Hard-Hearted Highlander--A Historical Romance Novel Page 17

  “Yes, miss.”

  Avaline lazily buttered her toast as Renard removed the offending piece of fish and carried it away on the tray.

  “What did you wish to speak to me about?” Bernadette asked after he’d gone.

  Avaline suddenly smiled, and her cheeks flushed pink. She put down her knife and the toast. “I need your help desperately, Bernadette. You must teach me how to seduce.”

  Bernadette didn’t understand her at first. She thought perhaps Avaline was using the word incorrectly. “Seduce?”

  “Yes,” Avaline said. “I wish to seduce my fiancé.”

  Bernadette’s breath left her a moment. She turned away from Avaline, and with a hand pressed against her abdomen, she walked a few feet, then turned back. “Seduce him? You do know what the means, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do,” Avaline said, looking slightly perturbed. “I must fight for him, and if I’m to fight properly, I must know how, and I don’t.”

  She wasn’t making sense. “Fight for him,” Bernadette repeated uncertainly. “Why must you?”

  “Can you believe it, that wretched man has told me he means to keep a mistress after we are wed? But perhaps he won’t if I know how to please him.” She smiled sheepishly, then picked up her toast.

  Bernadette wanted to walk to the window and fling it open and take great gulps of air before she fainted. She was overcome with waves of relief that Avaline had not discovered her betrayal, followed by waves of despair that Avaline believed that she ought to entice a man she’d not yet married who had told her he would prefer a mistress.

  “If he said as much to you, that is grounds for ending your engagement, Avaline. No man should enter into matrimony with the idea that he does not intend to honor his vows. No woman should enter into matrimony without complete confidence in his fidelity.”

  “Oh, I understand all that,” Avaline said with an airy wave of her hand. “But I’m not going to end it, Bernadette. So... I must seduce him into desiring me before any other, and I need you to teach me.”

  “I can’t teach you,” Bernadette said, irked that Avaline thought she might.

  Avaline glanced up from her toast, surprised. “Why ever not?”

  “What do I know of seduction?” Bernadette said irritably. She had gone from guilt, to disbelief, to vexation all in the space of a minute. “I live my life looking after you.” She was irrationally angry, she realized, because of that blasted kiss. Because she had felt desired, truly desired, and for once, she hadn’t been a servant, and especially not one being ordered to teach a girl to seduce a man. That blasted Highlander had her at sixes and sevens and Avaline was so...so stupid, that she wanted to repair a marriage that hadn’t yet begun! Could she not see how fraught with distrust and incompatibility her life would be?

  Oh, but Bernadette was stupid, too, more so than her young charge, because she wanted that very man. She wanted him to make love to her, and God help her, she could imagine how volatile and passionate and exciting it would be.

  “What’s wrong?” Avaline asked, her brow furrowing with concern. “You don’t look yourself.”

  “Pardon?” Bernadette asked, forcing herself out of her thoughts. “Nothing. It’s just that I—I fear for you, Avaline. I fear that you would enter a marriage for all of eternity on such unspeakable terms.”

  “I don’t know why you’re so upset. All men look elsewhere eventually, do they not?”

  “That is not true,” Bernadette said.

  Avaline shrugged again and ate her toast, her eyes on Bernadette.

  All right, then, she had to think calmly and act rationally. Bernadette clasped her hands behind her back, digging her fingernails into her palms to keep her thoughts focused. “I can’t help you, Avaline. I don’t know how to teach you to...attract him in that way.”

  Avaline sighed. “Very well,” she said. “I suppose I must figure it out on my own.” She lifted her teacup and sipped daintily.

  “I’m going out,” Bernadette said. She picked up her cloak.

  “I think I’ll go back to bed,” Avaline said, and yawned. “I’ve not been sleeping well.” She stood up, and with her tea in hand, she removed herself from the room. As she walked out the door, Renard appeared with the warmed fish. He looked at the empty table, then at Bernadette. She shrugged helplessly.

