and ears open and reporting back to the laird.

“There you are, Mackenzie,” Kent said. “I’d expected you well before now.”

His voice was slightly admonishing, and Rabbie resisted the urge to shrug. Not that Kent would have noticed—his gaze was on Catriona.

“I beg your pardon, we’ve been detained,” Rabbie lied. He swung off his horse to help down Catriona, but she’d leaped off her mount before he could reach her. “May I introduce my sister, Miss Catriona Mackenzie,” Rabbie said. “She was away when you arrived.”

“Miss Mackenzie,” Lord Kent said, bowing his head, and then introducing his brother. “Now then, Mackenzie. We would like to be about the business of stocking sheep here. We’ll need a market.”

“Glasgow,” Rabbie said instantly.

Kent frowned. “Glasgow is too far, isn’t it? I’d need drovers and such. I had in mind buying from Highlanders, such as yourself.”

Rabbie’s pulse quickened a beat or two. Kent thought he might help himself to what sheep they’d managed to keep, did he? “Our flocks have been decimated,” he said as evenly as he could. “Sheep and cattle alike.”

“We will eventually want to add cattle, naturally,” Kent said, as if Rabbie hadn’t spoken. If he understood how the Highland herds had been decimated, he was either unconcerned or obtuse. “But for now, we want to be about the business of sheep.”

Of course they did. Wool was a lucrative business.

“You have sheep there at Balhaire, do you not?” he asked, squinting curiously, as if he’d expected Rabbie to offer them up.

He might have said something foolish, but Catriona slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and smiled sweetly at him. Her eyes, however, were full of warning. “Aye,” Rabbie said slowly. “But none for sale. They’ll be lambing soon.” That was a lie, but he gambled that Kent didn’t know one end of a sheep from the other.

“Well. Perhaps we’ll have a word with your father,” he said, exchanging a look with his brother. “We’re on our way to Balhaire now, as it happens.”

Rabbie could well imagine his father selling off half their flock so as not to “make trouble,” and said quickly, “You ought to call on the Buchanans” as casually as he might as he removed his gloves. “They’ve a flock they might cull.”

Behind Kent, Rabbie noticed the look of surprise on Niall’s face.

“The Buchanans,” Lord Kent repeated, sounding uncertain.

“Aye, the Buchanans. You’ll find them at Marraig, near the sea. Follow the road west. Mr. MacDonald knows where.”

Lord Kent looked back at his escort, whose expression had fallen back into stoicism, then at Rabbie. “How far?”

“Seven miles at most.”

“We’ll be met with hospitality, or a gun?”

Rabbie smiled. “This is the Highlands, my lord.” He let that statement linger, let Kent imagine what he would for a moment or two, and indeed, he and his brother exchanged another brief, but wary, look. “Aye, you’ll be met with hospitality, you will. But were I you, I’d have a man or two with me.”

Lord Kent nodded and gestured to his brother. “Assemble some of the men, then.”

He turned back to Rabbie. “Very well, we will call on the Buchanans. You’ll find your fiancée with the women.” He began striding for the stables, his business with Rabbie done.

Rabbie watched him go, trailed by his brother. Niall paused briefly before following them.

“Anything?” Rabbie asked in Gaelic.

“Only that the food is not to their liking,” Niall responded in kind.

“They’ll like it well enough, come winter,” Catriona said as she passed both men on her way to the door.

“The Buchanan sheep suffered the ovine plague,” Niall reminded Rabbie.

Rabbie gave Niall the closest thing to a smile he’d managed in weeks. “Aye, lad, that I know.”

“They’ve come round, they have,” Niall said.

“Who?”

“The Buchanans. I’ve seen them twice up on the hill behind Killeaven.”

“Aye, any clans remaining will come to have a look, will they no’?”

Niall shrugged. “It was odd, it was. They sit there, watching.”

There was no trust between the Buchanans and the Mackenzies. Rabbie couldn’t guess what they were about, but he’d reckon their interest wasn’t a neighborly one.

By the time he caught up to Catriona, the butler had already met her. The man wore a freshly powdered wig and his shoes had been polished to a very high sheen. Perhaps he thought the king meant to call today.

“Welcome,” the butler said, and showed them into the salon just beyond the entry. It smelled rather dank, Rabbie thought, even though the windows were open. Dry rot, he presumed, and supposed that would be his burden once he took the wee bird to wife.

“Have you a calling card I might present to her ladyship?” the butler asked.

Rabbie glared at him. A calling card? The lass was fortunate he’d come at all.

“I beg your pardon, but we donna make use of calling cards here,” Catriona said. “If you would be so kind, then, to tell her that Mr. Rabbie Mackenzie and Miss Catriona Mackenzie have come?”

“He knows who we are,” Rabbie said gruffly.

“Yes, of course,” the man said, ignoring Rabbie entirely as he hurried off in little staccato steps.

“A calling card,” Rabbie muttered.

“They’re English, then,” Catriona said. “They have their ways, and we have ours, aye? Donna be so sour, Rabbie.”

He might have argued with her, but they were both startled by a lot of clomping overhead and looked to the ceiling. It sounded as if a herd of cattle had been aroused. One of them—the calf, he presumed—ran from one end of the room to the other, and back again.

Moments later, they arrived in a threesome—Lady Kent and her lookalike daughter, and the maid, who barely spared him a glance as she entered, but then smiled prettily at Catriona before moving briskly to stand on the other side of the room apart from the rest.

Rabbie watched her, frowning. What made this woman so arrogant? She should have curtsied to him, as he was her superior in every way. He was so distracted by her conceit that he failed to introduce his sister or greet his fiancée.

“My brother has forgotten his manners, aye?” Catriona said. “I am his sister, Catriona Mackenzie. I was away when you arrived, tending to our aunt. She’s rather ill.”

“Oh. I am very sorry to hear it,” Miss Kent said. “Umm...” She glanced across the room at the maid, who gave her a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. “May I introduce my mother, Lady Kent?”

Lady Kent curtsied and mumbled something unintelligible to Rabbie. Catriona returned the greeting quite loudly, as if she thought the woman was deaf. Then Miss Kent slid her palms down her side and said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Mackenzie” without looking directly at him.

“Aye, good afternoon.”

“Will you please sit?” she asked.

“Thank you,” Catriona said, and plunked herself down on a settee. Rabbie didn’t move from his position near the hearth.

“Might I offer you something to drink?” Miss Kent asked in a manner that suggested she’d been rehearsing the question, and looked nervously to Rabbie.

“No. Thank you.”

“Have you any ale?” Catriona asked. “I’m a wee bit dry after our ride.”

Miss Kent looked startled by Catriona’s request. “Ah...” She glanced to the butler, who nodded and walked out in that same eager manner as before.

The maid was now leaning against a sill at the open window, gazing out, as if there was no one else in the room but her. “Oh, I beg your pardon, sir,” Miss Kent said, having noticed the direction of Rabbie’s gaze. “M-may I introduce Miss Bernadette Holly? She is my lady’s maid.”

