Page 78 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
“Niall has said the Buchanans have kept a close eye on Killeaven. I suspect they might put a son forth to offer, aye?” Rabbie said. “It would put them in direct competition for grazing land with us, would it no’, and with a wee bit of help from Kent, they’ll put a ship to sea.”
“Oh, dear,” said his mother. “That does not bode well for us.”
“No,” the laird agreed. “We’ll manage, we will. Mackenzies have survived the worst of times, have we no’?”
Rabbie wished he could be as confident as his father was in that belief.
“Rabbie?” his mother said. “We’ve not inquired after you, darling. How are you, given all that’s happened this evening?”
“Relieved,” he said.
“As are we all,” Aulay muttered.
Rabbie couldn’t say more than that, not yet. But in truth, he was elated. A great burden had been lifted from him, and he’d not realized just how heavy that weight had been until he’d been freed of it.
“How did she ever believe thatAulay, of all people, held her in some esteem?” Catriona asked, shaking her head.
“What do you mean, then, ofallpeople,” Aulay asked laughingly. “Och,I donna know, lass. She’s as barmy as a bird.”
“Well, I’m relieved for you, Rabbie,” Daisy said. “I should hate to think of you attached to that family. To think they’ve employed someone of Miss Holly’s reputation to attend her. There is something quite pedestrian about them.”
“Miss Holly?” Cailean asked, confused.
Aulay, Rabbie noticed, was peering at him.
“Oh, pay me no mind,” Daisy said, and waved her hand. “She was involved in a bit of scandal a few years ago. It was a long time ago—I should not have mentioned it.”
“Good riddance to theSassenach,” Catriona said, and lifted her glass. “To the Mackenzies. To our good health, to Balhaire.”
“To the Mackenzies!” they all said in unison, lifting their glasses in toast.
They fell into conversation about how soon Aulay might sail, how soon before Cailean, Daisy, Ellis and wee Georgina would return to Chatwick Hall.
Avaline Kent would be erased from their memory in the coming weeks, and they would congratulate themselves on somehow having avoided that wretched union. They would determine a new path to save their clan and deal with the Buchanans, perhaps a harder one when it was all said and done, but the laird was right—their lives would go on.
But Rabbie? He had only one thought: Bernadette.
* * *
ATDAWNTHEfollowing day, Rabbie left Balhaire. He intended to return to Arrandale, to think about what he would do about Bernadette now that the wedding had ended, but at the last moment, he turned toward the sea, drawn by a feeling. At the cliff—hiscliff, where he’d contemplated leaping to his death only a fortnight ago—he sat under an oak and waited.
The sun continued its steady rise, and he had no idea how much time had passed. Long enough that his belly growled with hunger. Long enough that he removed his cloak, the sun’s warmth making itself known. Rabbie was about to concede his intuition had been wrong, and stood up and brushed off his clothing. That’s when he saw her. She was walking up the path, her head down, her arms swinging, her stride long, the clomping sound of her too-large boots reaching him.
She suddenly paused midstride and looked up, almost as if she’d sensed him there. They stared at each other across that distance, and it felt to him as if a river of understanding flowed between them—relief. Joy.Desire.
And then she was running toward him. He ran, too, catching her up in his arms, burying his face in her neck, breathing in her scent, kissing her. He set her down, cupped her head in his hands. “Come. We’ll talk at Arrandale, aye?”
For once, she didn’t argue. She slipped her hand into his, and ran up the path with him.
He pushed his horse to run hard, and they arrived at Arrandale in half the time it should have taken. He helped Bernadette down from the mount.
“Your servants,” she said, uncertainly.
“They’ll be gone from their morning chores, to Auchenard now. They’ll no’ return before the afternoon,” he said, and with his hand on the small of her back, he hurried her inside.
Inside, Bernadette looked around her with an expression of someone who expected to find an unwelcome surprise.
“Are you all right,leannan?” he asked. “No harm has come to you, aye?”
