Chapter One #2
Lifting her chin a notch higher, she rushed on. “He was a bonny man. His words were smooth and his blue eyes kind and welcoming.
I would have —”
“All MacDonalds are glib-tongued and bonny! And you would have been miserable before a fortnight passed.” Her father gripped
the back of his chair, his knuckles white. “There isn’t a race in the land more irresistible to women. Even if the lad meant
you well, sooner or later, his blood would have told. He would’ve succumbed, damning himself and you.”
Arabella flushed. “Perhaps I would rather have chanced such a hurt than to face each new day knowing there won’t be any further
bids for me.”
Mortification sweeping her, she clapped a hand over her mouth, horror stricken by her words.
Openly admitting her frustration was one thing.
Announcing to the world that she ached inside was a pain too private for other ears.
“Why do you think I ceded you the Seal Isles?” Her father’s voice railed somewhere just outside the embarrassment whipping
through her. “Soon, new offers will roll in, young nobles eager to lay claim to our Hebrides will beat a path to —”
“Nae, they will not.” She pushed back from the table, standing. “You’ve frightened them away with your black stares and denials!
And there isn’t a man in all these hills and isles who doesn’t know it. No one will come. Not now, not after all they’ve seen
and heard —”
She broke off, choking back her words as she caught glimpses of the pity- filled glances some of her father’s men were aiming
her way.
She could stomach anything but pity.
Heart pounding and vision blurring, she spun on her heel and fled the dais, pushing past startled kinsmen and serving laddies
to reach the tight-winding stairs that led up to the battlements and the fresh, brisk air she craved.
Running now, she burst into the shadow-drenched stair tower and raced up the curving stone treads, not stopping until she
reached the final landing and, throwing open the oak-planked door to the parapets, plunged out into the chill wind of a bright
October morning.
“Ach, dia,” she gasped, bending forward to brace her hands on her thighs and breathe deeply. “What have I done. . . .”
Shame scalded her, sucking the air from her lungs and sending waves of hot, humiliating fire licking up and down her spine.
Never had she made a greater fool of herself.
And never had she felt such a fiery, all-consuming need to be loved.
Wanted and desired.
Cherished.
Near blinded by tears she refused to acknowledge, she straightened and shook out her skirts. Then she tossed back her hair
and blinked hard until her vision cleared. When it did, she went to the nearest merlon in the battlements’ notched walling
and leaned hard against the cold, unmoving stone.
Across the glittering waters of Loch Duich, the great hills of Kintail stretched away as far as the eye could see, the nearer
peaks dressed in brilliant swatches of scarlet and gold while those more distant faded into an indistinct smudge of blue and
purple, just rimming the horizon. It was a familiar, well-loved sight that made her breath catch but did absolutely nothing
to soothe her.
She’d lied and the weight of her falsehoods bore down on her, blotting everything but the words she couldn’t forget.
Not her own words, railing against how long it’d been since a suitor had come to call for her. Or the gleefully announced
tidings of a courier, keen to share his lord and lady’s good fortune.
Nor even her hotly defended wish to see the Seal Isles.
O-o-oh, nae, it hadn’t been any of that.
It’d been her sister’s words when last they’d visited.
Innocently shared accountings of the wonders of marital bliss and how splendorous it was to lie naked with a man each night,
intimately entwined and knowing that he lived only to please you.
Exactly how that pleasing was done had also been revealed and thinking of such things now caused such a brittle aching in
Arabella’s breast that she feared she’d break if she drew in too deep a breath of the day’s chill, autumn air.
Worst of all were her sister’s repeated assurances that Arabella, too, would soon be swept into such a floodtide of heated,
uninhibited passion.
Everyone, Gelis insisted, was fated to meet a certain someone. And, she’d been adamant, Arabella would be no different.
It was only a matter of time.
Then she, too, would know tempestuous embraces and hot, devouring kisses the likes of which she couldn’t begin to imagine.
As for the rest . . . it boggled the mind.
And ignited a blaze of yearning inside her that she feared would never be quenched.
Frowning, she flattened her hands against the cold, gritty stone of the merlon and turned her gaze away from her beloved Kintail
hills and imagined she could stare past the Isle of Skye far out into the sea.
But still she heard her sister’s chatter.
Her insistence that the feel of a man’s hands sliding up and down one’s body, his fingers questing knowingly into dark, hidden
places, brought a more intoxicating pleasure than the headiest Gascon wine.
Arabella bit down on her lip, sure she didn’t believe a word.
What she did believe was that she had to be on the merchant trader when it set sail from Kyleakin.
And what she knew was that — if she made it — her life would be forever changed.