Hard-Hearted Highlander. Julia London

in, nodding approvingly, as if Rabbie were a prized cow. “You’ll give me heirs, I dare say you will. May I present my daughter, Miss Avaline Kent of Bothing,” he said, and took his daughter’s arm, drawing her forward. “She’s pretty, isn’t she?”

      Rabbie looked at her fair complexion. She was chewing her bottom lip. Her hands were quite small, suitable for nothing useful as far as he could see. “Bonny enough, I suppose, aye,” he said.

      With the exception of the startled cough from the woman leaning against the wall, no one said a word for a moment.

      And then Baron Kent laughed roundly. “Good enough!” he jovially agreed.

      Rabbie’s mother managed a kick to his ankle. He moved forward lest she kick him again and presented his palm to receive Miss Kent’s wee little hand. “How do you, Miss Kent.”

      “My lord—sir,” she said, and curtsied again, as if she hadn’t noticed his hand at all. And when she did sink into that curtsy, Rabbie happened to glance at the woman by the wall. She had dark hair, quite dark, like Rabbie’s sister, Vivienne. And hazel eyes. She was frowning at him, and not in an elegant way like his mother. And then she looked away, as if annoyed by him.

      Rabbie was slightly shocked. Who was she to judge him? And what did she bloody well expect?

      “Miss Kent, please, do come and sit. You must be exhausted,” Rabbie’s mother said, and took Miss Kent’s hand, pulling her away before wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

      “My wife. Where is my wife?” Lord Kent asked, as if he’d misplaced her somewhere. Another woman appeared from the huddled group. She was small and meek, too, her gaze downcast as she shyly greeted Rabbie’s mother.

      For the love of Scotland, that’s who his bride would become.

      Rabbie sighed heavenward as the English party was seated, and glanced over his shoulder, to where the mysterious woman had stood frowning at him as if he was a naughty child.

      But the woman was nowhere to be seen. She’d just...disappeared.

      “Rabbie, darling, perhaps you might sit with Miss Kent and put her at ease,” his mother said, her cheerful voice belying the murderous look in her eye.

      “Aye,” he said, and reluctantly moved to the table where the wisp had been seated. He couldn’t help himself—he glanced back over his shoulder once more.

      The woman with the dark hair and piercing hazel eyes was gone.

       CHAPTER TWO

      BERNADETTE HOLLY LOOKED around the dank room to which she’d been assigned. Or rather, the room to which Avaline had been assigned. Bernadette had been given the small antechamber attached to this room, where she was to sleep on a straw mattress so that she might serve her mistress in the event the girl couldn’t find the chamber pot in the middle of the night.

      If Bernadette ever uttered such a thing aloud, one would think she was ungrateful for her position and disdainful of Avaline. Nothing could be further from the truth—she was grateful and she was not the least disdainful of Avaline. But she was a bit uncertain if the girl possessed a full head of brains.

      The room was quaint if not medieval in its appearance, and quite drafty—Bernadette could feel the gusts of wind coming through the windows. She shivered and walked to the window, pushed aside the heavy brocade draperies, then sneezed at the dust collected in their folds. The window rattled with another gust of cold air, which seeped in around the edges of the old panes.

      Bernadette leaned forward over the deep sill and looked out. The sun was just sliding down behind the hills, its golden light turning the hills red, which in turn cast dark green shadows onto bright yellow rapeseed.

      She found the landscape stark and barren, but strangely beautiful. England was scenic country, too, but Bernadette had never seen anything quite so severe in its allure as this landscape.

      Avaline, however, had found the land intimidating. Worrying a knot of ribbon at her waist, she’d stood beside Bernadette at the bow of the ship as it had glided toward the harbor earlier today. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone about. It looks...bleak.”

      Behind Bernadette, the door of the room suddenly swung open, startling her. She dropped the drapes and turned around to see Avaline backing into the room, profusely thanking whomever had delivered her here. When she had gone well past the point of polite thanks, and the person had tried to dart away into the dark corridor, Avaline leaned forward, craning her neck around the doorframe. “Good night!” she called out, then shut the door very quietly, as if she feared she might disturb someone, and turned to Bernadette.

      “Well?” Bernadette asked brightly. “How did you find him?”

      Avaline looked as if she might collapse at any moment. But then again, Avaline often looked near collapse. “He’s so big,” she said in a near whisper.

      He was certainly that. A tall, ruggedly built man, with very dark, cold eyes.

      “Oh, Bernadette,” Avaline moaned, and staggered to the bed, sinking onto it. “I don’t know how I shall ever manage.”

      “Now, now, you mustn’t despair,” Bernadette said, and moved to sit beside her charge. “It’s the first meeting, after all. Everyone is on tenterhooks. Mr. Mackenzie was undoubtedly as nervous as you,” she said kindly, although she sensed, having observed him, that the man hadn’t a single nerve in him. He’d appeared insouciant, overly confident and quite secure in his idea that he was much grander than the girl he was meant to wed. A rooster, if one wished to put a name to it.

      “Do you really think so?” Avaline asked.

      “Yes, of course.” That was not true—she didn’t believe it at all.

      Neither did Avaline, and she fell over onto her side, distraught. “They are negotiating the terms of our betrothal now. My father and—and him, naturally, and his father, and his brother. He is so distant and he seems unfeeling, and yet his brother has been very kind, has he not?” she asked anxiously, pushing herself up again. “Don’t you think the captain is kind? I said as much to my mother, but she said I was not to think of him at all. I wasn’t thinking of him. I was merely pointing out that he seems kinder than his brother.”

      “Where is your mother?” Bernadette asked curiously. She often lost track of Lady Kent, who was as quiet and unobtrusive as a mouse. Avaline was boisterous in comparison.

      “She is with Lady Mackenzie somewhere in this huge and wretched place,” Avaline said morosely, and gestured lamely to the walls around them. “Lady Mackenzie bid me join them, but I begged her pardon and said I was so very tired after the journey, but really, Bernadette,” she said. “Really, I thought I might burst into tears if I remained another moment.”

      “Then it’s good you came here,” Bernadette said, and put an arm around Avaline’s shoulders.

      Avaline suddenly burst into tears and buried her face in Bernadette’s shoulder. “I can’t believe I must marry him!” she wailed.

      Neither could Bernadette, frankly, but it was the way of things for a girl born to Avaline’s station in life. They married men who strengthened their families’ connections and made them all richer. “Men always appear much fiercer when they are unknown,” she said, patting Avaline’s back. “It’s natural for them to appear so.”

      “It is?”

      No, of course it wasn’t natural. Had the girl learned anything from Bernadette in the last six years? “Yes, always. They must preen and show their fierceness to attract a mate. Much like a rooster.”

      “Like a rooster,” Avaline repeated, sounding hopeful now. She sat up again and folded her hands primly in her lap.

      “Avaline...” Bernadette stood from the bed and kneeled down before her, so that she was