He bent over a little, hands resting on his thighs, panting from the exertion of his run. And then he laughed aloud. Every time Gavin thought he had the woman pegged, Miss Hughes managed to surprise him.
She’d surprised him with her resilience after her dip in the river. Yes, she’d been obstinate. Grumpy. Yet even though she’d been wet and cold, she hadn’t complained.
More surprising still? The way one simple question had unlocked such vulnerability in her. Listening to her plight, as she’d confided the truth of her fears and her future, had stirred something in him. And while Miss Hughes was no doubt beautiful, in those moments where she’d been real and raw, she’d been something more. Free of pretension and affectation she’d been...
Exquisite.
It had almost hurt to look at her, lips twisted in uncertainty, her eyes blue pools of yearning.
Gavin blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. He needed to get ahold of himself. This...thing—whatever it was growing between them—could never be.
But there had been a moment, hadn’t there? When he’d set his hands on her waist. The look on her face—surprise and then something else. Almost as if she’d been torn between propriety and longing.
What would she have done if he’d kissed her then? For he’d wanted to.
If he was honest with himself, Gavin had wanted to kiss her since that first day, when she’d stormed into Nan’s sitting room, soaked through. She’d been a goddess of fury—head high, eyes flashing. He’d liked the fact that she hadn’t let him best her. And despite her constant grumblings about Scotland, he likedher.
But that didn’t mean he was eejit enough to kiss her just now. The moment hadn’t been right. She was too vulnerable. And he’d already asked too much of her.
Gavin sighed. Though he was in no hurry to report to Mr. Murray that the leaking boat couldn’t even be used for kindling now, he resigned himself to it and began the long walk home.
A soft breeze rustled the long grass. The green hills were speckled with purple thistle blossoms. He stopped to examine one of them. The blossoms themselves were beautiful, a full vibrant purple. But the stems and leaves were covered in prickles, making them almost impossible to pick.
A great deal like Arabella Hughes.
She was a woman of layers. Prickly at first. Almost as if daring anyone to get close. But if one ventured near enough and risked getting pierced...
Gavin had confronted her, challenged her. And he’d watched as her defenses had fallen away. He had felt more thanseen the maelstrom of uncertainty, the turbulence created by turning over such questions in her mind. He’d sensed the courage it would take to be something other than what her parents wanted her to be.
And in that moment, he’d been granted a brief glimpse of the woman she could be if she tore off the shackles of their expectations.
She would be, in a word, magnificent.
As brilliant and majestic as the thistle blossoms that covered these hills.
And so as he started forward, seeing Nan’s house up on the rocky cliffside, he half feared the answer she’d give him tomorrow.
For Gavin suspected that if the true force of Arabella Hughes was set free, his heart would be in very great danger.
ARABELLA DRUMMED HER fingers on the arm of the settee.
“Arabella? Is everything all right?” Grandmother sat across the room in a chair before the fire. “Ye’re driving me tae distraction, dearie.”
Arabella stood, clasping her hands together. She was drivingherselfto distraction. “I’m fine. Just restless. And hungry.”
It wasn’t a lie. But it wasn’t exactly the truth either.
Arabella had been wrestling with herself since yesterday, ever since that unexpectedly intimate conversation with Mr. McKenzie. Turning possibilities over and over in her mind.
She kept coming back to that moment on the cliffside stairs, when she’d almost fallen. Remembering the stark and wondrous feeling that had surged through her when Mr. McKenzie’s arms had closed around her, the intense relief at being alive.
But was she alive—reallyalive? When she was constantly being prodded and poked, molded into the ideal her parents expected? When she allowed them to make every decision, big or small?
The answer, now, was plain.
No.
Up until now, she had lived—at best—half a life.
