Hard-Hearted Highlander. Julia London
responded with few words in a tone so low and silky that Bernadette suppressed a small but surprising little shiver. Barabel disappeared once more, and he sidled up to the table, staring down at her plate. He picked up a piece of chicken and ate it.
Well, then. She could add ungentlemanly to her growing list of dislikes about him.
“Have you had your fill, then?”
The beast spoke after all. No, she hadn’t had her fill, and yes, she was still hungry. But she resisted the urge to look longingly at her food. “Yes. Thank you.”
He ate another bite, then folded his arms across his chest and turned away from her a moment. Then back again, those dark eyes piercing hers again. “Is it the custom in England for a servant to invade the kitchen of another man’s house?”
Invade? He made it sound as if she’d entered with an army demanding bread. “Not at all. Unfortunately, I missed—”
“Aye, my brother has told me.”
Then why, pray tell, did he ask? “I beg your pardon,” she said, and moved to pass him. But he shifted slightly, blocking her path. Bernadette lifted her gaze to his—she could see nothing but hardness in his eyes, could feel nothing but coldness radiating off of him. There was something very dark about him that Bernadette was certain there was not a bit of kindness in him. She thought of Avaline, how gentle and young and naive she was. To be married to this man? She couldn’t help herself—another shiver ran down her.
He noticed it. “Do you find the Scottish night too fuar for your thin English blood?”
“I hardly know what that means. But I will own that my thin English blood finds churlishness to be jarring.”
Her remark surprised him, clearly—she saw something spark in him, and one brow rose slowly above the other. “You are bloody well bold for a maid,” he said, his gaze moving over her body, taking her in so boldly and unapologetically that she could feel her skin begin to heat under his perusal.
“And you are bloody well discourteous for a gentleman,” she returned. She tried to slip past him, but he refused to move, and her arm brushed against his chest as she maneuvered around him. Once clear of him, she refused to sprint, as she very much wanted to do. She walked calmly away from him in spite of her racing her heart, her back ramrod-straight, her chin lifted. She could feel his gaze on her back, could feel it slicing between her shoulder blades and piercing her through.
It is no small miracle that Bernadette found her way back to her small antechamber. She dressed for bed and collapsed onto the straw mattress, her heart still beating faster than it ought to have. She tried desperately to sleep, but she kept seeing his dark eyes, the color of a stormy sea, boring into her.
THE TERMS OF the tochradh, or dowry, were agreed upon the next morning while Bernadette was at breakfast, a meal she was determined not to miss.
She noticed that the other people in the hall sat as far from the Kent party as possible, looking askance at them if acknowledging them at all. She had never in her life met with such inhospitable surroundings and was quite relieved when it came time to gather her and Avaline’s things and depart that gloomy castle.
The Kent family, including Bernadette, would travel to Killeaven by means of an old coach. She couldn’t guess where his lordship might have come by it, but it looked ancient, the paint having faded and the wheels on the verge of rot. The rest of the party, including Avaline’s uncle and the servants, would come by foot and in a wagon. The furnishings they’d brought with them would be carried up from the ship in a separate transport.
Lady Mackenzie had introduced them to Niall MacDonald, who was to accompany them on horseback. She explained that Mr. MacDonald had been dispatched from Balhaire to help them settle in. He appeared younger than Bernadette’s twenty-nine years, and had a bad eye that wandered aimlessly as the other one looked directly at you.
Avaline’s brutish fiancé did not appear to see them off, which Bernadette thought the height of uncivilized behavior. But his mother was there, and the lady was quite warm in her smiles and well wishes for them. “You will see some of our loveliest views on the road to Killeaven,” she assured them. “The glen is lush this time of year.” She took Avaline’s hand in hers. “Miss Kent, please do forgive my son’s absence this morning. Something has come up at Arrandale, our smaller estate, and where he currently resides. It required his immediate attention and he regretted deeply that he had to depart early this morning.”
Bernadette turned her head so no one would see her roll her eyes.
“Oh. I see,” Avaline said. But she clearly didn’t see, as her cheeks were coloring with uncertainty.
Lady Mackenzie noticed it, too and said quickly, “But he means to call straightaway, just as soon as you’re settled.” She smiled reassuringly.
Bernadette thought the lady’s smile was lacking something. Conviction, perhaps.
They piled into the coach—Lord Kent going first, as was his habit. The coach lacked sufficient springs and swayed badly as each one climbed in. Bernadette sat next to Avaline, across from her parents, as they set off for the four-mile journey to Killeaven in the company of several armed men.
“Why are they armed?” Avaline asked, looking out the window.
“Hmm?” her father asked, distracted. He’d already been at the bottle. “Mackenzie sent them.” He shrugged, stifled a belch, then said, “Now then, girl, you’ll marry Mackenzie in three weeks’ time.”
Avaline gasped and looked to her mother, who, as usual, remained silent. “So soon?”
“Yes, so soon,” he said, mocking her. “Your mother and I can’t stay on forever.”
Avaline gasped again. “You mean to leave me?”
“Avaline, for heaven’s sake,” Lord Kent said with exasperation, and turned to his wife. “You have raised a simpleton, madam. Will you not say something?”
Lady Kent clearly didn’t want to say anything, but she began hesitantly, “That—that is what your father—”
“Something useful!” Lord Kent spat, and turned his burgeoning rage to Bernadette.
“Ah...you will be married with your own house,” Bernadette said quickly. “It wouldn’t do for you to spend the first weeks or months of your married life with your parents, would it?” She glanced at Lady Kent, hoping for help, but Lady Kent had dropped her gaze to her lap, her confidence demolished years before Bernadette had come along.
“That’s better,” Lord Kent said. “Stop weeping, Avaline,” he said, sounding resigned to it, and with a loud sigh, hunched down in his seat and propped his foot on the bench next to Bernadette. He turned his gaze to the window and closed his eyes.
Bernadette put her hand on Avaline’s knee and squeezed tightly. She knew, after six years in the family’s employ, that nothing undermined Avaline worse in the eyes of her unforgiving father than her tears.
Avaline didn’t stop weeping, but she did manage to stifle the sound of it.
Bernadette turned her attention to the window, too, unwilling to talk to any of them any more than was absolutely necessary. As she watched the landscape slowly rolling along, she noticed a trio of riders. They were at a distance, but they had come to a halt, and the men on the horses were watching the coach. As the coach turned east with the road, the riders began to follow at a parallel for at least a half hour, at which point, they turned into the woods and disappeared.
The coach began to slow, and they started down a hill, the road curving slowly to the floor of the glen. Bernadette could see the house on the banks of a river, backed up to a hill. She counted twelve chimneys—the house was not small. It rather reminded her of Highfield, her family’s home and where she’d