Miss Bernadette Holly pushed herself away from the sill and sank into what could only be termed a very lazy curtsy.

“Aye, we’ve met,” he said dismissively.

“You have?” Miss Kent exclaimed.

“In the Balhaire kitchen,” he said, at the very same moment the maid said, “No.”

Miss Kent looked at her lady’s maid, her brows rising higher.

“What I mean to say is that we were not formally introduced,” Miss Holly said. “Our paths crossed in the kitchen, that’s all.”

One of Rabbie’s brows rose above the other. Was she openly contradicting him, this lady’s maid?

“Oh, dear, of course, the kitchen,” Miss Kent said. “That was...well, it was an unfortunate oversight.”

He didn’t know what Miss Kent thought was an oversight and he didn’t care. He kept staring at the maid, this Miss Holly, wondering how she kept her employ with her supercilious ways. She leaned against the sill once more and folded her arms across her body, returning his gaze with one that seemed almost impatient.

“Do you ride, Miss Kent?” Catriona suddenly interjected, heading off anything Rabbie might have said about the maid.

“Oh, I, ah... I am a poor rider,” the bird said, and glanced uncertainly at Miss Bernadette Holly, who once again gave her an almost imperceptible nod, as if giving her permission to continue. Rabbie glared at her.

“There is much to see in these hills, views you’d no’ see in England, aye? Perhaps you would join Rabbie and I one afternoon?” Catriona suggested.

Again, Miss Kent looked to Miss Holly. This time, she raised her dark brows, and Miss Kent spoke instantly. “Yes, thank you.”

What was this, was the bird the maid’s bloody puppet? Even the girl’s utterly useless mother kept glancing nervously and fretfully at Miss Holly.

Miss Holly smiled a little at Miss Kent, and Miss Kent suddenly smiled, too, as if she’d just remembered an amusing jest. And then she blushed, as if she were embarrassed by the jest. Diah, she was more a child than a woman grown. Rabbie shifted restlessly and caught Catriona’s eye. She gave him a very meaningful and slightly heated look.

He suppressed a sigh of tedium and looked at the bird again. The color in her cheeks was very high.

The butler returned with Catriona’s ale, at which point Miss Kent took a seat beside Catriona.

“How do you find Killeaven?” Rabbie asked, making some effort, he thought, although his voice was flat and emotionless, no doubt because he didn’t care what she thought of Killeaven.

“It’s...well, it’s bigger than I anticipated,” Miss Kent said, and again looked to Miss Holly. “I suppose...that is to say, perhaps we might make improvements to it?”

Was she asking him? “Pardon?”

Miss Kent looked in his direction—but at his feet. “Perhaps we might make some improvements to the house and the grounds.”

He didn’t care what she did to Killeaven. Burn it down for all he cared. “I donna really care.”

That earned him another heated look from his sister. “What my brother means is that it is up to you, Miss Kent. This is your house to do as you please, aye?”

He hadn’t meant that at all.

“Would you like to see it?” Miss Kent asked suddenly. She was not speaking to Rabbie, but to Catriona.

Catriona gulped down a bit of ale and said, “I should like it verra much, I would.” She stood.

Miss Kent and her mother rose almost as one. The three of them walked out of the room, Miss Kent suddenly jabbering. At the door, Catriona glanced back and motioned with her head for Rabbie to come along. He ignored her. He didn’t care about this house. What he cared about was Catriona’s unfinished ale. He walked to the settee and the small table where she’d set it down, picked it up and drained it. He put the empty glass down, folded his arms and turned to Miss Holly.

She was glaring at him.

“Aye, what, then?” he asked impatiently. She shook her head, as if the burden of explaining what, exactly, was too great. “You are a peculiar one,” Rabbie said irritably.

She watched him in silence.

“Tell me, then, is your charge capable of rational thought? Or must you do all of it for her?”

“I beg your pardon,” she said indignantly. “I don’t do any thinking for her.”

“No? Why, then, does she look to you before she answers any question put to her?”

“She is anxious,” Miss Holly said instantly. “And eager to impress you.”

He snorted. “Well, that’s no’ possible.”

“Is it likewise not possible for you to make her feel the least bit welcome?”

He jerked his head up at that bit of insolence. “You dare to instruct me, lass?” he asked incredulously.

“Someone ought to,” she said pertly.

In that moment, Rabbie felt something besides anger or despair—he felt stunned. He’d never in his life been addressed by a servant in such a manner. He didn’t know what game she was playing with him, but it was an unwinnable one. He casually moved to where she stood, standing close, towering over her. She was pretty in an exotic way, he decided. Her skin was flawless. Her lips were full and the color of new plums. And her brows, dark and full, were dipped into an annoying vee shape above those pretty hazel eyes sparkling with ire. “A wee bit of advice, lass,” he said, voice low as he took in the slight upturn of her nose and the strand of hair that had come undone and now draped across her smooth, creamy décolletage. “Donna think to shame me. It will no’ work. For one, I donna care what that wee mouse thinks of me, aye? For another, there is little anyone can do to me that’s no’ already been done, and been done worse.”

One her dark brows lifted in a manner that reminded him of a woman hearing a tale she did not believe.

“You donna care for me, then,” he allowed. “I donna care for you, either. But I will marry that lass, and if you continue on as you have in my presence, I will put you out on your lovely arse and pack you back to bloody old England. Do you understand me?” He was confident that would do it—that would make her quake in her festive little slippers.

But the maid surprised him with a smirk; she seemed almost amused by his threat. “Neither should you think to threaten me, sir. For there is little you can do to me that has not already been done, and been done worse.” She gave him a bit of a triumphant look and stepped around him, walking out of the room and leaving the faint scent of her perfume in her wake.

What did that mean? What might have possibly been done to that privileged little butterfly? She was naive—she had no notion of the cruelty of life, not like he did.

But her lack of fear and her conceit would not leave him. He was still brooding about it when the women returned, at which point he picked up his gloves and held out his arm to Catriona. “We’ll take our leave, aye? Lady Kent, Miss Kent, you and your family are invited to dine at Balhaire this Friday evening if it suits,” he said formally.

The mouse smiled with surprise.

“Your lady’s maid as well,” he added awkwardly and, at least to him, surprisingly.

The mouse smiled as if she hadn’t a brain in her head.

“We might discuss the details of the wedding, aye?” Catriona added. “Our customs are a wee bit different.”

“Oh. Yes, we should...we would like that very much, wouldn’t we, Mamma?” the mouse asked uncertainly.

“Yes, thank you,” the mother said, and returned her daughter’s anxious smile.

“Aye, verra well.” Rabbie was suddenly eager to be gone. “Cat?” He began striding for the door.

They walked out of the house, Miss Kent and Lady Kent trailing behind, calling their goodbyes and thank-yous. Rabbie mounted his horse and looked back at the house, and imagined those hazel eyes shooting daggers at him from behind one of the new windows.

CHAPTER FIVE

AVALINE’S FORCED SMILE faded away the moment the door was closed to the departing Mackenzies. “He scarcely spoke to me at all,” she said to Bernadette.

