He paused but did not turn to her. He was tall and well-built, his shoulders wide and powerful. She had always admired him dressed in his finest clothes at St. Mary’s Isle, but here, in his element, dressed in a white linen shirt with a wool vest and jacket, a cotton cravat around his neck and a pair of dark buckskin breeches covering his muscular thighs, he was masculine and devastatingly handsome. His curls were almost black, and he wore them clubbed in a queue, tied in place with a strap of leather. She was breathless at the sight of him.
“I dinna ken what to say to you.” His Scottish brogue was thick, and his chest rose and fell, as if he was struggling to find his breath. “I was hoping you’d be asleep by now.” He gripped the chair closest to him and finally turned, anger and disapproval deep in his clouded gaze.
She recoiled at the look.
“Why have you come?” he asked, his voice harsh.
She opened her mouth to answer, but the words seemed to fail her. She’d come for him—didn’t he realize that?
“Why did Selkirk allow such a thing?” he continued. “He understands the danger. You dinna belong here, and you’re so fresh and untried, you dinna even realize how out of place you are.”
His words were like a slap in her face. Did he mean she didn’t belong here, or she didn’t belong with him? “I-I came to teach, as Governor Semple told you. To start a school.” It sounded weak even to her own ears. The colony didn’t need a teacher, not when survival was more important than book learning. But how could she tell him she had come for him when he’d spoken to her so severely?
“We dinna need a teacher. We need strong, brawny lads and lassies to turn the soil and populate the colony.” He looked her up and down, making Eleanor feel exposed and vulnerable. He’d passed judgment and found her lacking, just as all the other colonists had. “We need people with skills. We dinna need someone like you.”
Tears stung the backs of Eleanor’s eyes as she stared at him. He had no way of knowing what she’d endured the past three and a half years since he’d left. She’d borne ridicule and shame, but it had been at the hands of people she did not know or care about. Hearing him heap disapproval and criticism on her shoulders felt like an arrow hitting the very center of her tender heart.
Despite her best efforts, Eleanor’s chin began to quiver, and she looked down at the journal on the table.
Just like all the other times she’d been falsely judged, she had to dig deep within and find the courage to lift her face. She did it now as she swallowed the tears that threatened to spill. She would never admit to this man that she’d come for him. Not now.
Even if the colony didn’t need someone like her, she’d prove them all wrong and become invaluable to them. She would ensure that every child attended her school and learned how to read and write. She would create wonder and excitement among the children; despite the hardships they endured.
“I have come to teach,” she said, her voice stronger than she felt, “and I intend to do my job to the best of my ability.”
“But why?” He took a step closer to the table, his brows coming together in confusion. “You told me you dinna want to come to Assiniboia. You were too frightened.” He paused, his voice growing tight. “Unless that wasna true.”
“It was true—partially. It wasn’t that I was afraid of coming—it was that I was afraid of leaving my father.” She moved closer to him. No matter what he thought of her, she wanted him to understand. “I had no choice. Papa needed me to marry someone with wealth to pay off his enormous debts. We were going to lose everything.” How could Arran grasp the pressure she’d been under? Father had gambled away everything. There had been nothing left, except Edgewood Manor. She was not a man who could find work to support them. All she had was her hand to offer in marriage.
He was quiet as he studied her, his brows low over his dark eyes. “Did you?”
“Lose everything?” She couldn’t meet his gaze. They had lost everything, but not because of her. “Yes. Everything is gone. I have nothing in the world, except this job.”
He shook his head. “You refused my proposal and lost everything anyway.”
Eleanor pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders but could not respond.
“What became of your faither?”
She had no wish to talk about her father, but she felt obligated to offer some sort of explanation. “He’s in prison.”
“Debtors’ prison?”
“Newgate.” The word stuck in her throat, dry and unyielding.
“Newgate?” His voice was incredulous as he moved around the table and came to stand beside her.
She played with the edge of her journal, allowing the pages to brush against her fingertips, shame and embarrassment coloring her words. “It happened shortly after you left, during a game of cards. He accused the Duke of Huntington of cheating. My father was drinking heavily and had just wagered the last thing he had left, Edgewood Manor.” She had never told anyone this story. Everyone in England had heard about it without her telling the sordid tale. “When Huntington laid down a royal flush, my father lost his mind. He pulled a pistol from his boot and shot Huntington in the heart.”
Arran did not speak but stood next to her, silent and steady.
“Everything was gone. I had nothing left and no one to turn to.” She finally looked at Arran to see how he had taken the news. “The only person who would take me in was my cousin, Lady Selkirk. I moved to St. Mary’s Isle and have been living there ever since. But I could not rely upon her charity forever. I had to find a way to support myself.”
“And you couldna find something less dangerous or more appropriate than moving halfway around the world to the back side of nowhere?”
She studied him, wondering if he suspected why she’d really come. She had too much self-respect to ask. “You praised Rupert’s Land for months when we first met.”
“I was young and foolish. I dinna ken what I was speaking of.”
