by Julia London
He grabbed the horse’s bridle and pulled it out of the trees.
“How will we—oh!” she said with alarm, because without warning, he put his hands on her waist and lifted her up, dropping her down on the front of his saddle. “Sir!” she protested, but he’d already swung up behind her and had thrown his arm around her waist.
Bernadette made another small cry of alarm and tried to sit straight, tried not to touch him.
“For God’s sake, donna alarm the mount.”
“I should not be riding with you!” she protested. “It’s too familiar!”
“What will you do, then, plod along behind me in those boots? Settle back so that I might see.”
She had no intention of doing that, but he spurred the horse to a trot, and she was bounced back against him as he reined the horse about and headed away from the sea and Killeaven.
“Where are we going?” she demanded.
He didn’t respond, naturally, as that would have been the polite thing to do.
He held her steady as the horse began to canter. They rode in silence for what she guessed was a quarter of an hour. Everything she thought to say sounded flippant in her mind, or flew out of her head a moment after it appeared, as she was so acutely aware of his body against her back, of the strength and breadth and firmness of his body relative to hers, that she could scarcely think of anything else. There was not a soft spot on the man—he was all hard planes and sharp bends.
Her head filled with unwanted images of him with a Scottish woman. Had their love been as intensely felt and as passionate as it had been with her and Albert? Had it been a union of souls, as she’d felt with Albert? Or had theirs been a marriage arranged, the woman a mere acquaintance to him?
Eventually, the horse veered onto a path that went into the woods. They seemed to be going a great distance, and Bernadette’s nerves began to ratchet up. “I’ll be missed if I’m gone long,” she warned him.
“We are near,” he said, unconcerned.
Bernadette tried not to think of Avaline waiting for her. She tried not to think about the warmth of him at her back. She tried to focus on the scenery around her, but all she could see was trees and all she could think was how exquisite was the agony of having a man of his vitality so near to her.
They began to move up out of the trees and over a hill, and when they crested it, Bernadette spotted a house in the glen below. They were too far away for her to see many details, but she could see that part of the roof had burned. “Where are we?”
He responded by spurring his horse to a faster pace. She clung to the arm he’d anchored around her waist as the horse careered down the hill and into what once had been a front lawn. The door of the house was standing open. She could see into the interior, could see sunlight streaming in where the roof had given away.
Mackenzie reined the horse to a halt, then swung down, lifted her off the horse and put her on her feet. His jaw was clenched, but his expression was shuttered. “Come,” he said, and walked on, his stride long and determined.
Bernadette took a breath and felt great apprehension. It was as if she was walking into a place she ought not to see, to a memory that didn’t include her. She very reluctantly followed him to the door.
She was surprised to see a few furnishings still within when she stepped inside. A table, broken in half, lay on its side. An armchair was turned upside down and was missing two legs. A small stool had been tossed into a corner, and a wooden chandelier lay in ruin where it had fallen. The room was covered in leaves and debris that had come in through the hole in the ceiling.
Bernadette did not need to be told who had lived in this modest house, but nonetheless, Mackenzie said, “This is where Seona lived.”
He walked across the main room, kicking a tree branch out of his path on his way to the broken windows that provided a view of the glen. Bernadette slowly followed him, taking it all in. There were marks on the wall here, too, she noted, the same as those at Killeaven—the evidence that swords and guns had been used in this house.
Near a door leading into another room was a large brown stain. She stared down at it, uncertain what it was.
“Blood,” Mackenzie said.
She glanced up; he’d turned from the window, was watching her study the stain, his expression blank.
“Aye, it’s blood.”
Blood? But it was such a big stain, spreading across half the floor. And there was another stain across the room. Pools of blood, a swath of it, too, as if someone had been dragged...
Bernadette felt sick to her stomach. She swallowed down a sharp swell of nausea. His fiancée had not merely boarded a ship bound for America as she’d imagined, her portmanteau in hand, perhaps a smart new cloak for the journey. Something awful had happened here, and the tragedy was curling in Bernadette’s belly. She unthinkingly reached out, trying to find the wall to steady her.
