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Chapter Two

Laughing out loud, Kendra bent low over Pandora’s creamy neck and raced across the moors, her unbound hair streaming behind her. The rain had finally stopped, and the land had dried enough that she dared take a ride today.

Astride!

Mother had permitted the outing if Kendra also rode into Eddleshaugh and picked up the skeins of wool she’d ordered. Never in her memory was there a time Mother wasn’t knitting away at something or other.

Since Kendra also needed a length of violet ribbon for the bonnet she was retrimming, and any excuse to be out of doors would suffice, she’d eagerly agreed.

Naturally, Mother had no idea Kendra hadn’t dutifully ordered the sidesaddle placed upon Pandora, and the extra coin she slipped the stable lad assured he’d keep her secret.

Both rider and horse panting, she reined the mare to a halt atop a grassy knoll. An appreciative half-smile curving her mouth, she took in the quaint village nestled in the shallow valley below. As much as she enjoyed venturing to Edinburgh, and the busy social scene the city afforded, she never tired of this friendly hamlet of her girlhood.

“Let’s go, lass.”

Clucking her tongue, she nudged the mare’s sides with her heels and continued onto the well-worn path from Eytone Hall. Left over from the tempest that had blown through two days ago, the weather remained frigid and blustery. The wind insistently tangled her long hair and whipped bright color onto her cold cheeks.

Out of habit, she scanned the trees on either side of the rutted track. Sane people were tucked up comfortably in their houses. Most animals too.

Singing a naughty ditty loud enough to send a red grouse skyward from the cover of a clump of heather, she cast a cautious glance overhead. A few charcoal-colored clouds hovered on the horizon, and though it was bitterly cold, the outdoors was a welcome reprieve to Eytone Hall’s confines.

As Pandora clopped along, entering the woodlands that preceded the small township, Kendra scrunched her eyebrows, and her singing trailed off.

There was that unnerving sensation again.

That undefinable restlessness.

An edginess she couldn’t put an exact name to, but which came increasingly more often in recent days. Unfamiliar discontentment had niggled for weeks now. And confound it all, she couldn’t quite put her finger on the reason.

She wasn’t lonely or bored.

Yet a disquiet had entered her spirit, discomfited her soul, and disrupted her peace of mind. And of late, she’d found herself staring off into space or woolgathering about nonsensical silliness. Silliness that heretofore hadn’t beleaguered her.

Mainly, what would it be like to have a husband? Children? To be mistress of her own home? To have a man gaze at her with hot passion simmering in his eyes? To feel his mouth and large hands upon her body? Her bare skin? His sinewy weight atop her?

For certain, in part, her fantasies might be attributed to her brother Liam Mackay, Baron of Penderhaven’s recent marriage. And their cousin Skye had married Quinn Catherwood Christmas day, too.

As it frequently had since their weddings, her mind turned to her unwed state.

At twenty, some might consider her past her prime.

She, however, wasn’t one of them.

Honestly, she’d hadn’t given her marriage a whole lot of thought until lately. Oh, on occasion, Mother would murmur something about Kendra settling down, but she still wasn’t in any hurry to exchange vows.

Chiefly, since she’d yet to meet a man who interested her that way. Neither Mother nor Liam seemed inclined to force her into exchanging vows, either. Most probably, Liam’s awful first marriage had a great deal to do with that blessing.

Broden McGregor’s ruggedly striking features pushed to the forefront of her mind. One of her brother’s closest friends, she’d known him since she was a wee lass. He’d been a sharp sliver buried in her heel and paining her for that long, as well.

Five or six years ago, while he and Liam had shared a bottle of whisky in the library, she’d overheard him refer to her as a splotchy-faced dumpling with perpetually knotted hair and grubby smudges on her chubby cheeks. He’d laughed before adding, “I’ve never kent a lass who eats more sweets. I feel sorry for her pony.”

For a girl hopelessly infatuated with the too-bloody-handsome-for-his-own-good-man, his words had wounded her to the core. Each had lanced deeply. And each had inflicted a gaping sore, ripped her youthful self-confidence to shreds, and left her uncertain—then and now—that any man would ever desire her.

She’d secretly cried herself to sleep for a fortnight and had promptly given up all manner of sweets and the like. She rarely indulged in them now, afraid those excessive, round curves of her youth would reappear—to once more make her an object of scorn and ridicule.

Truthfully, and to be fair, she had been plump as a partridge with a penchant for getting into scrapes, and cared not a whit about her appearance. Her complexion had been horrid and spotty for two entire years, too.

Kendra might’ve only been a child at the time, and Broden had been well into his cups. Nonetheless, his words had an enduring effect on her.