“You scarcely spoke to him, either, dearest,” Bernadette said.

“I know, I know, but I don’t know what to say to him,” she said plaintively as they returned to the salon. “What am I to say to someone who is so aloof? It’s desperately difficult to even smile at him. He’s so...unappealing,” she said, shuddering.

Bernadette didn’t think his appearance was unappealing on closer inspection. He had good looks behind that unpleasant mien—a strong jaw, thick lashes that framed his stormy blue eyes, a regal, straight nose. He was quite obviously brimming with vitality, given his size and apparent strength. It was the blaze in his eyes that she found so disquieting, and the dark circles beneath them.

“Now you are invited to dine with him, so you must be prepared to converse with him,” Bernadette advised.

Avaline snorted at that statement as she walked to the windows and gazed out at the vast landscape of nothing but meadow and hill. “It’s useless,” she said. “He won’t respond.”

“If he doesn’t have the courtesy to make proper conversation with you, then perhaps you might draw it out of him by engaging him as we discussed.”

Avaline glanced over her shoulder. “What questions?”

“I can’t give you specific ones,” Bernadette said. “You must allow the conversation to guide you.”

Avaline turned from the window, looking confused. “Meaning?”

“Just...questions, Avaline,” Bernadette said impatiently. “Any entry that will give him leave to talk about himself. You might ask where he attended school. Did he have tutors, what is the name of his dog, does he enjoy hunting or riding.”

“What if he doesn’t enjoy riding or hunting?”

Bernadette’s patience was hanging by a tiny thread. She realized this was a difficult situation for Avaline, but could the girl not construct a few logical thoughts in her head? Did she truly have no sense of how to make conversation with a gentleman? “The point, darling, is to simply ask questions to promote conversation. Ask if he had a favorite governess, if takes his meals at Balhaire or his home, what is his favorite activity—questions.”

“Yes, I see,” Avaline said quickly, always eager to please, whether she knew how or not.

Bernadette sighed. She sat on the arm of the settee, her hands braced against her knees. “Like this,” she said, softening her voice and, hopefully, any outward sign of her growing frustration. “You might ask him ‘Do you often sail with your brother?’ And he might answer you completely, or say something quite curt, as he is wont to do, such as no. Then what do you say?”

Avaline shook her head.

“You say something like ‘I had my first voyage here, and I found it quite pleasing, although I took a bit seasick when we were in open waters. Have you ever experienced it?’”

Avaline blinked. “No, I was quite all right during the voyage, but Mamma took ill.”

“Avaline!” Bernadette cried.

“I mean, yes, yes, I understand.”

She understood nothing. Bernadette stood up and crossed the room to her charge. She put her hands on Avaline’s shoulders. “Avaline—you really must be prepared. I can’t always be there to help you.”

“What?” Avaline exclaimed, her eyes widening. “Of course you will! You’ll be beside me Friday evening to help me—”

“I don’t think I should go,” Bernadette said. “You rely on me far too much, and in this, you really must make your own way—”

“Bernadette!” Avaline grabbed Bernadette’s hands from her shoulder and held them tightly in hers. “I can’t possibly bear an entire meal without you! I need you!” She leaned forward and whispered, “You are my only hope. You know my mother is no help, my father doesn’t care—”

“But I can’t—”

Avaline suddenly let go of Bernadette’s hands. “You must attend! I insist!”

“Avaline—”

“I insist,” she said again, quite sternly, and much to Bernadette’s great surprise.

“Well then,” Bernadette said. It was high time Avaline stood up for something she wanted, even if that something was not what Bernadette desired in the least. “Naturally, I will do as you bid me.”

Avaline looked slightly stunned by her victory. She sniffed. She twirled a curl at her nape. “I only insist because I need you.”

“I understand.”

“Otherwise I would not insist.”

“As you said,” Bernadette agreed.

“It’s just that—”

“Not another word of apology,” Bernadette said, smiling. “You are allowed to speak your mind.”

Avaline released a long breath. “I feel as if my mind is always wrong,” she said morosely. “Thank you. I mean that truly, Bernadette.”

She didn’t have to say it. Bernadette knew that Avaline loved her, and more than what was reasonable to love a servant of her household.

* * *

BERNADETTE, AVALINE AND Lady Kent spent the better part of Friday afternoon preparing Avaline for the evening, and Bernadette thought their efforts were rewarded—Avaline looked like a princess in her butter-yellow gown and stomacher. Bernadette had put up Avaline’s golden hair in a tower that made her look taller than she was and had adorned it with tiny gold leaves. She couldn’t fathom how Mackenzie might look at his fiancée and not be at least a bit smitten with her.

Avaline’s preparations left precious little time for Bernadette to dress herself. She chose the gown of scarlet she’d worn to a Christmas feast two years past. There was no time to dress her hair, and she bound it simply at her nape. She looked quite plain in comparison to her charge.

At least she didn’t look as plain as Lady Kent, who had, for reasons that escaped Bernadette, chosen a drab brown gown that made her pale, slight frame look even smaller. Perhaps she meant to fade into a wall, for she’d dressed perfectly for it. Lady Kent often reminded Bernadette of a leaf scudding across the courtyard at Highfield—without substance and in a permanent tremble whenever her husband was about.

Bernadette was taller than both women and larger in frame, and she did not tremble in the presence of men, for which she owed her father grim thanks. He’d been a tyrant, not unlike Lord Kent in his way, and Bernadette had learned at an early age that weakness was to be exploited, and therefore, it was far better to stand tall and proud than to cower.

She thought it only through the grace of her grandfather and Albert that she hadn’t learned to despise all men. Her grandfather, God rest his soul, had been the kindest person she’d ever known. He would take her and her sister for long walks around Highfield, would invite them to his little house on the estate’s grounds and make them mince pies and sing songs to them. She had loved him so, had mourned him deeply when he’d died from an ague in his seventy-second year.

And, of course, Albert, the son of a shop merchant. Albert had wanted to study law, and he’d worked in his father’s dry goods shop until such time he could afford the schooling. He was bright and curious, thoughtful and tender with Bernadette, and he’d never said a cross word to her.

Albert and Grandpappa had taught Bernadette that there were men in this world who loved and cherished those in their lives. They were good, decent and loving men, both of them gone now, survived by men like Lord Kent and her father.

No, men didn’t intimidate her. No one intimidated her. She was an island unto herself, an untouchable, damaged bit of flotsam in a vast sea. Occasionally, she bumped into this ship or that buoy, but she would always spin away and continued on with her solo journey through this life.

It was past time to depart when Lady Kent and Avaline made their way downstairs to join his lordship and Bernadette. Lord Kent reeked of wine. He was impatient and made cross by the wait. He’d dressed in formal clothing and a newly styled and powdered wig. His shirt was trimmed in lace that dripped from his coat sleeves, and his neck cloth was tied so ornately it was small wonder he hadn’t choked himself in the process.

