Chapter 17
The Ladies’ Marriage Prospects Bulletin
A lady must never dance more than twice with the same gentleman, for society counts steps as carefully as it does reputations. Conversation during a quadrille should be light, never clever; wit is admired in a gentleman but thought dangerous in a lady.
Gavan hadn’t meant to kiss her.
He could still feel the press of her lips against his, the shock of her breath catching against his cheek for a single heartbeat before she’d yielded.
It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a memory set alight.
The taste of her lingered like the ghost of summers past. Stolen rides across the heather, teasing glances that had once meant more than either of them dared name.
He had built walls over those years, brick by careful brick, to bury what they’d been.
And one impulsive moment had reduced them to rubble.
He wasn’t the sort of man who acted on impulse. He prided himself on being deliberate and careful. But the moment she turned, eyes wide and uncertain and entirely too close, he hadn’t been Gavan, the steady guardian of Moira’s future. He’d been the lad who once wanted Ava more than his next breath.
His hands still tingled with the phantom memory of holding her, his body remembering what his mind had spent years denying.
The scent of her lingered in his memory, lavender and something wilder beneath it, like open air after a storm.
And yet beneath the heat of that moment, shame coiled low in his gut.
Was it only an impulse? Or was it every buried feeling clawing its way to the surface, demanding to be acknowledged?
He didn’t know. Worse, he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
The thought looped in his head like a punishment as he paced the edge of the festival, the hum of music and laughter clashing with the pounding in his skull.
He’d been raised to be a man of control.
Deliberate, careful, unflinching in the face of impulse.
And yet one look at her with those wide, startled eyes when he said her name, and he’d come undone.
Gavan could still feel the shape of her lips under his, soft and yielding, as if some forgotten part of him had been waiting years for that exact moment.
And damn him, but she’d kissed him back with a heated fervor that fueled desire and a wildness in his heart.
For a breath too long, there had been no festival, no watching eyes, no history between them. Just Ava. Ava as she’d been when they were young and reckless, and Ava as she was now, sharp, untouchable, and the only woman who had ever been able to knock him off balance.
He dragged a hand through his hair, cursing under his breath.
What was he thinking? What if someone had seen? What if she hated him for it?
Hell, what if she didn’t?
He clenched his jaw until it ached. He hadn’t come here for this. He’d come to keep Moira safe. To make sure Ferguson didn’t take advantage of any of the hopeful maidens.
The thought snapped him back like a whip.
Around him, the festival carried on as though his entire world hadn’t just shifted.
The village green teemed with life. Children ran shrieking between stalls draped in wildflowers, clutching ribbons and honeyed nuts.
Old men hunched over a game of draughts beneath a canopy of oak branches, while matrons in feathered bonnets bartered for jars of early summer preserves.
At the far side, fiddlers sawed out a reel quick enough to set half the village stomping in time, skirts and kilts a blur of color.
It should have been joyful. Instead, their joyful celebration of the summer solstice felt like mockery.
Ferguson stood near the far side of the green, smirking like the cat who’d licked a bowl of cream clean, surrounded by men who laughed too loudly at his jokes.
The fury that rose in Gavan’s chest was cold this time, not hot. Steady. Purposeful.
He strode across the green, ignoring the startled glances that followed him. “Ferguson.”
Lachlan turned, all silk and self-satisfaction. “Darkwood,” he drawled. “Come to try your hand at the games? Ye dinna seem the type.”
“I’m no’ here for games,” Gavan said flatly. He stepped in close enough that the laughter around them stuttered to a stop. “Ye mock young women behind their backs, and ye think no one hears? Ye think ye can humiliate my cousin, and walk away unscathed?”
Ferguson’s smirk faltered, just slightly. “Careful, Douglas. Ye’re making a scene.”
“Good,” Gavan bit out. “Let everyone hear. Ye’ve made a career of slinking through counties and card rooms with your practiced charm, leaving destruction in your wake. No’ here.”
Ferguson’s brows arched, his tone mocking, and a flash of something vulgar in his eyes.
“And ye’ve set yourself up as a champion?
Ye, who can barely stomach being in the same room as half your neighbors?
No’ to mention how ye have compromised Lady Ava Woodmoor.
” His voice carried dramatically and deliberately for the men lingering nearby.
A ripple of nervous laughter rose from the crowd.
Gavan felt the weight of the onlookers settling like stones on his back, every whisper sharp as a blade. Was Ferguson just guessing or had he seen the kiss?
It would be so easy to grab Ferguson by the collar, to drag him from the festival and make him answer for every rumor and every smirk.
But Ava’s pale face flashed in his mind.
He suppressed the violence, shaping it into words instead.
He would not give Ferguson the satisfaction of seeing him lose control or get the upper hand.
“Say what ye like about me,” Gavan said, his voice steady, “but ye’ll keep her name out of your mouth.”
“Oh, come now.” Ferguson leaned back on his heels, his smirk curling like smoke.
