She couldn’t stop a bubble of laughter from escaping. Her hand flew to her lips, and she had the decency to look remorseful. But when he grinned at her, an unrepentant smile brightened her face.
His heart tugged at the sight. Good God. She was just as beautiful as he remembered, her laughter just as lilting on the warm summer air. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to grab her hand and run away with her into the heather.
A lock of her hair stirred on the soft breeze. Unable to resist, he reached out to tuck it behind her ear.
Her breath hitched. Staring warily at him, she stepped back, and his hand dropped to his side.
“She wants to leave within the hour,” she said quietly, retreating both to safe conversation and to safe distance as she placed another step between them. “I’ll tell her you’re coming with us.”
She turned to hurry back into the house.
“Arabel,” he called out.
She stopped, hesitating. Then faced him. All of her was suddenly rigid, even holding her breath as she steeled herself for whatever he was about to say.
Her unease hit him like a punch. That she would be this wary of him when all he’d ever done was love her—Christ.
As he stared at her, he realized that everything had changed between them, and the soft summer air now crackled with electricity. With the same rising tension that preceded an oncoming storm. Poised on his tongue was the demand to know why she’d turned on him all those years ago. Why she’d allowed her family to set McTavish and the grooms on him—
“Why were you talking to those men?” she pressed before could find the words to broach what needed to be said. What had been ten years coming and still hovered over them like a specter.
“I’m getting estimates for repairs to the house.”
Her shoulders relaxed visibly. “I saw you . . . You were very patient with the boys.” She smiled, but a melancholy stole the pink from her cheeks. “You’re going to make a wonderful father.”
His chest tightened. “I hope so.”
“I know so.” Then, much softer, she added, “I’ve always known that.”
A hard pinch low in his gut ripped his breath away. The pull of her was too strong to ignore, even now. “And I always wanted to have children with you, Arabel.”
She looked away, blinking hard against the breeze that stirred her ginger curls gently against her cheeks. “I wanted that, too.”
He replied quietly, plunging a knife into both their hearts, “But not enough to choose me over your family.”
For one heartbeat, he felt her freeze. All of her stiffened, and even her breath hitched. Only the stray curls moved, dancing against her face on the warm breeze.
She whispered, “That’s why you want to take Highburn away from me, isn’t it? So you can get your revenge against my family.” Her voice lingered softly on the afternoon air, but each word was a piercing accusation. “And against me.”
“Yes,” he admitted. After all, that was why he was still here rather relinquishing the property as he should. Wash his hands clean of it. And of his past with Arabel.
But he couldn’t. He was still drawn to her, even now. Like a moth consumed by the very flame it craved.
“I won’t let you have it,” she told him with quiet determination.
He shrugged a shoulder, feigning indifference. “I don’t think you have a choice.”
When she turned back to look at him, the glistening of unshed tears in her eyes struck him like a punch to the gut. “Just as I didn’t have one ten years ago,” she said softly. “I couldn’t leave my family when they needed me. Not even for you, Garrick.”
He clenched his jaw. She’d opened a dam with her turn of conversation, and he welcomed it. It was ten years in the making, and now that she’d opened the floodgates, he refused to hold back. “It was then or never, you knew that. The only chance we had to start our future together.” He advanced slowly until he stood so close that he could smell the sweet scent of her lingering on the soft summer air, that fragrance of heather and the highlands that filled his senses. So painfully close but not daring to touch her. “But you refused me.”
“I refused to elope that night,” she countered. “I never refused you.”
He bit back a bitter laugh. “No difference.”
“Every difference,” she corrected.
“Damnation, Arabel!” The words were forced out between teeth clenched so tightly that the muscle in his neck jumped. “What you and your family did to me—”
“Ten years!” she cried, drawing her hands into fists at her sides. “Not once did you try to contact me to find out how I was, to let me know how you were, or where. Not once—” She choked on the angry words.
Garrick stared at her, her pained anger cascading into him and mixing with his own. He should have cursed at her or yelled at her. At the very least laughed at what she was suggesting—that he should have contacted her, the woman who had rejected him and the future he wanted to give her.
But when he saw pain in her eyes equal to his own, he couldn’t bring himself to attack.
“What good would it have done?” he asked instead, unable to keep the resignation from his voice. “By the time I was in a position to contact you, a year had passed. I was certain that by then your family would have arranged your marriage to Ian Campbell.” Bitterness mixed with hot jealousy inside him. “The man they’d wanted for you all along.”
She blinked rapidly but couldn’t stop the tears visibly threatening at her lashes. “I could have told you that I didn’t marry. You could have returned to Scotland.” She hesitated before adding in a whisper, “And to me.”
“A groom turned penniless soldier with no prospects except dying in battle. A man your family would never have accepted. A man everyone knew wasn’t good enough for you.” The man who would always come in second to your family. With a defeated shake of his head, he repeated quietly, all the fight leaving him, “What good would it have done?”
She didn’t answer—couldn’t answer. After a moment’s pause, she turned away and walked slowly backed toward the house.