  * * *

  BERNADETTE MARCHED OUT across the Killeaven lawn and into the woods, then pausing where the woods gave way to moors to look for any strange passersby. Seeing none, she followed the well-worn path, but didn’t take in the scenery today. When she reached the sea she debated turning right and walking in the direction of Balhaire, where she’d twice seen Mackenzie. Or she could turn left, away from him, as far from the trouble she’d created for herself as she could possibly get in one day. Her wish to escape Avaline and Mackenzie was pointless, however—how far would she get? And where would she end? One couldn’t simply walk off into the hills unless one never wanted to be seen again.

  She went right.

  She trudged up the path, reaching the point she could see the top. He was there, as she’d somehow known he would be. As he’d somehow known she would be. The only difference today was that he wasn’t standing at the very edge of the cliff. In fact, he was nowhere near it. He was standing by his horse, his back against a birch tree, clearly waiting for her.

  Bernadette’s heart began to race. Perhaps she was a bit mad. What else could explain it? This man had nothing to recommend him—he was a Highlander, a word synonymous with savage to some. He was a brooding, tortured figure who, frankly, wallowed in despair. And he was engaged to another woman.

  And yet Bernadette looked at him now and felt nothing but that pressing desire. It felt almost as if he’d only just touched her instead of hours having passed.

  He slowly pushed away from the tree. When she didn’t move, he started toward her. He moved cautiously, as if he feared she might bolt.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded as he neared her, her anger once again flaring out of nothing and everything.

  He tilted his head to one side and frowned lightly. “You know why I am here—I wait for you.”

  Bernadette’s heart skipped, which made her anger soar. She did not want to be pleased by that! She did not want to desire him! There was no end to this infatuation that wouldn’t hurt everyone involved, and yet she just stood there. “I don’t know what you said to her, but you said it poorly,” she said coldly. “Now she wants to seduce you!”

  He laughed.

  “It’s not the least bit amusing,” she snapped, and folded her arms across her body, holding herself tightly. “She doesn’t know what she is doing, and really, neither do I. I’ve somehow taken leave of all my senses and allowed you to kiss me three times—”

  “Och, I’ve kissed you twice, lass. You kissed me once—”

  “Yes, all right, twice then,” she said, the heat in her cheeks flaring. “But I am her maid, sir, and this,” she said, gesturing wildly between them, “is nothing but disaster in the making!”

  He reached out, brushed a bit of hair from her eye and said with quiet authority, “Calm yourself, Bernadette.”

  A drop of liquid silver slipped down her spine. He’d scarcely mentioned her at all, and had never said her given name. “Don’t tell me to calm myself,” she said, feeling slightly on the verge of hysteria. “And you’ve not been invited to address me by my given name! You do realize, don’t you, that your brooding has made a mess of everything?”

  He smiled slightly, and a bit lopsidedly, as he touched her chin. The brush of his fingers sizzled on her skin. “You may call me Rabbie, aye? You’re no’ in England now. I’ve made a mess, have I? Of what, then? The very engagement you advised me to end?”

  “You know very well what I mean,” she said, pushing his hand awa
y. “You’re stubborn, and you’re perpetually despondent, and offensively impolite, and you don’t give the situation the consideration it so deserves—”

  He suddenly grabbed her arms, pulled her forward and kissed her. It was a demanding kiss, a silencing kiss, and Bernadette responded to it, kissing him back.

  But then she regained her senses and shoved against his chest. “What are you doing? Haven’t we done enough?”

  He stared at her, but his eyes were not dark and cold as she’d come to expect. Incredibly, there was a spark of amusement in them. He was amused by this predicament. For the first time since she’d met him, this is what amused him? “This must stop,” she said, her voice shaking. “We just did it again! We betrayed Avaline for the fourth time!”

  “Aye, as to that,” he said easily, “I’ve an idea to end it.”

  Bernadette blinked. Her anger deflated. “You do?”

