Page 84 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
“No,” he said, and lifted his chin, where a few hairs had sprouted. This, she’d noted in the course of that very long meal she’d endure in his company at Balhaire. “I was having a bit of a stroll and happened to see you here. You should be in your cabin. It’s not safe to be about in the dark. No one would know if you fell overboard.”
“I won’t fall overboard, and you are not my father,” Avaline said haughtily.
“No, but I am the one seeing you safely to England,” he said with great authority.
As if he could see her safely anywhere. He was taller than her by a very few inches and as thin as a sapling. He couldn’t protect her from as much as a headwind.
“Fine,” she snapped. “I prefer the company of my mother retching into a bucket than a boy scarcely out of his mother’s arms.” She stepped around him and marched on.
Naturally, Lord Chatwick fell in beside her. “You’d not speak to me in that manner if I had reached my majority. Perhaps you are unaware of all that comes with my title.”
“I hardly care.”
“You are not in a position to be rude, Miss Kent.”
She rolled her eyes and tried to hurry her step, but Lord Chatwick kept pace with her.
“I will be a great man one day, and you will regret treating me ill.”
“I will regret nothing,” Avaline said sharply.
“Nothing?” he asked.
Avaline’s stomach dipped. They had reached the door to her cabin. She glared at the young man. “I beg you, my lord—please leave me be. I know you hold me in some esteem, but I do not return it.” She went in through the door and shut it firmly, then sighed with relief. She wouldnotleave her cabin, not for a moment. She’d not have that young and boastful pup following after her.
Her fierce resolve in this decision was shattered like fine crystal not two days later when her mother explained to her they would be traveling on to Chatwick Hall with the Mackenzies for a time.
“Butwhy?” Avaline demanded. “I want to go home!”
“Yes, well, your father does not want you home, not as yet. He is quite well bruised from your behavior. And Mrs. Mackenzie has very graciously offered us a place to reside until such time cooler heads prevail.”
Avaline felt as if her entire world had collapsed in on her. Only a few short weeks ago, she was to be married. Now she was a pariah, forced to live under the roof of a boy who thought himself superior to her in every way. And worse, he had witnessed her complete humiliation. She would never survive it.Never.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
EVERYONEHADLEFTKILLEAVEN,save Charles and Bernadette, two stable hands and Ina, who had stayed on to help with the cooking and cleaning. They had very little to occupy them now that the furnishings had been moved and the horses sold or returned to the seller. Niall MacDonald had come round and told them a ship would arrive in a day or so and ferry them back to England. “A MacDonald ship,” he’d said. “Cousins of mine, then.”
All they had left to do was wait.
Bernadette moved like the dead through each day, wandering listlessly from room to room. She could think of little else other than Rabbie, of how he’d felt inside her, of how she’d felt when he’d held her. She thought of the things he said, of how his words had spilled into her heart. She loved him, and realizing that she did made it all the more painful. She wished she could turn back time. She wished she’d never taken a walk that day and seen him standing on the edge of the cliff.
What was he doing since she’d fled Arrandale? Did he mourn her? Hate her? Every sound, every jangle of a horse’s bridle, she thought was him. Part of her hoped he would come to her. Part of her hoped she never saw him again so she’d be spared the agony. All of her wished she could lie down and sleep for all eternity, and wake up with no memory of what had happened here.
Two days after Lady Kent and Avaline had departed, she heard a horse on the drive and her heart skipped. She was certain it was Rabbie—who else could it be? There was no one left to come to Killeaven. She threw aside the linens she was packing away in a trunk and ran to the door, her heart thudding with relief and anxiety at once. She threw open the door—
It was not Rabbie who had come up the drive, but two men, one of whom she’d seen before, on the path by the sea. Their coats were caked with the dirt of the road, their uncombed hair tied in queues. They came down off their mounts and sauntered forward, taking in the house and peering curiously at her.
Bernadette was relieved when she felt Charles at her back. “Yes, my lords?” he said, stepping around her as he walked out to greet them.
“Who might you be, then?” one of them asked.
“Charles Farrington, sir. I am the caretaker here.”
“No’ for long, lad. No’ for long,” the other one said, and chuckled darkly as he walked past Charles, brushed past Bernadette and carried on into the house, as if he was master here.
“I beg your pardon,” Charles said gruffly to the other man, who appeared twenty years older than the first. “Who are you?
“Bhaltair Buchanan,” he said, and bowed with an exaggerated flourish before rising up. His gaze raked over Charles. “You’re a wee bit lean for a caretaker in these parts if you ask me.”
