Page 46 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT’SBEGUNTORAIN, 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 relentless force, washing out the world beyond the cave.
* * *
THEYCAMETOBALHAIRE, 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.
Miss Holly had seen the blackness in him. He kept recalling the expression on her face when she’d walked in to the MacBee house and had realized she was standing on spilled blood. He’d thought she would faint, and he’d move to catch her before she fell onto the bare stone floor. When she opened her eyes, he saw the way she looked at him. She’d looked at him with pity, and it had scraped across his heart.
He’d felt the pity when she’d kissed him, too. So unexpected, that kiss, and so bloody tender that his insides had warbled and turned into wee butterflies. He tried not to think of that kiss now, or the way her lips, warm and wet, had moved with careless abandon over his. Or the way her fingers had touched his chin, or her arm had gone around his neck, the feel of it unnervingly arousing, disturbingly comforting. He tried not to think of how her breasts had felt pressed against his side or how hard it had been not to touch her, toreallytouch her.
In truth, that kiss had been surprisingly erotic, and his body had reacted accordingly, every nerve resonating with desire.
In hindsight, it was all wretchedly disconcerting to him. Rabbie had lost his heart, but not his mind. A man did not like to be kissed with pity. There was scarcely anything worse than that—except, perhaps, the fact that he’d been so physically aroused in the place Seona had likely died.Thathad filled him with a terrible sense of betrayal that he could not banish.
Rabbie did not want to see Miss Holly tonight. He did not want to be reminded of how he’d fallen, in her eyes, from his stature as a strong Highlander. He didn’t want to see any of that bloody English lot, no—butespeciallynot her.
There was a knock on his door. “Come,” he said.
The door swung open and his brother walked in wearing his captain’s garb—a black coat and black pantaloons. He’d combed his hair into a neat queue, had tied it with a black ribbon. Rabbie had always considered Aulay the comeliest of the Mackenzie brothers, and in this suit of clothing, he could very well imagine the number of lassies who would swoon tonight.
Aulay stopped in his tracks when he saw what Rabbie was wearing.
“You donna approve,” Rabbie said, unconcerned.
“You surprise me, lad, but I donna disapprove. I think you’re bloody brave.”
Rabbie snorted as Aulay walked deeper into the room. “Because I wear the plaid in my father’s house? That’s hardly brave.”
“No’ only because of the plaid—but because you’ve agreed to this marriage.”
This was the first Aulay had mentioned Rabbie’s doom. Cailean had spoken to Rabbie about it when last he’d been at Balhaire—his oldest brother had openly struggled with his desire that Rabbie help the family, and his more brotherly instinct to protect his youngest brother. But Aulay? He’d not spoken of it at all until this very moment.
“I didna agree as much as I was pushed into a corner,” Rabbie reminded him.
Aulay nodded. “I canna imagine how bloody well difficult it must be.”