With one leg cast out, his hand on a staff that he carried for effect, he surveyed the three women before him and frowned slightly. “It will do, I suppose,” he said, and gestured for them to carry on, out the door. “Make haste, make haste, we’ll be tardy as it is.”

The ladies were ushered into the coach, and Kent put himself on a horse. Lord Ramsey was not attending this evening. According to Bernadette’s friend Charles, a footman, Ramsey had fallen into his cups far sooner than his brother and was too sodding drunk to travel. Charles was fond of Bernadette and often sought her out to regale her with news of the household. In fact, two months ago, it was Charles who told her that she would be sent to Scotland as the lady’s maid of Avaline.

“To Scotland,” she’d repeated disbelievingly. “Leave England?”

“You’ve not heard?” Charles asked, clearly exuberant in having the news before she did. “Miss Avaline is to marry one of the Highland brutes.”

Of course she’d known that Avaline was to marry a man from the Highlands, but Bernadette hadn’t, until that moment, imagined he was actually from the Highlands. She’d rather imagined a lord of some sort, with lands there, someone civilized, for everyone had heard that the Highlanders were brutal, traitorous people, and it had taken the English army to rout them.

“It’s surely temporary,” Bernadette said, thinking aloud. “I’ll be meant to settle her.”

But Charles, who had attended Lord Kent and Lady Chatwick when she and her husband had come to broker the marriage, shook his head. “You are to stay with her, as am I. As are a few more,” Charles confided. “He told the lady he’d not leave his only daughter in the hands of such primitive people.”

Wasn’t Lady Chatwick herself married to one of those primitive people? “And what did the lady say?” Bernadette asked.

“She said it was a kind thing he did to think so tenderly of his daughter, but that he could trust she would be well cared for.”

“There, you see?” Bernadette had said, walking away from Charles. “It’s only temporary.”

It was not, as it turned out, temporary. Lord Kent meant for her to stay on here with Avaline. Bernadette’s father meant for her to do the same. While she did not relish the thought of being banished to Scotland, she did realize that the farther she was from either of those men, the better.

The Kent party loaded into the coach, and it lurched forward, starting on the tortuous journey of four miles. Bernadette would have preferred to walk. In the last few days, she’d taken to walking the many paths around Killeaven. It was beautiful scenery and physically invigorating—and she’d yet to meet another person. She felt herself growing stronger, too, going farther afield every day.

She wasn’t entirely sure of how to walk to Balhaire, but she would have liked to try. It was a fine evening, and surely it couldn’t be any more taxing on the body than this coach. Or perhaps they might have gone on horseback? She honestly didn’t know if Lady Kent had ever been on the back of a horse, but Bernadette was a passable rider, as was Avaline. Unfortunately, his lordship did not think it proper for ladies to travel by horseback, not until they’d birthed all the children they were meant to have.

He had many odious opinions.

When Bernadette was certain she couldn’t bear the ride another moment, the coach reached the village on the outskirts of Balhaire and began to move up the high road. The fortress looked so foreboding as they approached it, as unwelcoming as its son.

In the bailey, three stray dogs trotted over to have a sniff of them all, and two men who looked equally astray were on hand to greet them. The unsmiling Frang wordlessly showed them to a room near the great hall, where the Mackenzies were waiting.

Bernadette was surprised to see Avaline’s fiancé dressed in a plaid blanket that fell just above his knees. He wore thick wool socks and shoes with it, a waistcoat and coat over it. It was such a peculiar dress, but it was, Bernadette had to admit, rather enticing, particularly as she could see just how muscular and long his legs were. She wondered if Avaline had noticed the same.

The room where they’d gathered was smaller and more intimate than any of the other rooms Bernadette had seen on her first visit to Balhaire. The walls had been covered with tapestries to ward off the chill that seemed to permeate the castle, but the effect was stifling, and Bernadette felt a little as if the walls were closing in on her. She stood near the door, where at least there was a bit of air.

Lord Kent herded his daughter and his wife forward to greet their hosts. Lord and Lady Mackenzie, their sons, their daughter, Miss Catriona Mackenzie, and another daughter they’d not yet met, Mrs. Vivienne Mackenzie. Lord Kent gestured absently to Bernadette when those introductions had been made. “Miss Holly, our daughter’s maid,” he said.

Bernadette curtsied.

“Welcome, all,” Mrs. Vivienne Mackenzie said in a lovely, melodic voice. “There are more of us, aye? My husband has gone to bring our bairns to say good-night—” She hadn’t even finished her thought when five children burst into the room and raced for their mother and their grandparents. The oldest, a girl, looked to be thirteen or fourteen years old. And the youngest, a boy, perhaps eight years of age. The children were raucous and gay, and they caused Bernadette’s heart to squeeze painfully. Children, especially young children, always had that effect on her—they reminded her of her own loss. A loss so wretched that even after all these years, she could not escape its clutches at the most inopportune times. Even now, she felt flushed and had to look down at her feet to regain her balance.

The children were talking all at once, eager to be seen, eager to know their guests. Bernadette could well imagine that Lord Kent was nearly beside himself—he did not believe in mixing children with adults. She watched the children wiggle and sway about on their feet, unable to keep still. One boy carried something in his pocket that caused it to bulge, and Bernadette felt a smile softening her face. She would never know the pleasure of having a child that age. She would never feel the pride in watching one grow. When she’d lost her child, she’d almost died. She’d survived, but her ability to bear children had not.

When the children had received kisses from their family, Mrs. Mackenzie sent them out with a maid, and Bernadette happened to look up from them and realized with a start that Avaline’s fiancé was watching her. She felt as if she’d been caught in a private moment, and awkwardly rubbed her nape, unnerved at having been caught in the act of admiring children. She turned her back to him and walked to a small table in a corner, where she pretended to closely examine what she could only imagine were some sort of artifacts.

A moment later, his deep voice rumbled behind her. “I thought you fearless, yet here you stand, cowering in the corner.”

Ah, how lucky for her! The beast had followed her. Bernadette had managed to trap herself in the corner, and couldn’t escape him without causing a scene. His presence felt too large, too powerful, and she shifted closer to the wall. “I’m not cowering. I’m admiring these artifacts. What are they, some sort of ancient weapon?”

He leaned across her body, the arm of his coat brushing lightly against her bare forearm as he picked one up. He held it up to her. “This is a rock. One that my nephew has collected.”

Artifacts! She gave the rock a disapproving look as if it had deliberately misled her. Her cheeks bloomed with embarrassment. “I should have paid closer attention to my archeology lessons.” She wished he would move, step aside. He stood so close that she could feel the power and bad humor radiating from him.

Of course he didn’t move, as that would have been the polite, civilized thing to do. He kept his gaze locked on hers as he returned the rock to its place, and he looked entirely suspicious of her. What did he think, she had come here for nefarious reasons? The idea almost made her laugh.

“If you donna stand apart from fear, then given our previous conversation, I might only surmise you believe yourself superior to a few Scots.” He waited for her to deny it.

Bernadette smiled slowly. “The only Scot I believe myself superior to is you, Mr. Mackenzie.”

