“All I ask is that you meet Hope and see if you suit. If you do, then I don’t know why a marriage wouldn’t follow.”
“Because I’ll not have my fate dictated by the likes of you.”
“Oh, MacKinnon, who better than me?” Lady Belle quipped. “I’ve managed several generations of men in my lifetime. I held a king in the palm of my hand, MacKinnon. A king.”
He scoffed.
“AnEnglishking,” he countered with disgust, shaking his head. “And you’ve lost your mind if you think I’m going to play your games.”
“I’ve not lost my mind. I’m merely hopeful.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t stand this. Good day.”
“MacKinnon—”
“I said, good day.”
Graham didn’t look back. He couldn’t. The sheer audacity of that woman floored him, and he would not give her the satisfaction of seeing him so unsettled—nor would he let her glimpse his heartbreak at the realization that he wouldn’t inherit his ancestorial home. It was too much. He had put up with Lady Belle for years and while, yes, they had come to have a tentative friendship, he had always believed she knew that he had been wronged and that she was an honorable enough person to one day give him a chance to get the home back. It’s what he deserved.
But an ultimatum? No, that was one thing he wouldn’t stand for.
Graham busted through the front doors and into the pouring rain. A footman spotted him and hurried back to the stables to fetch his mount, but Graham wouldn’t wait. He headed towards the stables himself, eventually meeting the footman as he brought around Graham’s horse, a Clydesdale named Redcap. In an instant, he was on the horse’s back and riding away from Lismore Hall. He tore off down the drive, eager to get away from this place.
How could Lady Belle have believed that he would agree to such an outrageous proposal? It was 1855, for God's sake, not the dark ages. He wouldn’t be cowed into marrying some homely English bride to get what was rightfully his.
Riding as fast as he could through the storm, Graham ignored the hundreds of sharp stings as the raindrops slammed into his body. He rode along the crest of the rocky range that would take him back south to Loch Awe, where his uncle lived at Elk Manor. He needed to vent, to rage out loud at Lady Belle’s audacity and swear never to deal with the likes of her again.
Because if there was one thing he knew for sure, it was that Graham MacKinnon would never marry Hope Sharpe.
CHAPTER THREE
Hope gazed out the carriage window as it jostled forward, up through the stony hills and rough crags that had begun to crop up since leaving Cumbria. While the rolling hills to the south appeared like crushed, green velvet, these northern peaks of exposed rock and moss reminded Hope of a threadbare carpet laid over uneven ground.
She had imagined that Scotland would be a desolate place, composed of jagged cliffs and sharp rocks, but she had been mistaken. The vast countryside that seemed to go on forever was magnificent, and the further they rode north, the more she felt a sense of calm. It was the strangest feeling, but it felt like she was coming home.
“How much longer?” Faith asked.
“It shouldn’t be too much longer now,” Hope answered, remembering her grandmother’s words about patience.
She smiled sadly. At the end of the week after her grandmother’s demise, Hope and her sisters receive a letter from their aunt, Lady Belle. Upon learning about her sister’s death, their aunt insisted that they come north for at least the remainder of the year to mourn in privacy. It was a lifeline and they had jump at the chance, though Faith had been less pleased than both Hope and Grace to leave London behind.
Now, dressed in black, they traveled north through the Scottish Highlands. Hope was eager to finish their journey and find solace in the mountains.
“I wonder what it will be like, living with Aunt Belle,” Grace said. “Grandmother never let us ask her many questions.”
“Because she didn’t like her for some reason,” Faith said.
It was true. Alice had not liked Belle. Hope and her sisters didn’t know much about their great aunt, except that she was exceedingly rich. They had lived for the last seven years in Belle’s London home, but whenever Hope inquired about thisenigmatic relative, her grandmother refused to share anything about her, except to say that they were sisters and not very close.
“I wonder why,” Grace said, mostly to herself as she gazed out the window.
“At least we’ve spent time with her ,” Hope said. “It would be terribly awkward to go live with someone we’ve never laid eyes on before.”
Five years prior, Hope had convinced her grandmother to invite Belle to London for Christmas so that they might show their appreciation for her generosity. It had been a tense meeting between the elderly sisters, but Belle had been courteous and kind. After that, she had spent every winter with them, much to Alice’s ire.
“I think we’ve arrived,” Grace said, her nose practically pressed against the glass.
