Page 44 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
She was surprised to see a few furnishings still within when she stepped inside. A table, broken in half, lay on its side. An armchair was turned upside down and was missing two legs. A small stool had been tossed into a corner, and a wooden chandelier lay in ruin where it had fallen. The room was covered in leaves and debris that had come in through the hole in the ceiling.
Bernadette did not need to be told who had lived in this modest house, but nonetheless, Mackenzie said, “This is where Seona lived.”
He walked across the main room, kicking a tree branch out of his path on his way to the broken windows that provided a view of the glen. Bernadette slowly followed him, taking it all in. There were marks on the wall here, too, she noted, the same as those at Killeaven—the evidence that swords and guns had been used in this house.
Near a door leading into another room was a large brown stain. She stared down at it, uncertain what it was.
“Blood,” Mackenzie said.
She glanced up; he’d turned from the window, was watching her study the stain, his expression blank.
“Aye, it’s blood.”
Blood?But it was such a big stain, spreading across half the floor. And there was another stain across the room. Pools of blood, a swath of it, too, as if someone had been dragged...
Bernadette felt sick to her stomach. She swallowed down a sharp swell of nausea. His fiancée had not merely boarded a ship bound for America as she’d imagined, her portmanteau in hand, perhaps a smart new cloak for the journey. Something awful had happened here, and the tragedy was curling in Bernadette’s belly. She unthinkingly reached out, trying to find the wall to steady her.
“Easy,” Mackenzie said softly. He was suddenly beside her, taking her hand, then his arm went around her back as he pulled her into his side before her knees buckled beneath her. “Come outside,” he said, and led her out of the house.
Bernadette felt clammy and cold, and worse, so very sad. She must have been shivering, as Mackenzie shrugged out of his coat and put it around her. She buried her face in it, ashamed to have lost her composure. The cloak spelled of spice and horse. A man’s scent.
“Sit,” he said, and helped her to sit on a bench outside the home and sat next to her.
She wanted to tell him she understood his devastation, that she knew something about how deep and how soul-searing that sort of loss could go. But she couldn’t speak, and groped for his hand, squeezing it.
“Are you all right?” he asked, sounding a bit alarmed.
She shook her head and glanced up at him. All that coldness she’d seen in his eyes wasn’t the disdain she’d been so certain of—it was pain. She should have recognized it, she should have seen what had once been in her, wasstillin her. Bernadette wanted to convey all these things to him, to apologize again for having judged him, to tell him she understood more than he could ever know, but she was lost in an emotional storm.
She touched his face.
He flinched.
She slid her arm around his neck and pulled him to her and his coat fell away from her shoulders. “I’m so very sorry for your loss,” she said. She meant only to hug him, but as she drew him closer, Bernadette was kissing him. Softly. Tenderly. With all the grief she was feeling for them both.
He shifted as if he meant to pull away, but he didn’t. He sat stiffly, and allowed her to kiss him, allowed her to press closer, to stroke his hair. But then he touched her, his hand on her arm, sliding down to her hip. And Bernadette was sinking into him, teasing him with her tongue.
He sighed and moved his mouth to her neck. Bernadette came completely undone—everything in her ignited, tiny flames flaring under her skin where he touched her. She shifted closer, sank her fingers into his hair, her body filled with anticipation. It had been a very long time since she’d felt so full of need, to be held, to be loved. That need was roaring inside, and she felt...panicky. She realized what she was doing, and hysteria began to rise up in her. She suddenly swayed away from him and gasped for breath.
He instantly stood up, took several steps away from the bench, his hands laced behind his head.
“I beg your pardon,” she said instantly. God,whatwas she thinking? She stood, too, and clasped her arms tightly across her middle. “I should not have... I meant only...” She shook her head—excuses were unnecessary and insulting. She tried to put herself in his shoes once again. “Was it only her and her brothers?” she asked, her voice damnably weak.
“Her mother. Two sisters. Her brothers didna return from Culloden.” He made a sound of disgust and shook his head. “And still we all believed that would be the end of it. But it wasna the end, it was only the beginning, aye? They hanged her father.”
“It’s the worst sort of tragedy.”
His gaze was fixed on something in the distance. “Everyone fled afterward. The MacBees, all of them, fled the Highlands. Her sister’s children were wee bairns then—Fiona no’ a year old. They sent them to a distant cousin for safekeeping. They never saw their family again.” He looked back at her, his dark eyes full of anger. “Perhaps now you understand why I’m no’ pleased to marry an English lass with no sense in her head, aye?” he said, fluttering his fingers at his head. “Why it galls me to have to do it.”
Bernadette wanted to defend Avaline, but how could she? He was right—Avaline could never cope with the magnitude of this tragedy. She was too soft, too sheltered. She didn’t even know the full truth about Bernadette—how could she ever understand the grief that raged in her would-be husband?
“I shouldna have brought you here,” he said.
“No, you should have. I’ve been so wrong—”
“Aye, now you know,” he said brusquely. He picked up his coat and donned it. “Come. I’ll return you to Killeaven.” He strode away from her, not looking back to see if she followed, clearly eager to be gone from this morbid reminder.
He tossed her up onto his horse as he had before, then put himself behind her.
