Page 71 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
They were all watching him, and Rabbie had that uncomfortable feeling that his family had discussed this without him, much as they had his melancholy. They knew him better than anyone, and they would know if he deceived them now. He looked around him, at their faces. “My heart doesna want it, no,” he admitted.
“Then donna—” his father began, but his mother interrupted him.
“Then don’twhat, Arran?” she demanded. “It’s toolate. It’s all too late! The banns have been posted. We have set this marriage in motion, and to end it now would beruinousto that young woman!”
“Why must we care about her?” Aulay grumbled.
“Because she is helpless in this, Aulay. Because we will live on, but her life will be ruined—”
“I mean to wed,Maither,” Rabbie said, aware that his father was shrewdly watching him. “I am no’ happy with her, no, but I will find a way.”
His mother’s face fell. She sank onto a chair. “Oh, Rabbie. This is our fault, your father and I—we should never have asked this of you. No, it’s even worse than that—it’smyfault,” she said, pressing both hands to her bosom. “I thought—Ihoped—that this young woman would bring you back to us, pull you back from such despair.”
How could she have believed that Avaline Kent would ever make up for the loss of Seona? And now she was to make up for the loss of Bernadette as well? Rabbie swallowed down his bitterness. “Donna blame yourself,Maither. I should no’ have agreed, then,” he said, and turned away, unable to look at them all now. Unable to bear their pity. Determined that no one would see how his heart was beginning to shatter.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
AVALINEDIDNOTwake Bernadette as she’d promised when they returned to Killeaven. She didn’t want company tonight, fearful that any conversation would cause her to forget all the things she wanted to remember about Aulay.
As she dressed for bed and brushed her hair, she reviewed everything Aulay had said. Every smile. Every glance in her direction. She was utterly convinced that he esteemed her in the same manner she esteemed him. She was also utterly convinced that the only reason he hadn’t told her so was out of the respect he felt for his brother and, of course, the untenable situation in which they found themselves. Aulay was a gentleman and a loyal brother and a moral man. It would not do to declare his adoration of the woman his brother was supposed to wed in only two days’ time.
In fact, when they were standing in the corner, away from all the ears and prying eyes, Avaline had glanced over her shoulder at the others and said, “Oh, Aulay, how I wish we could surprise them all.”
“Surprise who, then?” Aulay had asked her.
“Our families,” Avaline said and gave him a knowing look to convey she understood his dilemma. “I should very much like tosurprisethem, wouldn’t you?”
Aulay sipped from the wine he was holding as he considered her. “Surprise them how?”
She looked him directly in the eye and said, “With a wedding they never expected.”
Aulay smiled and idly looked away as he nodded. “Is there something in particular you have in mind?”
“Yes, actually,” she said as saucily as she knew how, and leaned in to tell him...but at that very inopportune moment, who should appear but her betrothed. His appearance had been unfortunate indeed, and she’d been quite perturbed by it. He hadn’t even had the common courtesy of allowing her and Aulay to finish their conversation. And she’d lost her opportunity to sit beside Aulay at the dining table because of that wretched Lord Chatwick.
She knew Lord Chatwick requested thathebe seated next to her—she’d overheard the butler tell a footman. What bother that boy was, whether he wished to believe it or not. She didn’t care that he’d soon be seventeen as he’d pointed out to her. Shewasseventeen,and she had to point out tohimthat clearly made her superior in age and in life. But the boy was so obtuse he didn’t seem to understand at all, because he followed that with inviting her to Chatwick Hall.
“It’s one of the largest homes in all of northern England,” he’d boasted, as if she wasn’t aware.
“Iknow,” Avaline said pointedly.
“Do you enjoy riding?” he continued eagerly. “We have a stable full of horses. Or perhaps you prefer archery? We have everything at Chatwick Hall.”
“I enjoyallthose things,” she assured him, as if he was a child. She tried to turn her attention back to Catriona, but Chatwick kept interrupting. He could teach her to shoot, he said, or to hunt, he said. He said his Pappa taught him to hunt, and he’d nodded at Mr. Cailean Mackenzie, who was most certainlynotLord Chatwick’s father, everyone knew that, and then he’d mentioned they had the best hunting dogs in all of England.
Did he really think she cared a whit about dogs? When she married Aulay, she would have to insist that dogs did not roam the house freely as they did at Balhaire. It seemed she was forever bumping into one, or nearly tripping over another. There were far too many of them, and they touched their wet snouts to her fine gowns, and she didn’t care for it at all.
But never mind Chatwick. They were all to dine again on the morrow, here at Killeaven, and she had to find a way to speak to Aulay of her feelings, as she was running out of time. She was certain she could convince him that everything was really perfectly aligned for them. The wedding was set, and Avaline believed it hardly mattered if one Mackenzie married in the place of another. The posting of the banns was really just for show, wasn’t it? And if not, there was surely something that could be done for it. Her father always said that everyone had their price.
Avaline drifted to sleep with the image of meeting Aulay Mackenzie at the altar.
She was awakened early the next morning by Bernadette, who shook her awake. Avaline blinked the sleep from her eyes then looked up, and almost gasped with surprise. Bernadette looked trulyawful. “Good Lord, you really are unwell,” she said.
“What?” Bernadette asked. She touched her face. “I didn’t sleep well.”
Well, Avaline had slept like a baby and she stretched her arms high overhead. “What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock.”