One corner of his mouth turned up. “I would expect no different of the Sassenach.”

“Of what?”

The dark smile spread across his lips. “English,” he said.

“If being English means that I believe in civility and manners, then yes, I suppose you should expect it of me.”

His smirk deepened. “I advised you no’ to attempt to shame me, Miss Holly.”

“And I advised you not to try to intimidate me.”

“You advised me no’ to threaten you, lass.”

He would quibble with her now? He could quibble with Avaline all that he liked, but not with her. There was a limit to what Bernadette would do to help this marital union, and speaking to him beyond what was absolutely necessary exceeded that limit. She thought about advising him of that, but decided that she would do best to keep her mouth shut and remove herself before she said something untoward. “Please excuse me.” She stepped around him and walked into the center of the room.

“Miss Holly, will you join us for wine?” Lady Mackenzie asked, spotting her.

“No, thank you,” Bernadette said politely.

“Rabbie, darling, will you?”

Rabbie. That was the first that Bernadette had heard his given name said out loud. Funny, but he didn’t seem like a Rabbie to her. That name belonged to someone congenial and hospitable. He was more like a Hades. Yes, that suited him. Hades Mackenzie, the rudest man in the Scottish Highlands.

“Aye,” he responded to his mother, and accepted the glass of wine Frang held out to him. Bernadette nudged Avaline and whispered she should speak to her fiancé. Whether Avaline took her advice, Bernadette didn’t know, because she walked away, putting as many people and as much space between her and that ogre as she could.

In doing so, she quite literally bumped into Captain Mackenzie.

“I beg your pardon, Captain!” she said, alarmed that she had inadvertently stepped on the man’s foot as she’d glanced over her shoulder to see where the ogre was now.

He caught her elbow and steadied her. “Good evening, Miss Holly,” he said pleasantly.

“I’m rather surprised to see you here tonight. I thought you’d be at sea by now.”

“Aye, as did I. Alas, our ship needs a wee bit of repair. I’ll be a landlubber for a time.” His eyes twinkled with his smile.

Bernadette was again struck by how different these brothers were in mien.

“You’ve met my sisters, have you no’?” he asked.

“I have, indeed.”

“You are acquainted with every Mackenzie of Balhaire, then,” he said with a chuckle.

Unfortunately.

He suddenly leaned forward and whispered, “Have you a verdict on Miss Kent’s fiancé? Does he suit her, then?”

Bernadette could feel herself coloring. What was she supposed to say to that? “Ah...well,” she said, and paused to clear her throat. “It’s all so very new, isn’t it? I suspect they will take some time learning about each other.”

Captain Mackenzie blinked. He slowly cocked his head to one side, his gaze shrewd, and smiled very slowly. “Aye, then, you donna esteem him.” Bernadette opened her mouth to deny it, but he waved his hand. “Donna deny it, lass—it’s plain.”

“I scarcely know him. I’ve not made any judgment.”

He chuckled at that bold lie, sipped his wine, then put the glass aside. “Donna believe everything you see, Miss Holly. My brother is a wee bit hardened, that he is. But he’s suffered a great loss and has no’ come easily back to the living. On my word, the lad is a good man beneath the hurt.”

A loss? Hurt? She tried to imagine what sort of loss might make a man so unregenerate, but couldn’t think of a single thing. She’d lost her husband and her baby, and she wasn’t so hardened. What possibly could have happened to him?

“Ah, there is Frang,” Captain Mackenzie said. “We’ll dine, now, aye?” He stepped away.

Bernadette was still trying to make sense of what the captain had said when Lady Mackenzie arranged them all for the promenade into the dining room. Naturally, Bernadette brought up the rear. She was seated next to Mrs. Vivienne Mackenzie with Avaline across from her. Next to Avaline sat the man who had suffered such an incomprehensible loss, apparently, as to have made him entirely contemptible.

As the meal was served, everyone was laughing and talking at once. Bernadette was especially enjoying the meal—it was the first decent thing she’d had to eat since arriving in Scotland, and it was delicious. A soup thick with chunks of fish, a pie bursting with savory meat and potatoes. The cook Mr. MacDonald had found for Killeaven didn’t know how to prepare food like this, apparently, for everything she’d made thus far had tasted bland and, at times, even bitter.

Bernadette made small talk with Mrs. Vivienne Mackenzie, who told her about her children, including their names, and their traits. Bernadette politely answered the questions Mrs. Mackenzie put to her. How long had she been in the Kent employ? Nearly seven years. How did she find Scotland? Quite beautiful.

Lady Mackenzie and Lady Kent were engaged in a discussion of the wedding ceremony and the celebrations around it. Lady Mackenzie was quite animated in her descriptions of Scottish wedding customs. “No, you actually jump over the broom” Bernadette overheard her say to Lady Kent.

There was a lull in the chatter between Bernadette and Mrs. Mackenzie when the latter’s husband caught her attention and she turned away.

Bernadette glanced across the table at Avaline. She looked unhappy. Bernadette very surreptitiously nodded in the direction of her fiancé. Avaline glanced at the man, then haltingly inquired if Mackenzie had received his education at a university.

“Aye,” he said.

That was all he said—nothing more, no explanation of when or where or anything else to put Avaline at ease, the lout.

Avaline pushed a bit food around her plate, then said suddenly, “Which university?”

He paused in his eating. “Does it matter to you, then?”

He asked it in a way that sounded as if he was somehow offended, and Avaline’s eyes widened. “No! No, of course not.”

“Of course it does,” his mother said kindly to Avaline, having caught that part of the conversation as well. “Rabbie attended St. Andrews, just as his brothers did before him.”

Avaline nodded and gave Lady Mackenzie a faint smile of gratitude. She picked up her fork, took a small bite of food, then put down the fork. “Did you have a favorite governess?”

For heaven’s sake. Bernadette hadn’t meant Avaline to ask that question, but had used it merely as an example to spur Avaline’s own thinking of how she might engage this man.

Her fiancé put down his fork, too, and turned his head to her, so that he might pierce her better with his cold glare. “We didna have a governess,” he said, his gaze straying to Bernadette. “It is no’ the way of the Highlands.”

Avaline dropped her gaze to her plate.

The beast glanced across the table to Bernadette, as if he knew she was the one to have put the thought in Avaline’s head. Well she hadn’t meant for Avaline to take her so literally. “Then what is the way of the Highlands?” Bernadette asked pertly.

“Pardon?” he asked, clearly not anticipating a response from her.

“If you were not minded by a governess, then how were you raised? What is the way of the Highlands? A nursemaid? I had a nursemaid until I was eight years old.”

“We were raised by wolves,” he said. “Is that no’ what is said of Highlanders in England?”

The conversation at the table slowly died away, and now everyone was listening. Bernadette smiled sweetly. “I wouldn’t know what is said of Highlanders in England, sir. We rarely speak of them.”

Captain Mackenzie laughed.

Bernadette glanced at Avaline, silently willing the girl not to shake with uneasiness sitting next to him.

