Arabella bowed her head, lines of agony in her features. He wanted to smooth away the hurt, to offer comfort. Gavin dismounted and helped her down, giving their horses into the care of the groom.
Arm-in-arm they walked, silence pressed between them.
“The morning after I arrived here,” she finally began, “I wrote a letter to my parents. Outlining every single one of the ills I’d endured. I said scathing, hurtful things. About you.” Her lips twisted. “About Grandmother.”
He nodded, keeping his face expressionless.
“I begged for them to come for me. To take me back home.” She paused, taking a breath, her features smoothing. “But I put it away and never sent it.”
“Why?” he asked softly.
“I’m not even sure myself. Only that by the time I remembered it, I’d already softened toward Grandmother.”
“Not quite as soon tae me,” he teased.
“No, not quite as soon.” Her smile was brief. “Last night I discovered that Molly sent it,” she whispered, voice tortured. “I thought I had another month here in Scotland, but if they’ve received my letter...”
A sense of dread grew low in Gavin’s stomach.
She looked up at him, brows knitted together. “They could be here any day,” she finished.
Gavin’s mind was racing. “So they’ll come. And what? Ye’ll tell them...”
“I doubt I’ll have much of a chance to tell them anything.”
“Arabella, I ken what your parents are like. Ye’ve told me enough—”
She laughed, but there was no warmth in it. “Do you think they won’t see the truth? That this summer hasn’t been the exile they imagined? That I’ve broken every rule they ever...” She paused, face crumpling. “They’ll take me back to London, Gavin. As quickly as they sent me north to Scotland.”
He stared down at her, willing her to see him, to see all that he felt for her. “Ye dinnae have tae go back with them.”
Her eyes squeezed shut. “But I do.”
“Arabella, ye’re a grown woman.”
She turned away. “I’m only twenty, Gavin. Not yet of age. And you don’t understand what they’re like. WhatI’mlike when I’m with them. When they come, I’ll go with them. I might hate myself for it. I might regret it. But I’ll go.”
“But—butwhy? Ye’ve told me yourself they dinnae care about what ye want. Why would ye put your future in their hands?”
“They are myparents, Gavin.”
“And ye are a different daughter than the one they sent tae Scotland. Ye’re a different woman than the one I met back at The Fox and Crown. Ye’ve changed.”
“I have,” she said quietly. “But perhaps not enough.”
Gavin grasped her upper arms, desperate to reason with her. “I dinnae believe it. Why do ye give them such power, Arabella? Ye’ve a fierce heart. Ye can make your own choices.”
She set her mouth. “I’ve watched Grandmother this summer. My mother’s choice broke her heart. It’s a wound that won’t heal, not even with time. And perhaps I’m weak and perhaps I’ll regret it, but I cannot do to my parents what Mother did to her. I cannot.” Her voice broke on the last word.
Pain cut through him, sharp and deep, and he released his hold on her. “But ye can walk away and leave me without asecond thought. What did ye think all this was, Arabella?” He sucked in a breath. “A game?”
“No,” she whispered, arms folded across her middle. “But perhaps a fairy tale.”
“A fairy tale,” he repeated, voice laced with disgust.
“I wish I were stronger. But you don’t know—”
“I ken the woman I’ve come tae love would not be satisfied with the life she left back in London!” he shouted. And then softer, breath ragged, “She wouldn’t be satisfied tae live in a world where she had no say, no choices, no freedom.”
