Page 32 of The Scot's Perfect Match
I’ll send more as it comes. In the meantime, keep your cousin cautious. Ferguson plays for his own amusement, not for hearts, and if she’s got a sizeable dowry, that will be what he’s after.
—Malcolm Gordon, Earl of Dunlyon
Gavan folded the letter slowly, as if the extra seconds might soften the jagged edge of confirmation. But it didn’t.
He’d wanted to be wrong. He realized that now. He’d wanted Ferguson to be nothing more than a careless flirt, a nuisance, not a danger. The rumors unsubstantiated. But Malcolm’s words had the ring of cold truth, and Gavan’s gut churned with vindication laced with fury.
He’d need to tell Moira. Gently. And Ava…
His jaw tightened.
Ava.
She’d been so quick to dismiss him, to laugh off his warnings as nothing more than brooding. Would she dismiss proof, too?
The memory the shaded rose path, the impossible closeness of her, flashed sharp and uninvited. Her parasol poised like a shield, her voice cool but not as steady as she wanted him to think. That stubborn tilt of her chin when he’d accused her of meddling.
And the space between them, thin as a breath.
He exhaled hard, swiping a hand down his face. He needed to clear his head. Sitting in this study, surrounded by ledgers and letters, would only drive him deeper into the spiral she seemed so adept at pulling him into.
A ride. That was what he needed. Fresh air. Distance.
He saddled his horse himself and guided the animal out into the crisp Highland morning. The sun broke over the hills, turning the dew to silver, and the air smelled of wet grass and woodsmoke. He rode hard at first, as if the speed could drown out the clamor in his thoughts.
It didn’t.
No matter how far he galloped, her voice lingered. That quiet question she’d asked him on the rose path, Why do you care so much? echoed like a drumbeat.
He didn’t have a simple answer. Not one he could give her, even if she’d asked again. Because her question wasn’t just so much about Moira, as it was about Ava herself.
He only slowed when the land began to change, the familiar hedgerows giving way to the manicured approach of Heatherfield Castle.
Gavan swore under his breath. Riding without thinking, he’d unconsciously steered his mount toward her home.
Ava’s family estate loomed ahead, sun catching on the stone, the grounds as carefully arranged as they’d been since he was a child, visiting the grand landscape with his parents.
He should turn back. Instead, he pressed his knees to the horse’s flanks and rode on. He slowed his horse as the path curved, the crunch of gravel under hooves giving way to the softer thud of packed earth. That was when he saw her.
Ava rode a chestnut mare, her sea green habit blending in with the moors. Her bonnet ribbons fluttered in the breeze, curls escaping at her temples, and for a moment she looked less like the calculating matchmaker who orchestrated romantic connections and more like the lass he used to know, wild, laughing, racing him across these same hills on summer afternoons when neither of them had been weighed down by duty.
A memory struck him like a blow. Ava at sixteen, chin tipped up in defiance, calling over her shoulder, Ye’ll have to try harder than that, Gavan! before leaving him in a spray of dirt and laughter.
His chest tightened. He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to see her like that, wild and carefree.
Now, she reined her mare to a gentle stop as she spotted him, surprise flashing across her face. “Lord Darkwood,” she called, voice smooth as cream but with the faintest lilt of question. “To what do I owe this… unexpected visit?”
He inclined his head, trying to tamp down the strange collision of memory with the present. “I was out for a ride.” His tone was neutral, but his grip on the reins was not. “Didna realize I’d be trespassing.”
“Ye’re hardly trespassing,” she said lightly, though her gaze narrowed, assessing him. “But I admit, I did no’ picture ye as the sort to take a morning ride without purpose.”
Gavan shifted in the saddle, eyes flicking to the letter tucked into his coat pocket. Malcolm’s words weighed on him like stones. He charms, he spends, he disappears. He could hand her the truth now. Lay it bare. But something in her expression, the openness of her face, flushed from the ride, made him hesitate.
Would she even believe him? Or would she think it just another attempt to undermine her plans?
“Ye used to be better company on a horse,” Ava said, drawing his attention back to her. Her lips curved into a faint, teasing smile. “Quieter, aye. But ye at least raced me.”
The memories of those races flooded through him. The way her laughter had echoed amid the blur of the Highland hills. The way his pulse had raced faster than the horse beneath him as he gave chase.
