Page 39 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
The story was so desperately mournful that Avaline was resolved to try harder to please him. She really didn’t want to leave, not now that she’d decided she would be quite at home at Killeaven with her father and mother far from her. Bernadette would be with her, and really, did she need anyone else? She would get along very well here, and now that she knew the tragedy her poor husband-to-be had suffered, perhaps she might help him.
Avaline lay back against the pillows and closed her eyes. She imagined bringing the poor man back from the brink of complete despair. It would take an effort from her—she would need to see to all his needs, and engage him so as to take his mind off his loss. She imagined, as she pictured the lovely home she would create for him, how he would come to love her. She imagined how he would gaze at her with great affection and gratitude. He would one day realize that without her, he might very well have fallen into a melancholy so deep he could not recover. She’d heard of that happening. They put people who were quite sad into madhouses, didn’t they?
Avaline lay her hands on her belly and imagined how his family would thank her, would look upon her not unlike a saint, for all of their efforts had been for naught until she’d come and married him had humbly taken up the responsibility of being a wife to such a desperately sad man, and they would whisper to each other, when she was not present, “oh, how grateful we are for Avaline.”His father, the laird, would write long letters to her father detailing how invaluable she has been in saving their despondent son, and her father—herfather—would bow before her and say he’d been so very wrong about her all along.
Avaline rolled onto her side. And if, for some reason, that did not come to pass, there was always Aulay.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
BERNADETTEFELTUNCHARACTERISTICALLYFRAUGHT.She was frantic to hide the offending handkerchief, frantic todosomething to erase the great mistake she’d made.
Such a horrible, awful mistake at Balhaire today...made so much worse by the knowledge that she’d felt that kiss down to her toes, had felt it simmering in her groin and in her veins. It was a kiss full of undeniable, stark desire, and she had been swept along with it, had forgotten herself so completely that she had scarcely been able to claw her way back to her senses.
And now she felt wild with guilt and fear that somehow Avaline would discover it. She hadn’t felt things spiraling out of control so quickly since...well, since her father’s men had caught her and Albert in that tiny little inn.
She shuddered at that memory—how humiliating it had been to be startled by men bursting into their room, and for them to find her in her chemise, and Albert, dear God, in nothing but his drawers.
In a peculiar way, this felt even worse than that. When those men had come, Bernadette knew that she and Albert had only hurt themselves. But in this, she had harmed Avaline. Not that Avaline knew it—but if she ever learned of it, it would ruin them.
Bernadette hid Avaline’s handkerchief in a drawer beneath several of her things where no one would find it. She walked a circle around her small room, her hands locked behind her head, trying desperately to think rationally.
How had that kiss happened?One moment she’d been standing there, and the next her hand was in his much larger one, and she should have pulled it free, but she’d liked the way her hand felt in his. And then she’d been stunned by the touch of his lips to the palm of her hand and the way it had sent a thousand shocks of light through her. He’d done it so casually, so easily, and the sensation of it had lingered like a burn on the surface of her skin for several moments after he’d let go of her hand.
And then he’dkissedher. He’d kissed herardently, like a man who was not afraid for her to know that he wanted all of her. She’d pushed him, because she’d notagreedto it, she’d not invited it, had not encouraged it...
But part of her had agreed, obviously. Part of her had not resisted him because there was something so raw and darkly masculine about him, and that kiss had been so...stirring. So astonishinglystirring.
Bernadette sat heavily on a stool at her vanity, her head in the palm of her hand. “What have I done?” she whispered. To have taken such a risk for a few moments of pleasure! And yet that kiss had startled her awake—it had been so long since she’d known the pleasure of a man’s touch.
She knew what Mackenzie had wanted of her. She knew what she’d wanted of him. She’d wanted the touch of a madman.
Until her common sense had taken hold and shook her into seeing what she was doing, and then, she’d felt a surge of panic and guilt and horror so great that she’d thought for a moment she might be sick with it.
She felt sick yet.
Bernadette lifted her head and looked at herself in the looking glass. What was she to do? Should she tell Avaline?She couldn’t!Avaline would be heartbroken, might even collapse with grief as her constitution was not particularly strong. Worse, she probably wouldn’t even understand at first that with her confession, Bernadette would have to leave her employ. Avaline would be angry and heartbroken, but at the same time, she would be lost without Bernadette.
Or, perhaps, Avaline would not be the least heartbroken. It was entirely possible that she would be so angry about the dissolution of trust between them that she would banish Bernadette to Highfield before Lord Kent could even think of it.
No, she couldn’t tell Avaline—not now. Maybe someday, but not now. But what Bernadettecoulddo, what shemustdo, was convince Avaline to cry off. That was the only solution for them both.
* * *
BERNADETTEBROACHEDTHEsubject at breakfast the next morning. Avaline had slept late, and as a result, she and Bernadette were the only two in the dining room. When Renard left them to carry dishes to the kitchen, Bernadette cleared her throat and said, “Avaline, dearest, there is something I’d like to say.”
Avaline looked up from her toast points. “Yes?”
A swell of nerves rose up in Bernadette. Avaline looked so young and trusting this morning, with the tail of her hair draped prettily over her shoulder. “Goodness, but you look positively ill, Bernadette. What’s wrong? Does your breakfast not agree with you?”
“No, I’m very well.” She hadn’t eaten anything but a bite or two of toast. “I’ve been thinking of how we might entice Mr. Mackenzie to say something that will give you reason to cry off.”
Avaline said nothing. She steadily held Bernadette’s gaze.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all really very simple. He cannotabidethe English—”
“No?” Avaline asked, looking a bit surprised.
“No,” Bernadette said carefully. Was it not obvious to her? “Because of what happened between Scotland and England.”
