Involuntarily, Alasdair took a step back. “Nae,” he said. “Nae, I must ... I must deliver it to her myself. Her sister asked me to.”
Boyd’s face became stone. “I will take ye to her then. Her teaching for the day is over.”
“She’s a teacher?”
“Aye.”
Alasdair stopped to tell Paterson to stable the horses and arrange for rooms in the public house. Then he walked up the street with Boyd, away from the sea and the mouth of the river, and out of the village. The way was uphill, but it was a gentle slope.
“I am the minister of the church here,” Boyd said stiffly.
“I see,” Alasdair said.
“Miss Lovelock is the teacher at the school. She is the founder, too.”
“I am not surprised. She is ... Her family is quite extraordinary.”
“And I have asked her to be my wife.”
Alasdair kept walking, although his legs suddenly felt like lead as did his heart, which plummeted deep into his gut.
She was to be Boyd’s wife. His second cousin’s wife. He was too late. Again.
In just a few minutes, they came upon two sandstone cottages. Alasdair briefly considered passing the cottages and continuing to walk up the rolling hill and up over the prow and keeping on until he crossed Caithness and reached the mountains in the part of the Highlands that were in Sutherland where he might find a cave and live the rest of his days alone, a miserable hermit.
Boyd walked up to the door of the smaller of the two cottages and waited for him.
No, he would face Arabella. He would deliver his letter. He was a servant to duty, above all else. And he longed to lay his eyes on her again, one more time.
He followed Boyd and stood behind him as he knocked on the door.
Twelve
Arabella was deep in thought at the small desk in her bedchamber, the desk she used for correspondence. She was pondering the future. How her school and Boyd’s church might work together to make Dunburn a model village. A place where ordinary people might thrive. Ordinary girls, especially. Perhaps together they could do more than she could do alone, no matter her money. And that was what she wanted, wasn't it? To do some good for others, instead of pursuing her own comfort, her own ends?
And Mr. Cormack had chosen her despite her looks, rather than because of them. Surely, that was a mark in his favor? There had been no rapturous “ye are the most beautiful girl in the world.” Similarly, there had been no lightning strike in her belly with him, lying to her heart, telling her that he was her one true love.
He knew nothing of the extent of her money, her dowry. He was not a fortune-hunter.
And he was willing to have her. Despite her past.
She might have children with Boyd. Redheaded children. But could she bear that? When she had hoped for so long to have red-haired children with another man... but she must not think on that.
A knock on the door. Her bedchamber was on the back of the cottage, so she could not look out the small window and see who was there. Maggie was out for the afternoon, visiting her mam and da. Arabella went to the main room where the peat fire was burning in the hearth and opened the door.
Boyd Cormack and another person. At first, she saw just Boyd and an auburn head of hair behind him. Then Boyd moved slightly to the side.
There was no room for air in her lungs. Her heart had suddenly grown too large and was taking up all the space in her chest.
Her eyes were stuck on his.
It could not be.
It was.
The man who had just come into her mind seconds ago and whom she had pushed out as a painful impossibility.
“Dr. Andrews,” she breathed.