But Garrick was certain that the anguish he saw in her tear-filled eyes would haunt him until the day he died.
Day Eight
Arabel pressed her heels against her horse’s side, urging it into a slow canter. The soft summer air caressed her cheeks, and her heart raced with pleasure. More—with freedom.
She laughed in exhilaration. She loved to ride, and this afternoon’s outing was even sweeter. It was an escape from the house which seemed to be falling down at a rapid rate and needed repairs that she wasn’t certain she could afford, and whose size was now deceptively small for all the rooms that had been shut off. So small, in fact, that she kept coming across Garrick without warning whenever Aunt Matilda sent her on an errand. Every time Arabel fetched whatever it was that Auntie wanted—always, as luck would have it, from the same room where Garrick was—Matilda forgot all about it by the time she returned.
And then there was Garrick.
When he wasn’t attempting to antagonize her into leaving, he kept staring at her as if he wanted to strip her naked. With his teeth.
But on horseback, she experienced the same freedom she had as a girl. She hadn’t felt that in far too long, and not at all beneath the constraints of her life in Edinburgh. The responsibilities of caring for her mother seemed to drain all her energy, and Edinburgh suffocated her. So did her engagement. But here in the highlands, with the wide blue sky stretching above her, she could breathe and be free again.
Excitement pulsed through her. If she kept Highburn, she could return here whenever she wanted and recapture the happiness that had filled her when she was younger, when life was still good and love still possible.
Love . . . Garrick.
Separating the two proved impossible. Her head knew she had to stay away from him, but her heart longed to love him. And her body . . . oh, her traitorous body! She physically ached whenever he w
as near, with a simmering heat that left her throbbing wickedly. Even now the thought of being in his arms gave her such yearnings that she trembled.
The sound of approaching hooves snagged her attention. She glanced over her shoulder, and her heart somersaulted at the sight of Garrick galloping toward her.
He looked magnificent as his black horse drew near. His maroon redingote was drawn tight across his broad shoulders, and beneath tight buckskin breeches, his muscular thighs flexed as they gripped the saddle. Fluid and confident, he rode as if he were one with the horse as it slowed to a canter beside her.
“Race me,” he called out.
“I was enjoying a quiet ride alone.”
“Afraid you’ll lose?” he taunted with a grin, just as he used to do.
God help her, but she couldn’t resist—“Never!”
She urged her horse into a gallop, giving him his head as his strides lengthened across the turf. Despite the uncomfortable sidesaddle and the cumbersome full skirt of her riding habit that billowed around her legs, she lowered herself as small as possible on the gelding’s back as she pushed him to go faster. She couldn’t outrun Garrick, but the race was thrill enough.
Nudging his horse closer, he reached over and gave a small tug at her chignon. Not to pull her hair to hurt her, but just enough to start the knot unraveling. The wind whipped at her locks, and her thick curls pulled free of their pins, scattering them across the ground. Her hair streamed out behind her, and she had no choice but to let it fly like a banner in the wind.
They raced down into the valley and along a stream. Both horses panted hard, but they sensed the delight of their riders and tossed their heads to keep running. They pulled up only when they reached the handful of abandoned cottages at the far end of the glen.
Arabel jumped from her horse. With her heart racing, she tossed her long skirt over her arm and ran toward one of the cottages. Garrick followed close on her heels.
He caught her just as she reached the door, grabbing her around the waist from behind and lifting her into the air as he twirled her in a circle. As she turned in his arms to face him, she laughed with such abandon that she could only cling breathlessly to him as he walked her back against the cottage, trapping her there between the wall and his large body.
She gazed up at him, and the rush of blood in her ears turned deafening. Each breath came in a soft pant.
Placing his hands flat against the wall on either side of her shoulders, he lowered his head until his mouth hovered so close to hers that his breath tickled her lips. His green eyes shined, heated and devilish.
“I win,” he announced in a hoarse rasp, his gaze dropping to her mouth.
“Never!” With a laugh, she ducked beneath his arm and slipped into the cottage.
She halted mid-step just inside the doorway, the laughter choking on her lips as she stared around her. Broken pieces of furniture covered with a layer of dust, pottery bowls and mugs still intact on the shelves, a worn rug in front of the cold hearth, curtains hanging at the window—all of it sitting there as if waiting for its family to return.
She felt him approach slowly behind her, coming near but not touching, as if sensing the sudden change in her. All her happiness and exhilaration from only moments before vanished, leaving a grim sobriety that cut her to the quick.
“I thought—” She swallowed hard to push down the knot clenching her throat. “I thought these cottages were abandoned.”
“They are,” he confirmed quietly.
She moved slowly around the room, taking it all in but afraid to touch any of the objects which had been left behind. She felt like an intruder in someone else’s life. “It looks as if they left so quickly that they couldn’t pack.”
“They might very well have,” he answered soberly. “Families who stay in cottages like these live on the edge. They’re always one day’s wages from being foreclosed upon, one harvest from starvation. They might have been driven out by the landlord or by creditors, or forced into the poorhouse.” Contempt colored his voice as he bit out, “And the lords in the manor house, with their lavish dinners and blazing fires, their well-paid doctors at the ready at the first cough—they think that if the poor are sick and starving it’s only because they’re lazy and won’t work harder.”