“Easy,” Mackenzie said softly. He was suddenly beside her, taking her hand, then his arm went around her back as he pulled her into his side before her knees buckled beneath her. “Come outside,” he said, and led her out of the house.
Bernadette felt clammy and cold, and worse, so very sad. She must have been shivering, as Mackenzie shrugged out of his coat and put it around her. She buried her face in it, ashamed to have lost her composure. The cloak spelled of spice and horse. A man’s scent.
“Sit,” he said, and helped her to sit on a bench outside the home and sat next to her.
She wanted to tell him she understood his devastation, that she knew something about how deep and how soul-searing that sort of loss could go. But she couldn’t speak, and groped for his hand, squeezing it.
“Are you all right?” he asked, sounding a bit alarmed.
She shook her head and glanced up at him. All that coldness she’d seen in his eyes wasn’t the disdain she’d been so certain of—it was pain. She should have recognized it, she should have seen what had once been in her, was still in her. Bernadette wanted to convey all these things to him, to apologize again for having judged him, to tell him she understood more than he could ever know, but she was lost in an emotional storm.
She touched his face.
He flinched.
She slid her arm around his neck and pulled him to her and his coat fell away from her shoulders. “I’m so very sorry for your loss,” she said. She meant only to hug him, but as she drew him closer, Bernadette was kissing him. Softly. Tenderly. With all the grief she was feeling for them both.
He shifted as if he meant to pull away, but he didn’t. He sat stiffly, and allowed her to kiss him, allowed her to press closer, to stroke his hair. But then he touched her, his hand on her arm, sliding down to her hip. And Bernadette was sinking into him, teasing him with her tongue.
He sighed and moved his mouth to her neck. Bernadette came completely undone—everything in her ignited, tiny flames flaring under her skin where he touched her. She shifted closer, sank her fingers into his hair, her body filled with anticipation. It had been a very long time since she’d felt so full of need, to be held, to be loved. That need was roaring inside, and she felt...panicky. She realized what she was doing, and hysteria began to rise up in her. She suddenly swayed away from him and gasped for breath.
He instantly stood up, took several steps away from the bench, his hands laced behind his head.
“I beg your pardon,” she said instantly. God, what was she thinking? She stood, too, and clasped her arms tightly across her middle. “I should not have... I meant only...” She shook her head—excuses were unnecessary and insulting. She tried to put herself in his shoes once again. “Was it only her and her brothers?” she asked, her voice damnably weak.
“Her mother. Two sisters. Her brothers didna return from Culloden.” He made a sound of disgust and shook his head. “And still we all believed that wo
uld be the end of it. But it wasna the end, it was only the beginning, aye? They hanged her father.”
“It’s the worst sort of tragedy.”
His gaze was fixed on something in the distance. “Everyone fled afterward. The MacBees, all of them, fled the Highlands. Her sister’s children were wee bairns then—Fiona no’ a year old. They sent them to a distant cousin for safekeeping. They never saw their family again.” He looked back at her, his dark eyes full of anger. “Perhaps now you understand why I’m no’ pleased to marry an English lass with no sense in her head, aye?” he said, fluttering his fingers at his head. “Why it galls me to have to do it.”
Bernadette wanted to defend Avaline, but how could she? He was right—Avaline could never cope with the magnitude of this tragedy. She was too soft, too sheltered. She didn’t even know the full truth about Bernadette—how could she ever understand the grief that raged in her would-be husband?
“I shouldna have brought you here,” he said.
“No, you should have. I’ve been so wrong—”
“Aye, now you know,” he said brusquely. He picked up his coat and donned it. “Come. I’ll return you to Killeaven.” He strode away from her, not looking back to see if she followed, clearly eager to be gone from this morbid reminder.
