Hard-Hearted Highlander

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 happily grown up. Unfortunately, Highfield was not a happy place for her now.

“See, Avaline?” Bernadette whispered, leaning across her to point. “This will be your house.”

“What?” Lord Kent said, waking from his nap. He rubbed his face as he sat up.

“It’s Killeaven, is it?” Avaline asked. She had long since ceased her tears, but her face was swollen and splotchy.

“It is,” Bernadette said.

They wended their way down and onto a drive that was overgrown, the shrubs and trees untended. “Is it empty?” Avaline asked.

“Of course it is,” her father said impatiently. “Do you think we would move furnishings into another man’s house? The Somerleds have departed for greener pastures.” He chuckled. “Chased out like the traitors they were, I’ve heard told,” he added as the coach rolled to a halt. “Now, let me see what I have bought.” He opened the coach door and leaped to the ground. He didn’t bother to help anyone out, but let the carriage man do it. But the carriage man was apparently so unaccustomed to the job that he fairly flung them out of the coach.

In the drive, Lady Kent slipped her arm through Avaline’s and held her close—for her own comfort or that of her daughter’s, Bernadette couldn’t guess. They followed behind Lord Kent as he marched forward to the door, threw it open and disappeared inside. Niall MacDonald was just behind them.

Bernadette paused as the Kents entered and looked up at the house. She noticed some pocks in the stone facade. The windows looked rather new to her, but the door was weathered and shrubbery growing wild. It was a curious mix of neglect and new. She started for the door, looking at the land around the house, and noticed, with a start, the three riders again. They were on a hill overlooking Killeaven, watching.

She hurried after the others.

She found them all in the foyer, looking around. The foyer was very grand, two stories tall, with a double staircase curving up like two sides of a human heart, meeting in a wide corridor above. At their feet there were marble tiles with some rather curious gashes and marks. The walls were stone here, too, and Bernadette noticed the same pocks as outside.

Mr. MacDonald stood with his hands clasped behind his back as Lord Kent marched about, opening and slamming doors.

“What are these marks?” Bernadette inquired curiously, touching one of the pocks with her fingers.

Mr. MacDonald glanced at the wall. “Left by musket fire, then.”

“Muskets!” Bernadette repeated, sure that he had meant another word entirely.

He fixed his good eye on her and said, “There was quite a fight for Killeaven, there was.”

A fight? Bernadette looked around again, noticed the pocks everywhere in this grand entry and tried to imagine men firing guns at one another in such a grand home.

“Miss Holly!” Lord Kent shouted from some interior room.

Bernadette went in the direction of his voice and found him and his wife and daughter in what she assumed was a dining hall. “We’ll need a mason to see to these things,” he said, pointing to plaster molding overhead, which was crumbling in one corner.

She didn’t understand why he was telling her and looked curiously at him.

His gray brows floated upward. “Well? Make note, make note!” he demanded, and walked on.

But she had nothing with which to make a note.

She followed his lordship, and in the next room, he pointed out more things that, presumably, she was to make a note of, uncaring that she had nothing with which to write his wishes, and apparently expecting her to commit it all to memory.

When he’d toured the house he said, “MacDonald has assured me the furnishings will arrive this afternoon. Go, go, now, busy yourselves,” he said, waving his hands at the ladies in a sweeping motion. “Where is my brother? Has the second coach not come along?” He marched out of the room.

Bernadette waited until she was certain he was gone before looking back at Lady Kent and Avaline. “So much to do,” she said, smiling a little. “At least we’ll have something to occupy us.”

Neither Kent woman looked convinced of that.

The furniture did indeed arrive that afternoon, on a caravan of carts and wagons. The servants who had the misfortune of being dragged to Scotland scampered about, with the Kent butler, Renard, directing things to be placed here and there. It quickly became apparent that even with all they’d brought, filling the hold in the Mackenzie ship with beds and cupboards and settees, there was not enough to furnish this large house. Three bedrooms sat empty, as well as a sitting and a morning room.

In the evening, before a cold meal was to be served, Lord Kent called Bernadette to him in the library. Its shelves still sported some of the books of the previous owners. There was no sign of muskets in this room.

“Make a list of all we need, then send it to Balhaire,” he said without greeting.

“Yes, my lord. To someone’s attention in particular?”

“Naturally, to someone’s attention. The laird there.” He perched one hip on the desk and folded his arms across his chest. “Now, listen to me, Bernadette. You’ll have to do the thinking for Avaline.”

“Pardon? I don’t—”

“She’s a child,” he said bluntly. “She can’t possibly run a house this large, and her mother has been an utterly incompetent teacher.” He leaned forward, reached for a bottle and poured brandy into a glass. “You need to prepare her for this marriage.”

Bernadette swayed backward. “I can’t take the place of her mother.”

“You’ve been doing it these last few years,” he said. “And you have experience in this...inexperience,” he said, flicking his wrist at her. “I doubt her mother can recall a blessed thing about her wedding night.”

Bernadette’s face began to warm. She was very uncomfortable with the directions of this conversation.

“Come now, I don’t say it to demean you,” he said impatiently, trying to read her thoughts. “I say it to point out that you know more than you think. Teach her how to present herself to her husband. Teach her how to please a man.” He tossed the brandy down his throat.

“My lord!” Bernadette protested.

“Don’t grow missish on me,” he snapped. “She must please him, Bernadette. Do you understand me? As much as I am loath to admit it, I need those bloody Mackenzies to look after my property here. I want to expand my holdings, and I want access to the sea. Why should they have all the trade? If I fail to have them fully on board with me, I will not make these gains in a pleasant way, do you understand me? I am trusting you to ensure that little lamb knows to open her legs and do her duty.”

Bernadette gasped.

He clucked his tongue at her. “Don’t pretend you are a tender virgin. It was your own actions that put you in this position, was it not? You have benefited greatly from my employment of you when no one else would have you, and for that, you owe me your allegiance and your obedience. Do I need to say more?”

Bernadette couldn’t even speak. She thought herself beyond being shocked by anything that happened in the Kent household, but he had shocked her.

“Good. Now go and make sure her mother hasn’t frightened her half to death. And send Renard to me—surely we’ve brought some decent wine.”

Bernadette nodded again, fearing that if she spoke, she would say something to put her position in serious jeopardy. She was shaking with indignation as she walked out of the library.

It had been eight years since she and Albert Whitman had eloped, but sometimes it felt as if it was yesterday. So desperately in love, so determined to be free of her father’s rules for her. They’d managed nearly a week of blissful union, had made it to Gretna Green, had married. They were on their way to his parents’ home when her father’s men found them and dragged the two of them back to Highfield.

Bernadette had mistakenly believed that as she and Albert had legally married, and had lain together as husband and wife, that there was nothing her father could do. Oh, how she’d underestimated him—the marriage was quickly annulled, and Albert was quickly impressed onto a merchant ship. There was no hope for him—he was not a seaman, and was, either by accident or design, lost at sea several months later.

She had learned a bitter, heart-rending lesson—a father would go to great lengths to undo something his daughter had done against his express wishes. A vicar could be bribed or threatened to annul a marriage. Men could be paid to impress a young man in his prime and put him on a ship bound for India. A woman could watch her reputation and good name be utterly destroyed by her own actions, and a father’s invisible shackles could tighten around her even more.

After that spectacular fall from grace, everyone in and around Highfield knew what had happened. No one would even look at her on the street. Her friends fell away, and even her own sister had avoided her for fear of guilt by association.