“If ye’re so worried about appearances, perhaps ye should worry less about my words and more about the way ye kissed Lady Ava for all and sundry to see.
Quite the display of your lack of self-control.
A word of advice, ye ought to spend more time worrying about your own legacy than mine. ”
Gavan bristled. Of course, a man like Ferguson would try to point the finger.
To turn the attention from himself and point out Gavan’s own issues with his estate.
He would want everyone to turn the tide of conversation away from his abysmal treatment of women and concentrate on Gavan’s own misfortunes.
And why not ruin Ava in the process? The bastard.
The crowd’s hum grew louder, sharper. Gavan felt every pair of eyes on him, saw heads turning as Ferguson deliberately dangled Ava’s reputation and his own estate like bait.
Murmurs rippled through the bystanders. “Did he say Lady Ava Woodmoor?”
The crowd smelled blood in the water. “I never thought…”
“Reckless, that one. Or perhaps desperate.”
“Poor lass. She’ll be ruined…”
Each overheard scrap twisted like a knife.
They’d ignored what Ferguson said about his estate and glommed onto Ava’s name and the kiss.
This was what Ava feared most. Whispers that reduced her to a name on someone’s tongue, her reputation in tatters.
He had meant to defend her. All he had done was make her a spectacle.
Ferguson’s face tightened.
“Dinna speak of what ye dinna know. How dare ye attempt to shame a lady? I ought to call ye out.” Gavan took a deliberate step closer. “If ye care for your name at all, ye’ll leave. Today. And ye’ll no’ set foot back here while I draw breath.”
The tension coiled between them, thick and dangerous.
For a long moment, Ferguson said nothing. Then, with a calm, brittle smile, he inclined his head. “The Highlands have grown quite inhospitable. I suppose I’ll find livelier company elsewhere.”
Ferguson’s jaw twitched, the facade he’d built cracking at the edges.
For a long moment, Gavan thought the worm might fight back.
Might say something cutting and turn his outrage into a performance.
But then Ferguson’s lips slanted into a mocking smile, and he tipped his hat, gave an exaggerated bow and turned on his heel, stalking toward the road.
The group of men who had been hanging on his words only moments ago scattered, leaving Gavan standing alone at the center of the spectacle he’d created.
Good. Let them all see that Ferguson had backed down on his accusations. Perhaps there was something to salvage from this spectacle.
But behind him, the whispers continued, low at first, then growing.
“Did ye hear? Darkwood defending Lady Ava—”
“Do ye think he really kissed her?”
Murmurs that led to speculation, a thread already weaving itself into the tapestry of festival gossip.
By sundown, half the county would know Gavan had stood in public, angry and unflinching, in defense of not only his cousin but Ava.
And rather than being grateful he’d saved their daughters from potential ruin, they would pile on the rumors.
He drew a slow, steadying breath. Watching Ferguson walk away should have felt like victory. Instead, it felt like something else entirely. Something uncomfortably close to regret.
Movement on the edge of the green caught his eye.
Ava stood apart from the crowd, just beyond the festival stalls, her light skirts bright against the deep green of the trees. She hadn’t come closer when he’d confronted Ferguson, nor when the little fiasco had ended, but he could see her watching.
She stood like a marble statue at the edge of it all, her spine rigid, hands fisted in her skirts. Even from this distance, he could see the tremor in her chin, the deliberate way she held herself still, as if sheer willpower could keep the whispers from reaching her.
And he could see her face. Not triumphant. Not grateful. But humiliated as he’d suspected she would be. As if his public defense had stripped her of the only armor she had left. And it was entirely his fault. If only he’d had the sense and self-control not to kiss her.
Her eyes met his across the distance. For a moment, he swore he saw every emotion on her face.
The sharp hurt of betrayal, the rawness of humiliation, the flash of anger she wore like a crown.
Ava did not run, not from whispers, not from men like Ferguson, not from him.
And yet she gathered her skirts and fled like the ground itself had burned her.
“Ava!” His voice cut through the hum of the festival, but she didn’t stop.
He followed her toward the line of waiting carriages, shoving past a startled couple in his way. But by the time he reached her, she had already climbed inside, the driver snapping the reins.
“Ava, wait!”
The wheels lurched forward, gravel spitting from under the hooves. And then she was gone.
Gavan didn’t move at first, frozen in the wake of her departure, listening to the hollow rattle of the wheels as they carried her away from him.
He’d wanted to shield her, to show her she wasn’t alone.
And instead, he’d dragged her into the center of a spectacle, for that she would never forgive him.
His boots felt rooted to the dirt, heavy as the shame pressed in on his ribs.
Something white on the ground caught his eye.
He stooped to pick it up, her handkerchief, the fabric still damp, delicate lace edges clinging to his fingers.
Gavan’s chest tightened as he closed his fist around the discarded lace. He’d defended her in front of everyone. He’d wanted to protect her. And all he’d managed to do was hurt her.
As the carriage wheels rattled away, he held her handkerchief damp in his palm. The idea that he’d made her cry cut sharper than any slap could have.