He tossed her up onto his horse as he had before, then put himself behind her.
They rode back in the same manner they’d ventured out—in complete silence, the only sound the horse’s labored breathing. Or maybe that was her own harsh breathing, for Bernadette couldn’t shake the vision of that house from her mind, could not keep her thoughts from filling in the images of what must have taken place there, could not stop thinking of the way his mouth and hands felt on her.
When they reached the turn to Killeaven, she asked him to stop. “I’ll walk from here.” Her fear of running across the stranger she’d encountered earlier this morning notwithstanding, she couldn’t allow anyone to see her riding with him.
Mackenzie didn’t question it and helped her down. He glanced at the sky, and the gray clouds that were beginning to slide in from the sea. “You best be quick, aye?” he said, emotionless.
Bernadette knew the look he wore now. She could almost feel it, it was so familiar to her—he was still numbed by tragedy. “I will,” she assured him, and began to walk briskly away. To wish good day to a man who likely had not had one in some time seemed ridiculous to her, and she wanted nothing more than to flee now, to try and understand why she’d kissed him in that moment, to try and understand what she was doing to Avaline. But she didn’t understand, and she couldn’t walk fast enough away from her crime. She began to run, laboring up a hill in her boots. She reached a point in the road that turned to the east, and she paused to catch her breath. She glanced back.
Mackenzie was still atop his horse where she’d left him, watching her. He slowly turned his horse about and rode on.
* * *
BERNADETTE ARRIVED AT Killeaven a few minutes later. Her feet ached and her hair had lost a few pins along the way.
“What has happened to you?” Charles asked when he opened the door to her, concerned.
“I went for a walk,” she said, brushing past him to enter the house. She felt cold, and hugged herself. “Where is Miss Kent?”
“With her mother in the lady’s sitting room. Are you unwell?”
“No, I’m... It’s a bit cold, that’s all.” She hurried away from him before he saw that she was lying.
She paused in her room to remove the boots and tuck her hair into place, then hurried to Lady Kent’s sitting room. She knocked softly, heard the voice bidding her to enter. When Bernadette stepped in, her heart skipped—Avaline was dressed in a sumptuous gown of pale blue silk. A maid was on the floor at her feet, pinning the hem.
Avaline smiled brilliantly. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked, and held out her arms. “This is to be my wedding dress.”
Bernadette’s heart began to race. “Oh.”
“Don’t you like it?”
“What? Yes, of course I do. It’s beautiful,” Bernadette said, and privately willed herself to get hold of her emotions.
“Mamma had it commissioned before we left,” Avaline said, looking down, admiring her gown. “It was a surprise!”
Lady Kent was beaming at her daughter. “She will be the loveliest of brides. The banns will be posted on the morrow.”
The marriage banns! That made it seem so inescapable, so permanent!
“We’ll have the wedding in a fortnight,” Lady Kent said, and clasped her hands together at her throat, admiring the gown. It was as if she’d forgotten all about the wretched circumstances of this wedding or her fear that her daughter was marrying a Highlander.
“So soon?” Bernadette asked weakly. Her heart was now beating so soundly that she had to sit down.
“What’s wrong, Bernadette?” Avaline asked, frowning with concern. “You look unwell.”
“No. No, I—I went for a walk.”
Avaline clucked her tongue at her. “You’ve been walking far too much. It can’t possibly be good for you. What do you think?” she asked, holding up a pair of white silk gloves. “These? Or these?” she asked, and held up a pair of blue silk gloves.
Bernadette forced herself to smile. “The blue,” she said. She had to say something. She had to stop this insanity. “Avaline...you’re certain of this wedding, are you?”
She noticed the look that passed between mother and daughter before Avaline said, “I’m certain that I have no choice. And therefore, I best be about it.”
“You can end it,” Bernadette said, her voice shaking. “You can always refuse it.”
“I beg your pardon!” Lady Kent said. “She cannot!”
