Page 18 of Heather and the Highlander
After Heather agreed to theproposal, Niall leaned out the window of the carriage and yelled to Tavish, “Drive fast as you safely can! Take the road through Gretna Green.”
“Yes, milord!” Tavish howled back.
Heather thought the driver was already going at his top speed, but the moment when Niall pulled his head back in, there was a jolt and they sped up.
“God save me,” she muttered. “We’re going to crash.”
“Tavish is very adept,” Niall reassured her. “I chose him especially for my journey down to London.”
“Wouldn’t a ship have been faster?”
“I hate ships. I love watching the sea, but the moment I’m on it, I beg for dry land.”
Heather nodded in understanding. “Hence the carriage.”
“Hence the carriage.”
“And did you accomplish what you set out to do? In London, that is?” she asked, thinking that she knew next to nothing about him.
Niall frowned, shook his head, then nodded, then closed his eyes. “Not to my satisfaction.”
“Will you have to return?”
“Lord have mercy, I hope not. If I never see that cesspool again, it’ll be too soon. I can’t wait to get back home.”
“Tell me about your home. Please. I mean, I know I’ll only be, er, visiting, but I should like to know.”
“Would you?” He looked surprised, and more than a little pleased that she’d asked. “Well, it’s beautiful, to begin.”
“A good beginning.” She smiled. “How is it beautiful?”
“Ach, well, it’s in the Highlands, and Carregness lies in a glen at the east end of Loch Oban, which is the loveliest of any loch in the country, surrounded by mountains. And the land falls to the west, so that from the top of Carregness, one can view the sea. There’s no better place in the world.”
“It sounds wonderful. And who lives there, apart from you?”
“Who doesn’t?” he responded, as if it were a silly question. “My father, of course. My brothers and my sister Maeve. Fionnuala—she’s the youngest—married last year, so she’s with her husband’s people now.”
“Your mother lives there as well?”
“My mother passed when I was young,” he said, and a shadow darkened his expression. He put his hand to his waistcoat pocket, a gesture she’d noticed before.
“Oh, I’m sorry. It would have been nice to meet her.”
“She’d have liked you,” Niall said, with a soft, musing tone. “Probably would have rescued you herself, if she’d been riding by.”
Heather said, “You mentioned making some people miserable with the announcement of this so-called marriage. Who, exactly?”
He looked out the window. “Remember when you ran away to avoid a wedding? Well, my journey to London was something similar.”
“Hold a moment!” Heather said, alarmed. “You’re alreadyengaged?”
“No! That is, not exactly. I mean, my father got in his head that Brenna is my match, just because our families have been aligned for such a long time. He and her father hatched the plan over whisky one night about twenty years ago. But I just don’t think of her that way, and when we’re in the same place we tend to fight a lot. I don’t know why.”
“But your father still insists?"
“Yes, but your arrival should finally get his mind off the notion, and by the time we’re done being married, no one will want anything to do with me, least of all Brenna, and I can gain my freedom as well.”
“I wish I’d known these details,” Heather murmured, though she was angry with herself more than Niall for not being more careful. How did the saying go? Marry in haste…
