Page 77 of The Last Debutante
This is an omen,she tried to convince herself. An omen that she had gone too far, that she had to stop before she did something she would never recover from.
She lifted her gaze to Jamie’s. His eyes were dark, his demeanor suddenly distant. He knew it, too. “My parents, surely,” she said.
He just held her gaze.
Daria looked at the door. “I can’t...” She couldn’t do so many things, she thought wildly. She couldn’t be with Jamie the way she wanted to be with him. She couldn’t linger here, and yet she couldn’t imagine herself beyond this day—
“Come, Daria.” He looked at the table where they had come so close to experiencing what she suspected would have been the most brilliant thing she had ever felt; a tiny shiver ran down her spine just thinking of it. But then he turned his back to it. “Let us discover who has come to rescue you.”
The conflicting swirl of emotions was a nauseating mix in the pit of her belly. She walked stiffly beside Jamie. She thought she should say something, anything meaningful, but she was completely numb.
As they reached the end of the mews, Jamie said, “Daria.”
She stopped and looked into his eyes. She could feel the pull between them, as strong as the moon pulled the tide. His gaze drank her in, his brow furrowed. There was so much she wanted to say—You astonish me time and again, I adore you, I want you,any number of things. But she couldn’t find her tongue.
“I should go,” she whispered.
He pressed his lips together and nodded. His hand slipped from her elbow, and the tide ebbed between them.
She turned away and walked, then ran, to the keep’s entrance, slowing as she rounded the corner and saw the polished black-and-red post chaise coach, and the coachmen standing attentively around it.
That was not her parents’ coach.
Daria walked cautiously forward.
“There you are, Miss Babcock, and looking quite bonny, I say. It would seem Scotland agrees with you, aye?”
Daria whirled around. Captain Robert Mackenzie was standing just outside the small entry to the castle’s keep. He was dressed in a fine coat over an elaborately and richly embroidered waistcoat. His dark hair was combed away from his face and his jaw clean-shaven. He looked different than he had the few times Daria had seen him at Tiber Park. He looked like a wealthy English lord, not a sea captain with a reputation for running blockades.
He pushed away from the wall. “You are a wee bit surprised to see me, aye?”
“Yes—did Charity send you?”
He smiled and the warmth of it, the pleasure in it, was striking. His blue eyes shone as he said, “She didna send me, no. I brought her here. I’d no’ allow her to make a journey into the Highlands alone.”
“Madainn mhath.”
Captain Mackenzie shifted his gaze from Daria to Jamie as the laird strolled into their midst.“Madainn mhath,”the captain answered easily. “Captain Robert Mackenzie at your service, Laird,” he said, and bowed low. “I’ve come to fetch the wee one.”
“Did you think it necessary to bring an army to do it?” Jamie asked, eyeing the men around the chaise.
“One never knows what one will find in the Highlands, aye?” Captain Mackenzie said cheerfully.
“Spoken like a Lowlander,” Jamie muttered. “Come in,” he said, gesturing to the keep.
“Where is Charity?” Daria asked breathlessly.
“She’s just inside, lass. Waiting for you.”
Daria flew past him.
Charity was standing in the middle of the small foyer with Duff and a young woman in a drab traveling grown. Charity was dressed in a lilac gown and coat with a matching bonnet. Her blonde hair was fastened artfully to the back of her head with crystal pins that winked at Daria.
“You came!” Daria exclaimed as she burst into the foyer.
“Of course I came,” Charity said. “How could I allow my dearest friend to be held for ransom?” She held out her arms.
Daria hugged Charity tightly to her. “Thank God you’ve come. I worried no one would ever hear from me again—”
