Hard-Hearted Highlander

Bernadette’s talent was in playing the harpsichord. She, too, had been born to this perch in life...but she’d fallen from it.

“Here then, allow my daughter to regale us with a song,” Lord Kent said almost instantly, without any regard for his daughter’s feelings on the matter, or her lack of talent. He was well aware how it frightened Avaline to stand before anyone and sing—the good Lord knew it had been a source of contention between them many times before this particular evening.

“Miss Holly, you will accompany her,” his lordship decreed.

All heads swiveled about to where Bernadette stood just inside the door, the ogre at her side. She bristled at the command, could feel the heat of shame flood her cheeks. As if she were a trained monkey like the one she’d once seen in a London market.

“Go on, then,” Mr. Mackenzie said. “Donna draw this out any more than is necessary.”

“You have nothing to fear in that regard,” she muttered, and walked to the front of the room—for Avaline’s sake, always for Avaline’s sake—wiping her palms on the sides of her gown as she went. She sat on the bench before the harpsichord, glanced up at an ashen Avaline and whispered, “Look above their heads, not at them. Pretend no one is here, pretend it is a music lesson.”

Avaline nodded stiffly.

Bernadette began to play. Avaline began to warble. She held her hands clasped tightly at her waist, her nerves making her sing sharp to the music. At last, the poor girl finished the song to tepid applause. The ladies, Bernadette noticed, were shifting restlessly in their seats. And in the back of the room, standing exactly where she’d left him, stood Rabbie Mackenzie. His head was down, his arms folded, his expression one of pure tedium.

But the song was done, and Avaline moved immediately to sit, as did Bernadette, but Lord Kent, slouching in his chair, his eyes half-open after the amount he’d drunk, waved her back. “Again, Avaline. Perhaps something a bit livelier that won’t put us all asleep.”

Avaline’s shoulders tensed. She turned to Bernadette, her eyes blank now, her soul having retreated to that place of hiding. Bernadette managed a smile for the poor girl. “The song of summer,” she said softly. “The one you like.”

Avaline nodded. As she moved to take her place next to the pianoforte, and Bernadette played the first few chords, she looked up to see if Avaline was ready, and noticed, from the corner of her eye, that Avaline’s fiancé had exited the room. How impossibly rude he was! It made her so angry that she hit a wrong chord, startling Avaline. “I beg your pardon,” Bernadette said, and began again.

This time, when the song mercifully ended, it was Captain Mackenzie who rose to see Avaline to a seat, complimenting her on her singing as he did.

The evening dragged on from there. Bernadette stood near a bookcase, pretending to examine the few titles they had there, impatient for the evening to come to an end. She was trying desperately not to listen to Lady Kent and Avaline attempt to converse with the Mackenzie women about the blasted wedding.

At long last, his lordship rose, signaling to his party. They could at last quit this horrible place and return to Killeaven.

None of the Mackenzies entreated them to stay, but eagerly followed them out like so many puppies—with the notable exception of Avaline’s fiancé, of course—and called good-night as they climbed into the coach. Even his lordship took a seat inside the coach, having instructed a man to tether his horse to the back of it. As soon as they rolled out of the bailey, he turned a furious glare to Avaline. “You are a stupid, vapid girl!” he said heatedly. “You have no knowledge of how to woo a man! What am I to do if he cries off? What will I do with you then?”

“I beg your pardon, Father, but I tried—”

“You asked after his favorite governess!” her father shouted at her, spittle coming out of his mouth with the force of his voice. “Haven’t you the slightest notion how to bat your eyes? And you,” he said, swinging his gaze around to Bernadette.

“Me?”

“Yes, you! You’re a wily woman, Bernadette. Can you not teach her to be less...vapid?” he exclaimed, flicking his wrist in the direction of his daughter. “Can you not teach her how to lure a man to her instead of cleaving the line and letting him sink away?”

“The man is entirely disagreeable—”

His lordship surged forward with such ferocity that his wig was very nearly left behind. “I don’t care if he is Satan himself. The marriage has been agreed to and by God, if he cries off because of her,” he said, jabbing his finger in the direction of Avaline, “I will take it out of her hide.”

Avaline began to cry.

Her father fell back against the squabs and sighed heavily, as if he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. “What have I done to deserve this?” he said to the ceiling. “What sin have I committed that you give me a miserable wife without the ability to give me a son, and a stupid twit for a daughter?”

Needless to say, by the time the old coach had bounced and plodded and bumbled along to Killeaven, the entire Kent family was in tears.

If Bernadette had been presented with a knife during that drive, she would have gladly plunged it into her own neck, just to escape them all.

CHAPTER SIX (#u7b1b310b-874e-547b-9a13-37371e773316)

AVALINE WAS FINALLY ALONE. She was never alone; there was always someone about to tell her what to do, what to say, how to behave.

It had been a very long day and a draining evening at Balhaire. Her eyes and her face were swollen from sobbing, and her mother’s attempt at making a compress had only angered her. She’d sent her mother from the room, had locked the door behind her.

Now, Avaline had no tears left in her. What she had was a hatred of her father that burned so intently she felt ashamed and concerned God would strike her dead for it. She hated how her father treated her, but she hated worse how she sobbed when he said such awful things to her. She was quite determined not to, but she could never seem to help herself.