  “I will explain to her that we Mackenzies are free traders. That ought to strike fear in her tender little heart, aye?”

  “You’re what?”

  “Smugglers, lass.”

  Bernadette gaped at him. And then she burst into hysterical laughter.

  Mackenzie didn’t move as much as a muscle, but patiently waited for to stop her gales of laughter. “You can’t possibly be serious! Who would believe such a thing?”

  “You donna believe it?”

  “Of course not! Smugglers.” She laughed again. “It’s absurd!”

  “Is it?” he asked, his brows dipping. “Come, then, and I’ll show you.”

  He turned back to his horse. Bernadette didn’t move from where she’d rooted herself. “You’re mad if you think I will ride with you again.”

  Mackenzie impatiently turned back. “Och, donna be stubborn.”

  “I won’t. It’s wrong—”

  “Aye, you will,” he said, and strode back to where she stood, grabbed her by the wrist before Bernadette realized what he was doing and tugged her along. “I’ll have you see with your own bonny eyes so that you might convince your wee mistress that what I tell her is true.”

  Like he’d done the last time, Mackenzie tossed her up on his horse and swung up behind her before she’d even found her balance. This time, however, he didn’t instruct her how to sit. He roughly pulled her back into his chest, anchoring her there in strong, possessive hold as he sent the horse trotting away from the sea.

  And unlike last time, Bernadette complained of his treatment of her the entire way. “You can’t simply throw a person on a horse like a bag of grain and carry her off,” she said. “If there is something you wish to show me, you ought to invite me and receive my favorable reply. At least allow me to arrive wherever you mean to take me in the company of Avaline.”

  He did not respond to her, as was his infuriating habit, so Bernadette twisted about. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?”

  “What I have to say is that you’re nattering. You donna know what to do now that you’ve kissed me, and you’re nattering.” With one hand, he pushed her back around and anchored her again, this time much more tightly against him, so that she couldn’t move and couldn’t ignore his entire body pressed against hers.

  “What is it that I must see?” she demanded. “Could you not have explained it to me? You don’t seem to understand what a predicament I find myself in here—I’m being terribly disloyal and an abominable friend to Avaline.”

  “Aye, that you are.”

  She gasped. “But it’s your fault,” she pointed out.

  “No’ all my fault,” he said, and bent his head, then whispered in her ear, “You must accept part of the blame, lass. You must allow that you like to be kissed, aye? Admit that you bloody well enjoyed that kiss as much as I did, and at the very least, admit that you kissed me.”

  “That...” Bernadette was so incensed that she could hardly find the words. “That is not true—”

  “Aye, of course it is. You like it verra much, donna deny it. Look, then, here we are,” he said, and pointed.

  For a moment, Bernadette lost her ardent desire to argue with him. She saw the spires of the house above the treetops, then the house itself. It was a bucolic setting, a country house tucked away on the shores of the sea amid so many trees. It wasn’t a terribly large house, not even as big as Killeaven, but what it lacked in size, it made up in charm. “What is it?” she asked. “Where are we?”

  “Arrandale. This is the home my brother Cailean has built. He is laird here.”

  “Here? Where is here?”

  Mackenzie chuckled and Bernadette felt it reverberate in her. “Here is Arrandale. Aye, my brother is laird of only this, but laird nonetheless.”

  They rode up a neatly manicured lawn, where he reined the horse to a halt.

  Bernadette slid down off the horse before he could help her, stumbling a bit, determined to put some distance between the two of them. She slid her damp palms down the sides of her gown and studied the house. A small turret anchored it. The structure itself, two stories, was long, with a wing that curved around toward the gardens.

  As she stood admiring it, the door opened and a stout woman wearing an apron and holding a broom stepped out. Mackenzie spoke to her in Gaelic, and her gaze slid curiously to Bernadette before she disappeared back inside.

  Bernadette moaned. She covered her face with her hands a moment, then dropped them with a sigh. There it was then, the end of her. That servant, or whoever she was, would be wagging her tongue about the woman who had appeared with Mackenzie. Her predicament only grew worse by the moment.

