Page 55 of Hard-Hearted Highlander
He did not respond to her, as was his infuriating habit, so Bernadette twisted about. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”
“What I have to say is that you’re nattering. You donna know what to do now that you’ve kissed me, and you’re nattering.” With one hand, he pushed her back around and anchored her again, this time much more tightly against him, so that she couldn’t move and couldn’t ignore his entire body pressed against hers.
“What is it that I must see?” she demanded. “Could you not have explained it to me? You don’t seem to understand what a predicament I find myself in here—I’m being terribly disloyal and an abominable friend to Avaline.”
“Aye, that you are.”
She gasped. “But it’syour fault,” she pointed out.
“No’ all my fault,” he said, and bent his head, then whispered in her ear, “You must accept part of the blame, lass. You must allow that you like to be kissed, aye? Admit that you bloody well enjoyed that kiss as much as I did, and at the very least, admit thatyoukissedme.”
“That...” Bernadette was so incensed that she could hardly find the words. “That isnottrue—”
“Aye, of course it is. You like it verra much, donna deny it. Look, then, here we are,” he said, and pointed.
For a moment, Bernadette lost her ardent desire to argue with him. She saw the spires of the house above the treetops, then the house itself. It was a bucolic setting, a country house tucked away on the shores of the sea amid so many trees. It wasn’t a terribly large house, not even as big as Killeaven, but what it lacked in size, it made up in charm. “What is it?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“Arrandale. This is the home my brother Cailean has built. He is laird here.”
“Here? Where is here?”
Mackenzie chuckled and Bernadette felt it reverberate in her. “Hereis Arrandale. Aye, my brother is laird of only this, but laird nonetheless.”
They rode up a neatly manicured lawn, where he reined the horse to a halt.
Bernadette slid down off the horse before he could help her, stumbling a bit, determined to put some distance between the two of them. She slid her damp palms down the sides of her gown and studied the house. A small turret anchored it. The structure itself, two stories, was long, with a wing that curved around toward the gardens.
As she stood admiring it, the door opened and a stout woman wearing an apron and holding a broom stepped out. Mackenzie spoke to her in Gaelic, and her gaze slid curiously to Bernadette before she disappeared back inside.
Bernadette moaned. She covered her face with her hands a moment, then dropped them with a sigh. There it was then, the end of her. That servant, or whoever she was, would be wagging her tongue about the woman who had appeared with Mackenzie. Her predicament only grew worse by the moment.
“Och,now, donna fret about Mrs. Brock,” Mackenzie said gruffly, and put his arm around her shoulders, steering her toward the end of the house. “She is loyal to me. She’ll no’ utter a word to anyone.”
Bernadette shot him a look full of skepticism. She knew servants. She knew people. She knew, from painful personal experience, how inhabitants of the world over wanted to be the one to have news, to share something interesting with their friends. No matter anyone’s good intentions, theytalked.She shrugged free of his arm and moved away from his side.
“Will you sulk all day, then?”
“I will keep my distance. I will see whatever it is that has made you kidnap me, and then I will hie myself back to Killeaven and away from you.”
“As you like,” he said, and smiling, gestured grandly to the path.
They walked around the house and through the gardens, to a path that led down to the water’s edge. This was not the sea, she realized, but what the Scots termed a loch and, given the distance they had ridden, one that fed into the sea.
Before they reached the water’s edge, Mackenzie veered off the path and led her up a hill. In a thick stand of rowan trees, he stepped behind a large rock and dipped down. A bush—or what she’d thought was a bush—came tumbling out from behind that rock. Mackenzie stepped out from behind it and said, “Here, then.”
Bernadette, curious now, stepped up behind the rock and saw a small opening into the side of the hill. Mackenzie dipped down and disappeared inside. She stepped up to the opening and squatted down, bracing her arms on either side of it and peering inside, just scarcely making him out.
She heard the strike of a flint, which was followed by the flare of a wick or candle. He turned back to the opening and held out his hand to her. Bernadette did not hesitate—she was here, she wanted to see—and slipped her hand into his and stepped down, then followed him a few feet inside. When he lifted the lantern, she could see several crates stacked along an earthen wall.
“What is it?”
“French wine. Brandy. Tobacco. Tea. Some silk, I think.”
When she looked up at him, he returned her gaze impassively. She turned her attention to the crates again. It seemed a strange place to store such things. “But why are they here?” she asked. “Why have you not stored them in your house?”
“The excise men might find them in one house or another, aye? They’ll no’ find them here.”
They reallyweresmugglers. “This is...unlawful,” she said carefully. It was more than that—it was criminal.
