PROLOGUE
“No, Daughter!”
Lady Amabel's laugh was a gentle thing, only a little mocking. All the same, Rubina frowned at her in innocent confusion, full red lips making a moue of confusion.
“Mama? What's so funny?”
At sixteen, she felt grown-up enough to resent her mother making fun of her. She ran a hand through her own shiny auburn curls, moving them from her eye, obscured in the sweet and stubborn mass.
Her mother smiled. “I'm sorry, dear. I didn't mean to laugh. I was just...surprised.”
“Well, I was being sensible, Mama.”
Amabel grinned. “Well, mayhap too sensible, lass. I wasn't as sensible when I was your age.”
Rubina smiled fondly. It was impossible to think of age when she looked on that beauty – with a sculpted face, big blue eyes and that raven hair just threaded with sparkling white. However, in truth, Mama must have been eighteen two and twenty years before. Lady of Lochlann, she was dressed in a long blue velvet dress whose richness and simplicity matched her.
“Mama,” she said carefully, “I am the heiress of Lochlann and Buccleigh – if I married Cousin Callum, it'd be one way to keep the estates under the family hand. So I am sensible, saying it.”
Amabel smiled. “But, dear, do you love Callum?”
Rubina was surprised by the question. “Well, of course I do. He is my cousin, after all. And I've known him since I was a child, so...” she trailed off. Her mother was laughing again.
“I don't mean like a cousin, dearest.”
Rubina frowned. She was eighteen, and she knew she ought to know about...well...about those things. However, she had been raised at Lochlann more or less alone, save for the cheery presence of her cousins twice a year, and Blaire, her maid. She had almost no dealings with men. Of course there were the sons of neighbors who visited on hunting trips, but they were, well, them. The Camberwells and the Ives and the Braes – family friends. Their sons were what she imagined brothers to be.
Lady Amabel smiled. “Well, my dear, it's the ball tonight, and perhaps you will find someone who makes you know what it is I mean about feeling differently.”
Rubina frowned. “But I know everyone who'll be at the ball already, Mama. Henry Brae, Connell Ives, and Brod and Lennox Camberwell...how can I?”
Amabel smiled. “We did invite some new folk. After all, this is your ball. For your eighteenth birthday.”
“Yes, Mama.”
Somehow, despite the fact that it was her night, she couldn't find it in herself to be excited at the prospect of new people. What was wrong with the old ones? Henry, Lennox, her maidservant, her cousins...
Amabel grinned. “You know, Rubina, you have a big heart. It's one of the reasons why I simply won't agree to an arranged marriage. No, the choice is yours. As was mine.”
Rubina stared at her. This was news. She knew the story of her parents and how they'd chosen each other. How would she ever make such a choice though? This was the first her mother had mentioned of this.
It was highly unconventional: young ladies of her breeding would never have been called on to make a choice themselves. She had always just assumed she'd be married off to Callum or one of her other cousins.
“Thank you, Mama,” she said slowly. “But how..?”
Amabel smiled. “Trust me, my dear. When you meet him, you'll know. Nothing will be able to make you make another choice.”
Rubina frowned. It sounded a bit unlikely. In her world, love was an all-permeating thing, but a simple one. Rubina loved everyone and most people loved her too. Would it really be as dramatic as her mother suggested?
“Yes, Mama,” she said again. “And I hope I will choose wisely too.”
Amabel laughed. “Well, I did. Though on paper he was not what my parents would have chosen. A knight, from humbler means than myself. But the heart knows best.”
“Yes.” Rubina nodded.
Being eighteen would, it seemed, be a time to find out many things. Though she was fairly sure the kind of love her mother mentioned wasn't one. No, for all that she had seen it in her life, she was sure it wasn't going to happen to her. It just seemed too scary. Too big. Too much for such a simple sort as her.