Page 4 of Her Heart's Rightful Earl
“I always do,” Alexander confirmed, dipped his head, and silently disappeared into the night.
***
Alexander had dodged a rather large rat as he’d climbed the dark wooden stairwell of the tavern to the rooms above. Having passed several rooms that had doors practically hanging off their hinges, he was relieved when he arrived at his own, to note that it had a door intact and a lock that worked.
“Here y’are, Mr MacLeod,” the landlady had said with a smirk as she’d handed him his key. ‘Don’t mind the neighbours!’
Sitting on the thin mattress, he now understood her meaning. The walls must have been as thin as cardboard, since he could feel the vibrations of the raised voices and every word was clearly audible, as if they were standing in the same room as him.
A man bellowing about money and a woman shrieking back at him about his roving eye in the pub earlier that evening. It seemed to Alexander they were arguing over completely different things, and he was primed to cover his ears with the pillow before noting it was stained yellow and pungently scented from previous occupants.
He placed the pillow on the floor and stretched out on the bed that could easily double as a table. Staring up at a maze of thick cobwebs strung to the coving around the narrow wooden room, he hugged his arms about himself in the hope of getting warm.
His eyes fluttered closed, exhausted from the journey, but sprang open again as his doorknob abruptly turned and somebody attempted to push the door open. He sat upright and listened as two voices whispered.
“Nah. It’s locked—try the next one. That woman might have jewellery …”
Alexander frowned despondently; whilst he had shelter, sleep may be futile in this place. He reached instead for his most treasured possession.
His leather-bound book of poetry. Carefully, he turned the well-worn cover and gently touched the small, shrivelled violet that had been dried and pressed between the pages. His first gift exchange with Arabella, beneath the old oak tree where they would walk, their chaperone nearby.
It felt so long ago—the moment he first quoted Wordsworth to her as they walked, and she had confessed he’d chosen her favourite poem. He closed his eyes as he felt the papery dryness of the violet beneath his fingers. He reminisced about his time with Arabella—the coy, vulnerable sparkle in her eye as she’d bent low to pick something from the grass and the small smile that had bothered her lips as she’d presented the violet to him.
He had wanted to kiss her, but their chaperone stood just yards away, and he would never risk the scandal, though he could tell she longed to close the gap between them as much as he did. Opening his eyes, he realized with distress that the petals crumbled at his touch, symbolic of his hopes for reconciliation.
He may be within mere miles of her, but he could not see her.
Flipping to the back of the book, Alexander removed a floating page—a letter he had inserted there. Of all the coded lettersThomas had generously sent him during his years in exile, this was the one that had sealed Alexander’s acceptance of his new, unfortunate life.
Until that letter had arrived at the MacLeod estate, six months into his stay in Scotland, Alexander had entertained fanciful thoughts that he and Arabella might one day be reunited; that some benign twist of fate would bring them back together and their love might continue to blossom on from the point he had been forced to leave.
The letter declared, however, that Alexander’s kind and benevolent cousin, Edmund Spencer, had taken such pity on Arabella following the scandal of the Hartwell family that he had wanted to save her from the social ruin associated with Alexander’s presumed murderous crime and subsequent disappearance.
Edmund had married Arabella. If Thomas’s reporting were to be believed, it appeared to all as though the marriage lacked passion and affection but was built instead on kindness and respect.
It had taken Alexander a year to reach some form of acceptance. It should behewho took Arabella Sinclair as his bride and treasured every moment he was fortunate enough to bathe in the glory of her presence. Instead, his cousin had assumed the role, and his jealousy seethed, despite his knowledge that this was a fortunate outcome for Arabella.
It was a marriage of convenience, as were so many, and Alexander worked out a way to feel grateful that Arabella had married a man who was gentle, considerate, fair, and wealthy. Her life would be comfortable, as it should be, and that was all he could ask for.
Folding the paper back up, Alexander thought back to the letter that he received eighteen months after this one. The dreaded communication that his cousin, Edmund, had died, leaving Arabella a grieving widow. Alexander mourned the loss of his good cousin, who had been a healthy, fit, middle-aged man with no expectation of premature death.
This grief was teamed with the hard reality of Arabella’s new, unenviable status. Knowing she was out there, sad and alone, made staying away in Scotland, hiding out, even harder than it had previously felt.
Even though Alexander knew that—should he have any opportunity to transition back into his old life—there would be no hope of salvaging his relationship with Arabella. All hope of anything between them was dashed the moment he had been compelled to run.
The yelling couple in the next room had quietened down a little, but chaos and activity constantly disturbed the corridors.
Clutching the book of poetry close to his chest, Alexander lay down to think of how he could possibly visit his mother without being seen, recognized, and inevitably reported. Daytime would be too difficult—there would be too many people around. He sat up suddenly at the realization; it would have to be night.
Chapter 2
“Are you quite comfortable?” Arabella asked as she plumped the burgundy silk cushions behind the Countess of Wellwood.
Margaret took a shuddering breath and smiled weakly, patting Arabella affectionately on the back of her hand. “I am content, Arabella. Thank you, sweet girl …”
Arabella returned the smile fondly and busied herself around the room, her silky auburn hair falling over her shoulder like a curtain.
“I do so enjoy these evenings together.” Margaret watched Arabella as her petite form whisked about, lighting candles to prepare for their evening reading.