Down the table, Lord Kent’s voice rose with the unmistakable hoarseness of too much drink. “Enough of nursemaids and Highlanders and whatnot. Tell me now, laird, how does your trade fare? I might as well inquire, as it will all be in the family soon enough.” He laughed.

Miss Catriona Mackenzie, seated next to her father and across from Lord Kent, choked on a sip of wine, coughing uncontrollably for a moment.

“Well enough,” the laird said quietly, and leaned to one side to rub his daughter’s back.

“Aye, well enough when we avoid the excise men,” Rabbie Mackenzie said, and chuckled darkly.

That remark was met with stunned silence by them all. Bernadette didn’t know what he meant, really, but his family seemed mortified.

Lord Kent seemed intrigued.

Suddenly, Captain Mackenzie laughed, and loudly, too. “My brother means to divert us,” he said jovially. “He is master at it, so much so that we donna know when he teases us.”

Bernadette did not miss the look that flowed between brothers, but Captain Mackenzie continued on. “I am reminded of an occasion we sailed to Norway, Rabbie. You recall it, aye?”

“I’ll no’ forget it,” his brother said.

The captain said, “We sailed into a squall, we did, the seas so high we were pitched about like a bairn’s toy. A few barrels of ale became unlashed and washed over the side with a toss of a mighty wave.”

Bernadette’s stomach lurched a tiny bit, the memory still fresh in her legs and chest of roiling seas.

“What a tragedy for you all to lose your ale,” Lord Kent scoffed.

“Aye, but it was,” the captain agreed with much congeniality, politely ignoring his lordship’s tone. “Rabbie and I didna have the heart to tell our crew of the loss, no’ with two days at sea ahead of us, aye? When the seas calmed, and the men looked about for their drink, I said to Rabbie, ‘We’ll be mutinied, mark me.’”

Lord Mackenzie smiled, amused by that.

“Rabbie said, ‘No’ on my watch, braither.’ When I asked what he meant to do, then, he said he didna know, aye? But he’d think of something.”

“Oh, aye, he’d think of something, would he?” Catriona said laughingly.

“What happened?” Avaline asked eagerly, held rapt by the captain’s tale.

“He gathered the lads round, and told them a fantastic yarn of the sea serpent who stole their ale.” Captain Mackenzie leaned forward and said in a low voice, “Now the lads, they’ve been a sea for a long time, they have, and they donna believe in sea monsters. But Rabbie was so convincing in his telling of it that more than one began to crowd to the middle of the main deck, fearing one of the serpent’s arms would appear to pull them into the sea along with their drink.” He laughed and settled back in his chair. “They didna fret about their ale, no’ after that tale. My brother spoke with such confidence they couldna help but believe him.”

Bernadette wondered after an entire ship of men who would fall prey to such a ridiculous tale. And yet, across from her sat a pretty, cake-headed girl, eyes wide with delight as she listened to Captain Mackenzie. Fortunately, Avaline seemed to have forgotten all about the ogre sitting next to her.

And yet it hardly mattered that Avaline’s attention had been diverted, for the ogre appeared quite content to be forgotten. He sat back in his seat, his expression unreadable as everyone around him laughed at that ridiculous story. But his hand was curled into a tight fist against the table, and Bernadette had the distinct impression he was holding himself in check. From what? Was he angry? Did he dislike his brother’s amusing tale?

“Shall we retire to the sitting room?” Lady Mackenzie asked, and stood.

The ogre stood, and, rather miraculously, he held Avaline’s chair out so that she might rise. Avaline didn’t seem to notice the polite gesture at all—her gaze was on Captain Mackenzie and she hurried to his side to ask him something about the story he’d just told as they began to make their way out of the small dining room.

Once again, Bernadette followed behind the rest of them, only this time, she had company. Rabbie Mackenzie fell in beside her, his hands clasped at his back. He said nothing, and certainly neither did Bernadette. She was aware of how much his body dwarfed hers. She felt unusually small next to him, and imagined how helpless Avaline would feel beside him. She tried not to picture their wedding night, but it was impossible once the thought had crowded into her head—Bernadette could see him, tall and broad and erect...

Goodness, but she imagined that in very vivid detail, and carefully rubbed her neck, trying to erase the heat that suddenly crawled into her skin.

The room in which they’d gathered was another sitting room, with two settees and a few armchairs, and a few spare dogs eager to greet everyone who entered the room.

At the far end of the room was a harpsichord. Bernadette sighed softly to herself. She knew where this was headed. They would have the obligatory demonstration of Avaline’s “abilities.” Avaline was terrified of performing before others, and frankly, Bernadette was terrified for her. She had little real talent for it, and the harder she tried, the worse she sang. It was a cruel fact that women of Avaline’s birthright were expected to excel in all things domestic—in managing their household, in needlework, in art and song. She was also expected to demonstrate how pleasingly accommodating she was by showing an eagerness to perform at the mere invitation. And woe to the woman who did not excel at singing, for she couldn’t escape her duty to display her so-called wares.

Bernadette’s talent was in playing the harpsichord. She, too, had been born to this perch in life...but she’d fallen from it.

“Here then, allow my daughter to regale us with a song,” Lord Kent said almost instantly, without any regard for his daughter’s feelings on the matter, or her lack of talent. He was well aware how it frightened Avaline to stand before anyone and sing—the good Lord knew it had been a source of contention between them many times before this particular evening.

“Miss Holly, you will accompany her,” his lordship decreed.

All heads swiveled about to where Bernadette stood just inside the door, the ogre at her side. She bristled at the command, could feel the heat of shame flood her cheeks. As if she were a trained monkey like the one she’d once seen in a London market.

“Go on, then,” Mr. Mackenzie said. “Donna draw this out any more than is necessary.”

“You have nothing to fear in that regard,” she muttered, and walked to the front of the room—for Avaline’s sake, always for Avaline’s sake—wiping her palms on the sides of her gown as she went. She sat on the bench before the harpsichord, glanced up at an ashen Avaline and whispered, “Look above their heads, not at them. Pretend no one is here, pretend it is a music lesson.”

Avaline nodded stiffly.

Bernadette began to play. Avaline began to warble. She held her hands clasped tightly at her waist, her nerves making her sing sharp to the music. At last, the poor girl finished the song to tepid applause. The ladies, Bernadette noticed, were shifting restlessly in their seats. And in the back of the room, standing exactly where she’d left him, stood Rabbie Mackenzie. His head was down, his arms folded, his expression one of pure tedium.

But the song was done, and Avaline moved immediately to sit, as did Bernadette, but Lord Kent, slouching in his chair, his eyes half-open after the amount he’d drunk, waved her back. “Again, Avaline. Perhaps something a bit livelier that won’t put us all asleep.”

Avaline’s shoulders tensed. She turned to Bernadette, her eyes blank now, her soul having retreated to that place of hiding. Bernadette managed a smile for the poor girl. “The song of summer,” she said softly. “The one you like.”

