Page 68 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
Rabbie nodded, having no desire to antagonize Aulay any more than he’d already done. At least his secret was safe for the time being, until he could think what to do.
He followed Aulay into the great hall, where both families were gathered.
“There he is, our boy!” Lord Kent said loudly, and stood, swaying a bit on his feet and sloshing a tankard in Rabbie’s direction. “We thought perhaps you’d run away,” he said jovially. “God knows I wanted to escape before I was wed,” he added, and he and his brother laughed loudly.
Lady Kent sat quietly, her hands in her lap, her face blank.
“My apologies,” Rabbie said. “There was a matter I’d left unattended.” He couldn’t help but notice the glower his father exchanged with his mother. They clearly did not care for the Kents. And they most assuredly did not care for Rabbie’s behavior.
Miss Kent came to her feet and dipped a curtsy to him. “Good evening, Mr. Mackenzie.” She glanced away, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him, but then cast a sunny smile at Aulay.
Rabbie’s father gestured for him to come forward, and Rabbie steadied himself. He walked to the dais and took a seat next to him.
“Where have you been?” his father asked curtly.
“I needed a wee bit of air,” Rabbie said.
His father leveled a look at him that clearly relayed his doubts. “Donna disappear again.”
Frang appeared, stepped behind the dais and whispered something in his mother’s ear. “At last,” she muttered and stood. “I beg your pardon, if I may? Supper is served.” She smiled and gestured toward the table set in the middle of the great hall. As everyone turned toward the table, she passed Rabbie with a dark look.
The two families dined in the great hall. Rabbie sat across from Avaline, who was seated between Catriona and Ellis. When she wasn’t whispering with Catriona, the two of them like a pair of wee thieves, Ellis engaged her with animated speech.
That suited Rabbie very well, for he was in no mood to speak with her. He could scarcely look at her—his heart and his thoughts were with Bernadette.
He couldn’t fathom how everything had happened so quickly, or even why it had. She’d despised him at first, and he’d been annoyed by her arrogance. But something had changed. It had started as an ember, had flamed with the wind off the sea at the cliff. He and Bernadette had just caught fire, that was what.
Lord Kent startled him with a loud guffaw, and Rabbie glanced in his direction. He was a man enslaved to drink. Rabbie had yet to pass an evening in his acquaintance when he did not fall into his cups, and his brother was no better. He glanced down at his meal, scarcely touched, his appetite consumed with thoughts of making love to Bernadette.
“By theby,”Lord Kent said loudly, and brought his whisky glass down on the table with a thud. He leaned forward to see down the table, and the tails of his lacy neck cloth dragged in the gravy on his plate. “With the help of my friend Buchanan, I’ve struck a bargain with the old man MacGregor. He’s agreed to a fair price for the land between our estates, my lord. Who, then, will build me a ship?”
Rabbie glanced at his father, but the laird’s expression was stoic. “What sort of ship would you like, then, my lord?”
“The same as you have,” he said, waving a beefy hand. “I like what you do here, Mackenzie. I rather think I ought to do the same.”
“What I do?” his father said, and smiled coldly. “Do you mean head a clan? Keep my people well fed and with occupation?”
“No,no,” he said irritably. “Thetrade,sir. Seems like a good venture to me. Wool is a dear commodity, and I intend to sell it by the ship-full in England.” He slapped his hand on the table and laughed loudly, as if the idea was so brilliant, so unique.
“Well, then, I donna know,” his father said evenly. “The MacDonalds were shipbuilders,” he said, nodding in Niall’s direction. “Alas they’ve been chased off of Skye.”
“Where’d they go?” Kent asked, leaning again, his neck cloth in the gravy again. “They can’t have gone far.” He looked at Niall.
“I canna rightly say,” the young man said, and shrugged. “Glasgow?”
Lord Kent snorted. “I’ll find someone who is willing to build me a ship, here, in the Highlands. You might even sail it, Mackenzie. You or one of your sons.”
“Perhaps,” his father said, and lifted his tot of whisky. “Frang, pour Lord Kent the Erbusaig whisky, aye? He’s no’ had the likes of it.”
“Yes, yes, let’s have some of that,” Lord Kent said greedily.
Rabbie’s father narrowed his eyes and fixed them menacingly on Kent. If Rabbie didn’t know his father, he would fear for Kent’s safety.
When the meal was done, the two families moved to the more intimate salon where Rabbie prayed his fiancée would not be commanded to sing. He was tormented enough as it was. Avaline had engaged Aulay in a corner. She was very animated, her countenance bright. Aulay looked as if he was fighting sleep.
He had to marry her. Was it not quite clear that he did? Kent had struck an agreement to buy the land that would give him access to the sea. At the very least, Rabbie had to marry the lass to control what Kent intended to do, or how the Buchanans meant to use him. If he was the man’s son-in-law, the Mackenzies might manage to balance his desire to sell wool with their own trade, might keep his flocks to the barest minimum so as not to lose their own limited grazing fields.
Rabbie had no choice.