  “Och, now, donna fret about Mrs. Brock,” Mackenzie said gruffly, and put his arm around her shoulders, steering her toward the end of the house. “She is loyal to me. She’ll no’ utter a word to anyone.”

  Bernadette shot him a look full of skepticism. She knew servants. She knew people. She knew, from painful personal experience, how inhabitants of the world over wanted to be the one to have news, to share something interesting with their friends. No matter anyone’s good intentions, they talked. She shrugged free of his arm and moved away from his side.

  “Will you sulk all day, then?”

  “I will keep my distance. I will see whatever it is that has made you kidnap me, and then I will hie myself back to Killeaven and away from you.”

  “As you like,” he said, and smiling, gestured grandly to the path.

  They walked around the house and through the gardens, to a path that led down to the water’s edge. This was not the sea, she realized, but what the Scots termed a loch and, given the distance they had ridden, one that fed into the sea.

  Before they reached the water’s edge, Mackenzie veered off the path and led her up a hill. In a thick stand of rowan trees, he stepped behind a large rock and dipped down. A bush—or what she’d thought was a bush—came tumbling out from behind that rock. Mackenzie stepped out from behind it and said, “Here, then.”

  Bernadette, curious now, stepped up behind the rock and saw a small opening into the side of the hill. Mackenzie dipped down and disappeared inside. She stepped up to the opening and squatted down, bracing her arms on either side of it and peering inside, just scarcely making him out.

  She heard the strike of a flint, which was followed by the flare of a wick or candle. He turned back to the opening and held out his hand to her. Bernadette did not hesitate—she was here, she wanted to see—and slipped her hand into his and stepped down, then followed him a few feet inside. When he lifted the lantern, she could see several crates stacked along an earthen wall.

  “What is it?”

  “French wine. Brandy. Tobacco. Tea. Some silk, I think.”

  When she looked up at him, he returned her gaze impassively. She turned her attention to the crates again. It seemed a strange place to store such things. “But why are they here?�
�� she asked. “Why have you not stored them in your house?”

  “The excise men might find them in one house or another, aye? They’ll no’ find them here.”

  They really were smugglers. “This is...unlawful,” she said carefully. It was more than that—it was criminal.

  “Aye,” he agreed with a shrug.

  Bernadette looked again at the crates, more than twenty in all, trying to understand what would compel men to risk so much. It was so dangerous! “Have you no care for your person?” she asked sincerely.

  “I think you’ve guessed the answer by now.”

  “But this—”

  “This is how we’ve kept our clan,” he said. “It has been necessary.”

  “Necessary to go against the law?”

  He shook his head. “You donna understand, Bernadette. When Scotland and England were unified, the crown used that opportunity to assess taxes on goods we’d long purchased at a fair price. Taxes so high that our people couldna afford life’s necessities. Candles, wine, tea, tobacco,” he said, gesturing with his hand to indicate a rather long list. “My father found a way to afford it for them. My brothers and I have carried on with it.”

  “By smuggling?” Bernadette said softly, suddenly alarmed that someone might overhear her.

  “We prefer to call it free trading.”

  Her blood began to race. She wanted out of this small cave, away from the evidence of his crime. “What if you are caught?”

  “What if I am?” he said with a shrug. “What have I to lose?”

  She suddenly lurched for the door, now desperate to be away from the smuggled goods. She brushed past him and stumbled into sunlight, breathing in fresh air.

  She heard him behind her, heard him replace the bush that hid the entrance to the cave. And then he was before her, peering at her with concern. “Are you ill?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she said. “A bit shocked.”

  He clucked his tongue at her. “You’ve no right to judge us, lass. You’ve no’ lived the life we have, aye? You’ve no’ watched entire hamlets disappear. You’ve no’ watched the people of your clan pack their belongings and leave the Highlands because of fear or hunger. You’ve lived a life of leisure,” he said, his voice tinged with disdain.