“I would ainlie be an imposition.” She cocked her head, smiling. “In a way the groom ye are bringing along, will not.”
“Ye, Ailsa Callender, are quite the schemer.”
“I dinnae deny it.” She gave him a sly wink. “But ye dinnae seem tae mind...am I wrong?”
Nan wasn’t wrong. He’d taken advantage of every opportunity she’d provided to spend time with Arabella these past weeks. Spent hours in her company at kirk, at meals, showing her his property, talking quietly before the fire after dinner. And in that time, he’d fallen deeply, irrevocably in love with her.
That part had been easy.
The part that would be more difficult?
The battle that loomed at the end of the summer. Gavin was no fool. He knew Arabella cared for him, that perhaps shewas even coming to love him. Just as he knew her parents would never approve of a match between them.
She’d never said as much, but she hadn’t needed to. He knew it from the way they manipulated her, controlling her every move. Knew it from what she’d said of the lofty ambitions they had for her marriage.
And he saw it. The shadows that occasionally passed over her face. The worry she held in the groove between her brows. When she laughed too loud or said something unladylike. Or, heaven forbid, when she felt the pull of desire between them.
What he feared more than anything was that he was running out of time. He was trying, every moment he spent with her, to tear down the lies her parents had made her believe. That her value was somehow tied to doing and acting and being exactly what they wished for her to be. That she had to fit a certain mold in order to be loved.
“Wrong about what?” Arabella asked from the top of the staircase.
Gavin and Nan both looked up.
“Wrong aboot the weather,” Nan said easily. “I suspected it might rain today, but the sky is clear.”
Gavin wasn’t certain he could have answered. He’d thought, these past weeks, that he’d become accustomed to Arabella’s beauty. But as she descended the stairs today, wearing her dark blue riding habit, her loveliness hit him anew. It was different from that first night when she’d rendered him speechless. No longer was her beauty an impersonal thing to be admired from afar. It was an intimate, cherished thing.
He’d seen her curls flying out behind her as they raced Baird and Willow along the beach. Watched her nose wrinkle while losing at a card game. Noticed how her cheeks flushed with color when he teased her. Observed her blue eyes light with pleasure when he pointed out a view that delighted her.
Seeing her now, each of those features so precious to him, made his throat constrict, making him more certain that even though the future was uncertain, Arabella Hughes was a risk worth taking.
She reached the bottom of the staircase. “Good morning, Mr. McKenzie.”
Arabella still insisted on a degree of formality whenever they were in the company of others, even her grandmother. But today, there was no hint of playfulness in her voice.
He stepped forward. “Arabella?”
She smiled, but there was something forced about it. “Shall we go?”
Gavin shot Nan a look, but she looked as perplexed as he.
He offered her his arm. “I’ve the horses waiting out front.”
In no time they were mounted and heading north. Gavin kept an eye on Arabella, but she kept her gaze straight ahead, lips pursed, expression tight. The wind whipped around them, blowing so fiercely that it made conversation impossible.
Despite the wind, they made good time, cresting the hill that led down toward Lochinvar Abbey by a little past ten. At the top of the ridge, Gavin reined in Baird, waiting for Arabella. She pulled up beside him, cheeks rosy from the unrelenting wind.
Arabella’s eyes went round as she caught sight of the abbey ruins. She stayed silent for several long seconds, taking in the view.
Lochinvar Abbey was set in a small dell, surrounded by hills on every side. The two largest walls that remained jutted up into the sky, like fingers pointing toward heaven. Ravens flew in and out of the pane-less windows, over low walls, and out over the small stream that wound its way through the valley. Tall clumps of grass grew at the base of the crumbling stone walls, and several climbing vines seemed to be nature’s way of trying to reclaim the structure.
“It’s haunting,” Arabella said quietly. “And beautiful.”
“We could walk for a while,” he offered. “And perhaps ye could tell me what is bothering ye?”
She looked at him sharply.
“Ye dinnae hide your emotions as well as ye believe. ’Tis clear ye’re upset.”