Avaline turned her back to Bernadette. “I would that I could, dearest, I do. But I can’t, and I think you must accept that I can’t, Bernadette.”
Bernadette wasn’t accepting anything just yet.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT’S BEGUN TO RAIN, a storm rising up so quickly that they are caught without shelter. Rabbie grabs Seona’s hand and she laughs as he runs with her, tugging her along to the hillside and a small cave he knows is there. The two of them can scarcely fit inside, but they huddle together, watching the rain come down with a ferocity that startles Rabbie. It feels almost as if God is angry at the Highlands for their rebellion and is attempting to wash them away.
Seona lays her head on his shoulder, her hand on his thigh. “I could remain here forever, I could. Only you and me, Rabbie.”
“You’d be hungry, aye? You’d send me out to hunt for you.”
“And to bring ale,” she says, and laughs softly. But her laugh seems a wee bit forced, and he wonders if she is truly all right, as she insists she is. He knows she worries about the fate of her brothers—they’d not returned from Inverness or Culloden. No one has seen them.
She glances up at him, her soft brown eyes luminous in the dark of the storm. “How long will you be away, then?”
Rabbie doesn’t want to talk about his departure at the end of the week. He doesn’t want to be reminded of the heated argument he had with his father this very morning. He doesn’t want to go. “I donna know, lass. No’ long, I hope.”
“I hope, too, Rabbie. I canna do without you. God help me, I can no’.”
“Ah, mo ghraidh, I canna do without you, either.” It’s true—when he thinks of leaving her, he feels an ache in his chest so profound that a part of him fears perhaps his heart is failing. He closes his eyes, for he finds it difficult to look into her eyes when he knows he must leave her. He kisses her, his hands gliding over her body, memorizing every curve. He should know them all by now, he should know every inch, and still, he fears he will forget something. He presses her down onto the soft earth while the rain falls with relen
tless force, washing out the world beyond the cave.
* * *
THEY CAME TO BALHAIRE, all of them—Lord and Lady Kent, Lord Ramsey, the girl and her maid. They’d come at the behest of Rabbie’s mother, who was determined to celebrate the posting of the banns. The stoic Niall MacDonald accompanied them, and reported to Rabbie, Aulay, Catriona and their father that Kent desperately wanted to acquire the land that lay between Balhaire and Killeaven, the same stretch of land rumor had it the Buchanans were eying. The Buchanans were no friends of the Mackenzies.
That strategic stretch of land provided access to the sea and belonged to the MacGregor clan. Their numbers had been decimated in the last few years, but a few remained, their situation as dire as anyone in the Highlands. Kent had been to call on Laird MacGregor, an old man with no hearing, a feeble heart and a dire need for money.
The four Mackenzies scarcely discussed this news. There was no need—they all understood what that meant. Kent wanted to explore trade. Specifically, Kent no doubt meant to compete with the Mackenzies—as would the Buchanans, if they ever managed to obtain that bit of land, or strike an agreement with whoever owned it—and then export wool shorn from the sheep that Kent intended to seed through these hills. Given the lay of the land, the Mackenzies would be hard-pressed to compete. They couldn’t farm as many sheep as someone at Killeaven, or on the Buchanan lands, might. Their advantage was keeping that bit of land in the family, so to speak—in other words, to marry into the Kents.
In his old room at Balhaire, Rabbie dressed in a plaid for the evening. Wearing the plaid was a punishable offense, but he didn’t care. Let them punish him—they’d taken everything from him, but he would keep what tatters of his Highland pride remained, and that was a plaid.
He looked dispassionately at himself in the looking glass. His hair was in a neat queue, his coat, cleaned and pressed. He wore a swath of plaid across his waistcoat, too, the clan emblem pinned to it. He looked like a proud Highlander...but even he could see the dark circles beneath his eyes, the gray dullness in his gaze. He was blackened, inside and out. The ashes of what was once his spirit inhabited him now.
