Page 82 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
“Well, yes,” she said as she adjusted her hat. “Yesterday must have been rather an ordeal for you.”
“Yesterday was a release from my chains,” he said.
Daisy smiled, but young Ellis frowned mightily at his remark. “It wasn’t Miss Kent’s fault,” he said. “It’s her father who is to blame.”
“Aye, that he is,” Rabbie agreed, and motioned for them to come inside.
“Ellis is right,” Daisy said as she removed her gloves in his great room. “I do worry for Miss Kent.”
“I understand that Kent and his brother mean to depart immediately, without his wife and daughter,” Rabbie said. “I offered that perhaps you’d see Lady Kent and Avaline safely to England, aye?”
“Oh,” Daisy said, and glanced at her husband. “Who has said they are to leave?” she asked curiously.
Rabbie had spoken without thought—he’d given a bit of his secret away, and turned to the sideboard, hoping no one noticed his flush. “Miss Holly,” he said. “She came round to inquire on their behalf.”
“Aye, we will,” Cailean said. “I’ll send Niall around on the morrow to offer.”
“I have thought quite a lot about her,” Daisy said quite casually.
“Who?” Cailean asked.
“Miss Holly.”
Rabbie turned around from the sideboard. “Aye, and why is that?” he asked carefully, his gaze on the window, afraid that he might reveal himself yet.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Daisy said. “I suppose I was rather unkind about her yesterday, but in thinking about it, I’ve recalled the talk about her elopement.”
Rabbie was not surprised. He guessed that news had spread through northern England when it happened. Certainly that would have happened in the Highlands had she been a Scot.
“They say she and her new husband were caught by her father’s men right after they supposedly took their vows. The marriage was annulled straightaway,” Daisy said softly, her gaze on Ellis as he wandered about the room. “How awful that must have been for her.”
“Aye,” Cailean agreed.
Ellis moved away from them, apparently uninterested in the gossip. With his hands at his back, he wandered to the far end of the great room to examine a claymore Cailean had placed on a wall when he’d built Arrandale. It had belonged to their grandfather.
“You said there was a bairn,” Rabbie said, his gaze fixed on Ellis. He couldn’t look at Daisy, couldn’t let her see the rush of emotions that were suddenly churning in him. “What happened to it?”
“I don’t know,” Daisy said. “Her father is very wealthy, you know. He makes iron. I remember there was some speculation...”
“Look, Pappa,” Ellis said, standing next to the claymore. “It’s as tall as me.”
“Aye, that belonged to ourseanair,our grandfather,” Cailean said, and walked across the room to have a look with Ellis.
“What speculation?” Rabbie asked Daisy. “That she abandoned it?” It was the only thing that made sense to him, the only reason she might be in Scotland with a young mistress instead of with her child.
“No...that she lost it,” Daisy whispered.
Rabbie’s gut plummeted.
“Mamma, you must come and look!” Ellis said excitedly.
“What is it, a sword?” Daisy asked, moving in that direction.
Rabbie remained rooted. He was filled with sorrow for Bernadette. He could understand why she’d not told him this part of her story, too. Was that it, then, the thing that kept her from agreeing that they ought to be together? Did she have some macabre need to be near the bairn’s grave? He realized that he didn’t care what scandals she’d been involved in. He didn’t care if she’d loved before. It hurt him that she’d lost a bairn, but it didn’t change his opinion of her in the least. After all that he’d endured, there was nothing Bernadette could do or say or admit to him now that would persuade him against loving her.
Nothing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
