Page 30 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
“Do not disappoint me in this. If you cannot bring that girl around, I will send you back to your father. You’ll not like that, will you?” He smirked, fully aware what that would mean for her. Bernadette’s father would just as soon send her to a convent than keep her under his roof.
She turned away from Lord Kent before she said something she would sorely regret.
How ironic, she thought as she fled the study. She thought she’d despised Avaline’s Scotsman, but her disgust for him came nowhere near what she was feeling for his lordship at the moment.
* * *
BERNADETTESPENTAsleepless night, her mind whirling with ideas. She was determined to find a way out of this for Avaline. She decided she didn’t care if Lord Kent sent her back to Highfield—life under her father’s roof couldn’t be any worse than Kent’s employ. She was indignant, enraged, and felt so impotent that Avaline was the sacrificial lamb.
After a lot of tossing and turning, an idea did occur to her. It wouldn’t be easy, but if Avaline cried off from her engagement—publicly, and for good reason—there was nothing her father could do. He would be angry with her, certainly—but he could not force her to marry Mackenzie if her grievance was made public—not legally, not morally. His power over his daughter existed in the privacy of this family’s affairs.
Convincing Avaline would be the hard part. She was an obedient and fearful young woman. But Bernadette was determined, if for no other reason than to best Lord Kent and his grand plans that so callously disregarded the well-being of his only child.
Or, perhaps it was far more personal than she was willing to admit, even to herself. The anger in Bernadette for what had happened to her still burned. Her father’s disregard for her feelings had been almost as painful as losing the baby she’d carried. Her father had said such vile things, had called her such horrible names, had said she was a whore, selling her body to any man who would pay.
Bernadette’s only crime had been to fall in love with the son of a shopkeeper. Unfortunately, that occupation was not what her father had in mind. Her father had become rich from making iron, and he saw Bernadette and her sister, Nan, as his entry into a higher level of society—not an inferior one. Bernadette’s crime was eloping with the man she wanted to spend her life with. And after they were caught and Albert disappeared, Bernadette’s ultimate crime had been discovering that she’d carried Albert’s child. Her bastard child, really, since her father had forced the annulment of her marriage.
The pregnancy did not soften her father’s heart; if anything it only gave him more reason to despise Bernadette. She’d been made a pariah, even among her own family, and then she’d lost the baby, and had almost lost her own life.
Her feelings has been disregarded, but Bernadette was determined that Avaline’s feelings would be heard and properly addressed.
The next morning, she walked into Avaline’s room without knocking. The girl was buried under a mound of coverlet and linens, and when Bernadette shook her leg, her head popped up from between a pair of pillows. She blinked the sleep away, then glared at Bernadette. “Go away. I don’t want to see anyone.” She fell facedown into the pillows.
“You’ve had an entire evening of self-pity, darling. Now is the time we must think what to do,” Bernadette said, and walked across the room to throw the windows open wide.
Avaline slowly pushed up. “Do?”
“Yes,do,” Bernadette said, and returned to the bed. “Your effort to be pleasing and courteous has not worked to garner any affection from...him,” she said. “Everything we’ve done thus far has only made you unhappy.”
“Hemakes me unhappy, and there is nothing to be done for it!” Avaline buried her face in the pillow again.
“Avaline,” Bernadette said. “Listen to me. You hate him, you said so yourself. There is nothing we’ve seen thus far that recommends him in any way, isn’t that so?”
Avaline snorted.“Nothing,”she agreed.
“So...if he is truly reprehensible to you, you might still cry off the engagement.”
Avaline slowly turned to look at Bernadette, her eyes filled with skepticism. “Father wouldneverallow it—”
“Your father cannot legally force you into a marriage you don’t want...particularly if Mackenzie did something that everyone would see as unacceptable.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t really know,” Bernadette admitted. “But I think we should go to Balhaire today and call on him. The more time we are in his company, the better the chances are that he will do or say something so egregious, that no one can deny you have reason to end your engagement. There is a caveat, however—you must end it publicly.”
“Publicly,” Avaline repeated cautiously, and sat up. “But I thought perhaps I might make him a gift.”
Honestly, sometimes Bernadette wondered if the girl had been born without a full complement of brains. She drew a steadying breath so she would not shout her question and asked, “Why would you give him a gift, dearest? He’s done nothing to deserve it, has he? That makes no sense.”
“I don’t know,” Avaline said. “Perhaps I’ve gone about it wrong. Perhaps I’ve been too timid. You’ve told me more than once I’m too timid, Bernadette.”
Patience, Lord, please grant me patience.“But this is a bit different, isn’t it? I want us to find an opportunity that would give you reason to cry off. Do you see?”
Avaline shook her head. “I don’t see how I might.”
“Because I am confident—entirelyconfident—that we can discover something about him so objectionable that you would be well justified to end the engagement. But we can’t possibly know what that is if we avoid him. We must go to Balhaire and engage him.”
“I’ll take a gift, then,” Avaline said.
