“Isn’t that what I said? In and out the same day.”
Fear struck Gavin’s core. “Ye’re sure? Was she traveling alone?” He grabbed the man’s collar, resisting the urge to shake him. If her parents were gone, why hadn’t Arabella come to him?
“Nae. She had a young chit with her, a pretty thing. Ainlie stopped tae change their horses.”
His words gutted Gavin. Arabella was gone.
He staggered backward, trying to make sense of it, to understand what might have happened to so drastically alter Arabella’s plans after the promises they’d made one another today.
Tossing a few coins on the table, Gavin headed out the door. He needed air.
He stalked outside, where cool wind rushed into his lungs. Sweet Highland air.
He shook his head, still trying to fathom that Arabella was gone.
Everything within him bucked against such a thought. He knew what he felt for her, knew that this thing between them was not some passing, fleeting flare of attraction. For him, at least, it went deeper than that. Bone deep. As if somehow the woman had worked her way into his veins, through his bloodstream, and straight to his marrow.
He couldn’t see a future without her. Her presence was everywhere. At The Fox and Crown, where they’d first met. At the haberdashery, where he’d purchased a bonnet for his made-up cousin. On the beach. In the hills. And now at the abbey.
There would be nowhere he could go to escape her. No place she’d left untouched.
This place that had always been a refuge for him would become haunted with memories of her. Her smile, her insults, her scent, her laugh. Arabella had become a part of this place for him.
And he wasn’t sure he could bear to stay here if she was gone.
MOTHER STOOD AT the top of the steps, ice in her gaze.
Arabella’s limbs were so wobbly that she nearly tripped as she dismounted. “Mother, what are you doing here? I thought—”
“I would think it obvious, Arabella,” Mother said. Her bearing was rigid, her voice unforgiving. “I came to fetch you. You sounded so desperate in your letter. So anxious to escape the ‘Scottish swine,’ as you called them.” She walked down the steps and looked Arabella over, nose wrinkling just enough to show her distaste. “But now it seems you prefer to roll in the mud right alongside them.”
Arabella glanced down at herself. The front of her riding habit was covered in mud and her face... She lifted a hand and felt the crusted mud Gavin had smeared there. “I—”
“Go inside, Arabella. I’ll call for a bath.”
Arabella’s heart stuttered in her chest. But the commanding voice was so familiar that her body obeyed on instinct. She handed over Willow’s reins to the waiting groom and headed up the steps. Through the door. Past the entry. Up to her room.
She closed the door and leaned against it, her heart still pounding. In five minutes, it had all come flooding back. The strength of her parents’ grip on her. The way she so easily bent to their will.
Her hands were still trembling. She looked down at hershaking, dirt-caked fingers. She’d felt so certain of everything just minutes before, but now...
Arabella walked over to her dressing table as the door swung open. Mother stared at her in the mirror. “How could you?” she asked, voice soft. Dangerous. “Again?”
“It isn’t what you think,” Arabella said, trying for composure. “Mr. McKenzie and I—”
Her mother crossed the room in three quick strides. “No?” She scoffed. “What’s this?”
With two fingers she reached out and touched Arabella’s cheekbone. The softest brush. And there Arabella could see, in the crusted mud...
A thumbprint.
Gavin’s thumbprint.
“Save your lies, Arabella. You have a future waiting for you back in London. One you seem to have lost sight of. After that incident with Mr. Gresham, I feared we were being too hard on you. Now I can only be grateful your father and I had the foresight to send you so far north, where the chances of anyone learning about your indiscretions are slim.”
“Where is he?” Arabella asked. “Father.”
“Back in London, keeping up appearances. Doing his best to make the connections that will secure your future. We’ve secured an invitation to a house party—”