What she told him was true—she had done her best this evening. She had tried to engage that awful man as Bernadette said, had tried to be pleasant and pretty and quiet. Nothing worked. What was she to do? He stared at her with those dark, cold eyes. His jaw seemed perpetually clinched. He rarely spoke to her at all, and when he did, every word was biting. He hated her. Which was perfectly all right as far as Avaline was concerned, because she hated him, too, hated the very sight of him.

And the singing! Avaline groaned at the humiliation she had suffered. Couldn’t her father hear with his own ears that she wasn’t good enough to hold entire salons captive? He blamed her for her lack of talent and had once accused her of intentionally singing poorly only to vex him. What on earth would possess her to humiliate herself before others merely to annoy her father?

Avaline rolled onto her side and stared at the window, left open to admit a cool breeze. She couldn’t see beyond it, but she imagined she could hear the sea from here. It was probably only a night breeze rustling the treetops, but she wanted to imagine the sea.

She thought about running away. She thought about stowing aboard Captain Mackenzie’s ship. She pictured him now, with his kind smile, his hair so prettily streaked by endless days on the vast sea. He was so completely appealing! One night, as they sailed up the coast to the Highlands, Avaline had been too restless and too warm in the cabin she’d shared with Bernadette, and had waited until Bernadette was asleep before venturing onto the deck.

She’d been gazing up at the stars, so brilliant that they felt within reach. The captain had been surprised to stumble upon her there. “You must be cold, aye?” he asked in that lilting voice of his, and shrugged out of his coat and draped it around her shoulders. Then he pointed out some of the stars to her—Orion, Sirius and Polaris. He told her he’d been sailing since he was a “wee lad” and once he’d begun, he’d never left the sea. “Aye, I love it as if it was a bairn,” he’d said. “It changes every day.”

Avaline wanted to be somewhere that changed every day. She wanted to talk about stars and clouds and sea swells. She wanted to love something so fiercely that she couldn’t leave it. She wanted to look into the captain’s clear blue eyes and see him smile, and never, ever, think of his awful, wretched brother again.

She rolled onto her back and wondered what Captain Mackenzie would do if he found an English woman hiding on his ship. Perhaps even in his cabin, as no one would think to look for her there. Would he return her to father? Or would he take her in his arms and kiss her and promise her a life of adventure? Wouldn’t that be very romantic?

Why couldn’t it have been him, the man who knew the names of stars and always had a smile for her? Why was it his awful brother? Why, God, why?

Avaline wished she could confess her true feelings to Bernadette about Captain Mackenzie, but that was impossible—Bernadette would force her to forget Captain Mackenzie. She would dog Avaline, and she would know when Avaline was thinking of him. Bernadette always seemed to recognize what Avaline would do before Avaline realized it herself.

She sighed wearily, feeling quite heavy of heart for her seventeen years. She could feel sleep creeping into her body, pushing her down into unconsciousness, and as she drifted away, she imagined sneaking onboard the Mackenzie ship, imagined what the captain’s private quarters must look like, and how comforting it would be to have all his things around her. She imagined the moment Captain Mackenzie entered the quarters and found her there...

CHAPTER SEVEN (#u7b1b310b-874e-547b-9a13-37371e773316)

THEY MEET EVERY afternoon and walk along the cliff above the cove, speaking of everything and nothing, laughing at secret jokes. Their fingers are entwined except in those moments when Rabbie leans down, picks up a rock and hurls it out to sea. Sometimes, he carries her on his back so that the hem of her arasaid will not get wet. Sometimes, they go down to the beach, and she picks up a stick and draws the shape of a heart with their initials.

They mean to be married. They don’t know when, and they have kept this promise to each other a secret. These are uncertain times—whispers of rebellion and treason seem to slip through the hills on every breeze.

On a particularly cool afternoon, Rabbie returns Seona to her family home and sees the horses there, still saddled. Inside, he hears the voices of men. Seona’s mother, a large woman with a welcoming smile, appears, but today she seems unusually fretful. As they walk past the room where Seona’s father and brothers are gathered, Rabbie sees the men who have come. Buchanan, Dinwiddie, MacLeary. All of them Jacobites, all of them known to conspire against the king. This is treacherous ground, and Rabbie glances at Seona. She doesn’t appear to notice the men. She is smiling, telling her mother about the ship they spotted passing along the coast with a flag of black and red. He doesn’t know if Seona understands what her father and brothers are about.

* * *

THE FOLLOWING TWO days after that interminable dinner, with singing so atrocious that Rabbie wished he was deaf, passed in a haze of restlessness. His thoughts kept going back to that evening and the moments he’d stood at the back of the music room, endeavoring—and failing—to grasp how he might possibly make a life with the lass.

Perhaps his father was right. Perhaps he ought to put her in at Killeaven and leave her there.

That dinner was intended to establish harmony between two families that would, in a matter of days, be forever tied by matrimony, but Rabbie couldn’t bear the thought of even bedding her. He’d escaped unnoticed from the music room, and had gone in search of drink stronger than wine.

His path had taken him to the kitchen. He’d heard voices as he approached, and figured the servants were cleaning up after the supper. He could hear Barabel’s deep voice instruct someone in Gaelic, “Have a care with the plate, lass. We’ve precious few of them now.”

He walked into the kitchen and just over the threshold, he froze. Barabel was instructing the MacLeod children. The lass glanced up at him and smiled. The lad scarcely made eye contact before turning back to his task of drying pots.

“Aye, Mr. Mackenzie, may I help you?” Barabel asked in Gaelic.