“You’re one of those lords now,” she reminded him gently.
He muttered beneath his breath, “I’ll never be one of them.”
Struck by the tone of his voice, she glanced over her shoulder at him. Her heart stuttered at the sight of him, here in the cottage, surrounded by everyday objects and simple furnishings.
She realized then why the cottage seemed so familiar, why she’d been struck by the feeling of stepping into another life as soon as she entered—
“We would have lived in a cottage just like this,” she whispered, barely a sound passing her lips, “if we’d married.” Her belly tightened at the glimpse of the life they might have shared, spreading out before her. Once she’d wanted nothing more than to be his wife, keep his home, have his children . . . “We would have been happy here.”
“You would have been miserable,” he corrected gently.
She whispered, “Not with you.”
“Especially with me.” He shook his head at the futility of what she was suggesting. “Can you honestly tell me that you would have been happy living in a place like this, two rooms so poorly furnished that we would have been lucky to have a table to eat from, let alone any food on the plates? No pretty dresses or beeswax candles, no books, certainly no tea or sugar, no velvet or ribbons.” He reached out and tugged at the shoulder of her riding habit, adding, “No Rowland tartan for you or our bairn. Your father would have made certain of it.”
“I would still have been a Rowland by birth.” Resentment began to pulse inside her. “Entitled to wear the tartan.”
“You would have become a McGuiness. You would have been nothing.” His jaw tightened. “Just as I was.”
“Don’t say that! I loved you, more than—” The words choked in her throat. When they came, they were little more than a breath. “More than I’ve loved anyone else in my life.”
He froze, stunned at her unexpected confession.
“Not going with you that night was the most difficult choice I’ve ever had to make.” Her voice shook from the emotion of her admission. “I loved you, Garrick, but I loved my family, too. They needed me to be here with them, to face together all the terrible things that were about to happen to us.”
“A gambling debt?” he bit out. He shook his head, disdain darkening his features. “Terrible for Samuel, surely, but nothing you had to take on yourself.”
She hesitated, wanting nothing more than to tell him everything, to spill her heart and all the dreadful events of that summer—
But she couldn’t. Even now, the pain was still raw, still too difficult to share.
“I wanted to go with you that night,” she answered instead. “I wanted to be your wife and share a home with you, just like this one.” She glanced around her, unprepared for the rush of sadness that swept over her when her eyes landed on the empty cradle in the corner. “And fill it with our own children. There would have been love and happiness . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she drew in a deep breath, pressing her hand against her chest to fight back the memories of the past. The ghosts of a life that would never be. “I had to choose, and I chose my family. But not one day went by that I didn’t regret having to make that decision, not one night when I didn’t wonder what our life would have been like.”
Her gaze met his, and as she stared into his eyes, the rest of the world fell away around them. Just as it did ten years ago whenever his attention was on her, when it seemed only the two of them existed.
“I made the right decision, Garrick, I know I did,” she breathed out in a trembling whisper. “If I had to relive that night, even knowing now what would happen—” Her eyes began to sting as tears blurred his handsome face. She whispered softly,
“I would make the same choice.”
He shook his head. “Arabel—”
“But that doesn’t mean I didn’t love you. That I didn’t want a life with you.” All the emotions roiled inside her so fiercely that she had to press a fist against her chest to keep breathing. The pain was unbearable, but the only way to end her misery was to sear the wound completely, to stir up the desolation and grief until no more pain was left. To answer the question that had been haunting her for ten years . . . “Why did you leave, Garrick? You left Kincardine when I . . .” When I needed you most.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he finished with a cutting iciness.
She flinched at the accusation, and old wounds bled anew. “Neither did I,” she admitted. “I’d thought . . .”
“You thought what?” he pressed.
Somehow she found the resolve inside her to not look away. “That you loved me enough to understand,” she whispered as the memories of that night spiraled through her, all the pain and panic, the desperation . . . “That you loved me enough to wait.”
They stared at each other silently. In that heartbeat’s pause, she was certain that time had been ripped apart, that ten years hadn’t passed. That they were standing once more at the verge of a new future together—
But that was only a fantasy. The life she’d wanted with him could never be hers now.
A decade of confusion and desolation surged to the surface, dredging up memories of how broken she’d felt, how many nights she’d cried herself to sleep, how many prayers she’d offered in which she’d begged God to let him return for her. She squeezed her hands into helpless fists at her sides as she fought to see in him any traces of the man she once knew and loved, but finding none. Staring at him now, surrounded by ghosts of the life they could have had, she knew she never would.
With a frustrated cry, she shoved against his chest to push past him for the door.
But he grabbed her around the waist and yanked her against him. With every struggling shove and twist she made, his arm tightened around her and kept her pressed against him. He shifted her back across the table until her feet could barely find purchase against the dirt floor. His face was dark with anger and something else she couldn’t fathom, but it made her heart pound and her blood turn hot.
A Match Made in Heather Page 5