Avaline nodded. As she moved to take her place next to the pianoforte, and Bernadette played the first few chords, she looked up to see if Avaline was ready, and noticed, from the corner of her eye, that Avaline’s fiancé had exited the room. How impossibly rude he was! It made her so angry that she hit a wrong chord, startling Avaline. “I beg your pardon,” Bernadette said, and began again.

This time, when the song mercifully ended, it was Captain Mackenzie who rose to see Avaline to a seat, complimenting her on her singing as he did.

The evening dragged on from there. Bernadette stood near a bookcase, pretending to examine the few titles they had there, impatient for the evening to come to an end. She was trying desperately not to listen to Lady Kent and Avaline attempt to converse with the Mackenzie women about the blasted wedding.

At long last, his lordship rose, signaling to his party. They could at last quit this horrible place and return to Killeaven.

None of the Mackenzies entreated them to stay, but eagerly followed them out like so many puppies—with the notable exception of Avaline’s fiancé, of course—and called good-night as they climbed into the coach. Even his lordship took a seat inside the coach, having instructed a man to tether his horse to the back of it. As soon as they rolled out of the bailey, he turned a furious glare to Avaline. “You are a stupid, vapid girl!” he said heatedly. “You have no knowledge of how to woo a man! What am I to do if he cries off? What will I do with you then?”

“I beg your pardon, Father, but I tried—”

“You asked after his favorite governess!” her father shouted at her, spittle coming out of his mouth with the force of his voice. “Haven’t you the slightest notion how to bat your eyes? And you,” he said, swinging his gaze around to Bernadette.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! You’re a wily woman, Bernadette. Can you not teach her to be less...vapid?” he exclaimed, flicking his wrist in the direction of his daughter. “Can you not teach her how to lure a man to her instead of cleaving the line and letting him sink away?”

“The man is entirely disagreeable—”

His lordship surged forward with such ferocity that his wig was very nearly left behind. “I don’t care if he is Satan himself. The marriage has been agreed to and by God, if he cries off because of her,” he said, jabbing his finger in the direction of Avaline, “I will take it out of her hide.”

Avaline began to cry.

Her father fell back against the squabs and sighed heavily, as if he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. “What have I done to deserve this?” he said to the ceiling. “What sin have I committed that you give me a miserable wife without the ability to give me a son, and a stupid twit for a daughter?”

Needless to say, by the time the old coach had bounced and plodded and bumbled along to Killeaven, the entire Kent family was in tears.

If Bernadette had been presented with a knife during that drive, she would have gladly plunged it into her own neck, just to escape them all.

CHAPTER SIX

AVALINE WAS FINALLY ALONE. She was never alone; there was always someone about to tell her what to do, what to say, how to behave.

It had been a very long day and a draining evening at Balhaire. Her eyes and her face were swollen from sobbing, and her mother’s attempt at making a compress had only angered her. She’d sent her mother from the room, had locked the door behind her.

Now, Avaline had no tears left in her. What she had was a hatred of her father that burned so intently she felt ashamed and concerned God would strike her dead for it. She hated how her father treated her, but she hated worse how she sobbed when he said such awful things to her. She was quite determined not to, but she could never seem to help herself.

What she told him was true—she had done her best this evening. She had tried to engage that awful man as Bernadette said, had tried to be pleasant and pretty and quiet. Nothing worked. What was she to do? He stared at her with those dark, cold eyes. His jaw seemed perpetually clinched. He rarely spoke to her at all, and when he did, every word was biting. He hated her. Which was perfectly all right as far as Avaline was concerned, because she hated him, too, hated the very sight of him.

And the singing! Avaline groaned at the humiliation she had suffered. Couldn’t her father hear with his own ears that she wasn’t good enough to hold entire salons captive? He blamed her for her lack of talent and had once accused her of intentionally singing poorly only to vex him. What on earth would possess her to humiliate herself before others merely to annoy her father?

Avaline rolled onto her side and stared at the window, left open to admit a cool breeze. She couldn’t see beyond it, but she imagined she could hear the sea from here. It was probably only a night breeze rustling the treetops, but she wanted to imagine the sea.

She thought about running away. She thought about stowing aboard Captain Mackenzie’s ship. She pictured him now, with his kind smile, his hair so prettily streaked by endless days on the vast sea. He was so completely appealing! One night, as they sailed up the coast to the Highlands, Avaline had been too restless and too warm in the cabin she’d shared with Bernadette, and had waited until Bernadette was asleep before venturing onto the deck.

She’d been gazing up at the stars, so brilliant that they felt within reach. The captain had been surprised to stumble upon her there. “You must be cold, aye?” he asked in that lilting voice of his, and shrugged out of his coat and draped it around her shoulders. Then he pointed out some of the stars to her—Orion, Sirius and Polaris. He told her he’d been sailing since he was a “wee lad” and once he’d begun, he’d never left the sea. “Aye, I love it as if it was a bairn,” he’d said. “It changes every day.”

Avaline wanted to be somewhere that changed every day. She wanted to talk about stars and clouds and sea swells. She wanted to love something so fiercely that she couldn’t leave it. She wanted to look into the captain’s clear blue eyes and see him smile, and never, ever, think of his awful, wretched brother again.

She rolled onto her back and wondered what Captain Mackenzie would do if he found an English woman hiding on his ship. Perhaps even in his cabin, as no one would think to look for her there. Would he return her to father? Or would he take her in his arms and kiss her and promise her a life of adventure? Wouldn’t that be very romantic?

Why couldn’t it have been him, the man who knew the names of stars and always had a smile for her? Why was it his awful brother? Why, God, why?

Avaline wished she could confess her true feelings to Bernadette about Captain Mackenzie, but that was impossible—Bernadette would force her to forget Captain Mackenzie. She would dog Avaline, and she would know when Avaline was thinking of him. Bernadette always seemed to recognize what Avaline would do before Avaline realized it herself.

She sighed wearily, feeling quite heavy of heart for her seventeen years. She could feel sleep creeping into her body, pushing her down into unconsciousness, and as she drifted away, she imagined sneaking onboard the Mackenzie ship, imagined what the captain’s private quarters must look like, and how comforting it would be to have all his things around her. She imagined the moment Captain Mackenzie entered the quarters and found her there...

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEY MEET EVERY afternoon and walk along the cliff above the cove, speaking of everything and nothing, laughing at secret jokes. Their fingers are entwined except in those moments when Rabbie leans down, picks up a rock and hurls it out to sea. Sometimes, he carries her on his back so that the hem of her arasaid will not get wet. Sometimes, they go down to the beach, and she picks up a stick and draws the shape of a heart with their initials.

They mean to be married. They don’t know when, and they have kept this promise to each other a secret. These are uncertain times—whispers of rebellion and treason seem to slip through the hills on every breeze.

On a particularly cool afternoon, Rabbie returns Seona to her family home and sees the horses there, still saddled. Inside, he hears the voices of men. Seona’s mother, a large woman with a welcoming smile, appears, but today she seems unusually fretful. As they walk past the room where Seona’s father and brothers are gathered, Rabbie sees the men who have come. Buchanan, Dinwiddie, MacLeary. All of them Jacobites, all of them known to conspire against the king. This is treacherous ground, and Rabbie glances at Seona. She doesn’t appear to notice the men. She is smiling, telling her mother about the ship they spotted passing along the coast with a flag of black and red. He doesn’t know if Seona understands what her father and brothers are about.

