And what would it be like to be sitting on the other side of the carriage, next to him? To feel his leg next to hers, his arm next to hers. She would let him read, she would not disturb him, but perhaps she would put her arm under his elbow and rest her forearm on his and her fingers could touch the skin of his wrist. The wrist that led to one of his devastating hands. And then she might slide her hand off his wrist and to the inside of his leg and she would feel the muscle of his leg under his trousers. Then she could slide her hand upward and make him moan as she touched his length.
He looked up just then and held her gaze. And then he smiled and she saw his dimples, so she smiled back and she could feel the slickness and the throb and the ache under her skirts.
And then she remembered that he didn’t want her.
Even before ... Even before she had been wanton, he had not wanted her. He had done nothing to seek her out or find her. Even now, he was only here at the behest of her sister.
And besides, she was not fit for the love of a man like him.
How disheartening, after her hard work of the last two years, to discover she was the same foolish, needing creature, wet between the legs, aching for him.
She shut her eyes and shut him out.
At the coaching inn, that night at dinner, she was quiet and pushed her stew around in her bowl.
“Miss Lovelock,” Alasdair said. “Ye dinnae eat. Are ye ill?”
“This mutton in the stew has too much fat left on it,” Maggie grumbled. “’Tis nae wonder ye dinnae like it, miss. Shall I ask for some broth for ye? Do ye want my bread?”
“No,” Arabella said and attempted a smile. “I am merely tired. I am sure that my appetite will be better for breakfast. Neither of you are to worry.”
And she brought a spoonful of the stew to her lips but when Alasdair and Maggie looked away, she traded bowls with Ewen MacEwen so that he could have her full one and she could have his bowl that was almost empty. Ewen was untroubled by this and started eating her stew without a word.
She could not fathom eating when her heart hurt so badly.
She wondered at herself being so happy just yesterday when Alasdair had come to her cottage. Yesterday, it had been enough that he had been there in the same room with her and that he had let her put her cheek to his. And that she could wrap his scarf around her face and put her nose and her mouth on it and breathe him in. And that Harry had, strangely, mentioned in her letter that Dr. Andrews was still unmarried.
But now she wanted more.
She wanted him to want her.
She was becoming a child all over again. Sick to her stomach with desire. Resentful when thwarted. Greedy and clinging.
This had been a mistake. She should have stayed in Dunburn. Where she had learned restraint. Where she had put her energies to good purpose. Where she had become someone as far from her mother as possible.
And then in the middle of her sleepless night, she was flooded by the most painful of realizations.
She was such a dolt. A numpty.
Everything she had done in the last two years was for him. Well, no, not for him, but for some idea of him.
She had refashioned herself into a woman she thought he might like. He had not wanted her when she was a novel-reading stylish young lady of theton. So she had become a hard-working schoolmistress in the Highlands.
It had not been scheming or deliberate. Or conscious. Had she not tried to shut thoughts of him out as much as she could?
But he had been at the back of her mind all along. That even as she considered marrying Boyd and the good she might do as his wife, she had thought, “And Alasdair would like it if we kept the privies from draining into the river.”
She had done this—made her life in Dunburn—all for him.
And he still had not shown any special interest in her. And she still had nothing for herself.
The next day in the carriage, Arabella made sure she was bright and cheerful. Engaging Maggie in a discussion of the scenery outside the window of the coach and telling her about Sommerleigh. Asking Alasdair about his medical reading and about Harry and Thomas and her niece Hypatia. And her nephew Richard, whom she had never met. And what of her half brother Sebastian, Marquess of Daventry, the Middlewich heir? He was three and a half now. He probably did not remember his sister. And any news of Mary and her family? Of course, she knew of Mary’s twin sons and her daughter because of letters. But any more recent news?
She kept her pain at bay with a stream of chatter.
Maggie grumbled that Arabella should have told her that they were going to the house of an earl. And her sisters were a countess and a viscountess? And her brother would someday be a duke? Aye, she could see why Arabella did not make this widely known in the village, but why had she not told Maggie so she could have packed her best bombazine?
North of the Firth of Forth and Edinburgh, they stopped in the evening at the village of Strathlochirn at the request of Maggie. Mrs. Gunn’s sister lived here with her husband and children. The coaching inn, Maggie said, was said to be a good one. The rest of the party settled in their rooms, and Maggie walked to her sister’s cottage.