* * *

THE FOLLOWING TWO days after that interminable dinner, with singing so atrocious that Rabbie wished he was deaf, passed in a haze of restlessness. His thoughts kept going back to that evening and the moments he’d stood at the back of the music room, endeavoring—and failing—to grasp how he might possibly make a life with the lass.

Perhaps his father was right. Perhaps he ought to put her in at Killeaven and leave her there.

That dinner was intended to establish harmony between two families that would, in a matter of days, be forever tied by matrimony, but Rabbie couldn’t bear the thought of even bedding her. He’d escaped unnoticed from the music room, and had gone in search of drink stronger than wine.

His path had taken him to the kitchen. He’d heard voices as he approached, and figured the servants were cleaning up after the supper. He could hear Barabel’s deep voice instruct someone in Gaelic, “Have a care with the plate, lass. We’ve precious few of them now.”

He walked into the kitchen and just over the threshold, he froze. Barabel was instructing the MacLeod children. The lass glanced up at him and smiled. The lad scarcely made eye contact before turning back to his task of drying pots.

“Aye, Mr. Mackenzie, may I help you?” Barabel asked in Gaelic.

“Whisky,” he said, his voice rough with an emotion he hadn’t even realized he was holding.

Barabel disappeared into the adjoining storeroom to fetch it.

No one said a word. The two children stared at him, and Rabbie stared back. He didn’t know what to say to them, and at last, he spoke to them in Gaelic. Did they speak English? “I, ah... I knew your mother.”

The lad looked up at that admission.

“I donna remember her,” the girl announced in English. “Mrs. Maloney said I look very much like her. She was bonny and so am I.”

“Aye, she was, as are you,” Rabbie agreed. The lass—Fiona—must be five or six years old now. Ualan was nearly two when last Rabbie had seen him, and he guessed him to be seven or eight years now. “She loved you both,” he said.

Fiona smiled. The lad didn’t utter a word.

“I knew them all,” Rabbie said, and was embarrassed to hear his voice crack. “I even knew the two of you.”

Fiona’s eyes widened. “You did? I donna remember you.”

“You were a bairn, lass,” he said to her in English. “You played here at Balhaire, aye?”

The children stared at him. Perhaps they didn’t believe him. He began to perspire; he could feel a bead of it running down his back. As he gazed into those vaguely familiar faces, he could see Gavina and Seona’s eyes in the children. He could see the lad’s father in him, in his rust-colored hair, just like that of Donald MacLeod.

Barabel returned to the kitchen with a flagon. “Why do you stand idle?” she chastised the children as she handed Rabbie a flagon of whisky. “Finish your chores, the both of you,” she commanded.

Rabbie had glanced once more at the children before leaving. He was disquieted by their presence. What was to happen to them? Perhaps he didn’t want to know—to know would require some action on his part, at the very least, some thought or feeling. He couldn’t summon the strength for it that evening.

He’d taken the flagon to the top of the fortress tower, and there he had crouched on the parapet, drinking to numb the hopelessness in him. He’d absently viewed the bailey below—quite a fall that would be—but he didn’t think of jumping.

At least not that night.

No, he’d found himself instead thinking first of those orphaned children, and then of the woman with the dark hair and hazel eyes and deep red gown. Or rather, he’d thought of the way she’d glared at him. With disdain. As if she had the right to disdain him. Somehow, the maid and the children became tangled in his muddied thoughts. He was angry that she could possibly find fault with him when there were two children working in the scullery because of the English forces.

The cold eventually sent him inside, long after that haughty little Sassenach had left Balhaire, long after the candles had been extinguished and everyone had gone to bed. And then he’d tried to sleep.

It was impossible.

It puzzled him—how could a man desire sleep so utterly above all else, and yet be unable to achieve it? But between his perpetual anguish and the hazel eyes burning their disdain into his mind’s eye, he’d slept very little. Frankly, he wasn’t certain if he’d slept at all in the last two days.

And now had come the day he’d be forced to take the chit riding.

Why did women believe it such a bonny pastime to amble aimlessly about the countryside? Even when he was in good spirits he chafed at the futility of such exercise. And, naturally, his family distrusted him so completely that Catriona had once again been dispatched to chaperone him. She was leading the charge, and she determined a picnic was the thing. She’d asked Barabel to prepare a basket for them. A picnic!

“It’s a bonny day,” she’d said when Rabbie had complained. “She will like it.”

Rabbie didn’t picnic.

Aye, but he’d resigned himself to it. Even his father had lost patience with Rabbie’s surly apathy, chastising him this morning for having left the room the other night without bidding their guests good-night.

Truthfully, Rabbie had lost patience with himself. It wasn’t as if he enjoyed his state of mind, but it was beyond his ability to affect. He struggled to shepherd his thoughts in a brighter direction. He couldn’t seem to move them at all. It was as if a boulder had been placed before him, and until he could push it away, he was destined to stand still. No matter what he did, no matter how he prayed or swore that this day would be different, he could not move that boulder of melancholy. It grew bigger and heavier every day.

And today was no different.

He was to meet Catriona on the road. She’d gone to call on their father’s cousin, whom they called Auntie Griselda. Quite unfortunately, she was failing. Catriona was especially close to Zelda, and visited her every day. While he restlessly waited, his thoughts spinning, Rabbie had ridden to the cliff above the cove. Now, here he stood, his toes just over the edge.

The tide was out, and from his vantage point he could see how the color of the water below him changed from green to dark blue where it deepened. If he leaped, spread his arms, he would sail out far enough to land in that hole. If he weighted his pockets with rocks, he would sink so far below the surface they might never find him.

He would disappear, like Seona, never to be heard from again.

The task of picking up rocks seemed too complicated and tiring.

Rabbie sighed, then wondered after the time. It was morning yet, the sun not fully overhead. Catriona would be furious with him if he was late. Not that Rabbie cared. He almost welcomed her fury—it served to test the boundaries of his desolation. He longed for something that would force him to feel anything other than rage, or despair, or the worst—absolutely nothing.

His only saving grace, he supposed, was that he did not want to find that thing at the expense of his family. He had told himself that his sole task today, the one thing he must accomplish, was to ride with the English lass to Auchenard, a hunting lodge that belonged to Daisy’s young son, Lord Chatwick. It had been entrusted to Rabbie to keep in good repair until Ellis had reached his majority. It was scenic, Catriona said. The girl would like it, Catriona said.

A wind suddenly gusted up from the cove, pushing him, lifting the hem of his cloak and his hair, which he hadn’t bothered to put in a queue. Rabbie quickly stepped back from the edge, his heart pounding with the abrupt surprise of that gust. And yet, wasn’t that what he’d wanted? For a gust of wind to topple him from this ledge?

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