Day Twenty-Six
Two days before Arabel’s wedding
Arabel paused nervously at the top of the basement stairs, then rolled her eyes.
Oh, she felt silly prowling around in the dark! After all, she had every right to venture into the kitchen if she wished. But how would she explain herself? Excuse me, Cook, but I’m looking for strawberries to feed to Lord Townsend before he has his wicked way with me . . . She couldn’t ask her maid or Mrs. Stewart for them, either, since both women knew she didn’t like berries. But Garrick did. Strawberries were his favorite, and when he came to her room tonight, as he had every night since they first made love nearly a fortnight ago, she wanted to spoil him by having them there for him.
Of course, a wanton part of her also couldn’t wait to decadently feed them to him, taking a kiss between each one she placed on his tongue.
Her hand flew to her lips to stifle the happy laugh bubbling inside her as she made her way down into the basement. So this was love . . . thinking of the little details that would please the other, no matter how small.
And she was in love. Hopelessly, helplessly, happily so.
Even now, she felt as if she were floating. She’d always thought that poets exaggerated when they described love as being an all-consuming joy and those enthralled by it as dancing on air. But after having Garrick returned to her, she was doing exactly that—dancing on air. And yesterday afternoon, when they’d made love in the heather just as they had ten years ago, she was certain she was in heaven.
Their reunion wasn’t only physical. They’d also talked for hours, although not about the future. It was as if that were already settled. They would marry, and Castle Highburn would become theirs . . . a home in the highlands to match the estate he owned in England. They would have children—oh, lots and lots of children! And they would shuffle their family between the two properties, making certain their children knew their highland roots. Nothing would take them away from each other again.
What they’d shared instead was their pasts. In quiet conversations, they revealed what they’d done during the years apart, their triumphs and disappointments, how much they missed each other . . . that they had never stopped loving each other, despite everything.
She smiled to herself as she hurried into the dark kitchen, lit by a slant of moonlight through the small windows lining the top of the wall. The only dark cloud still hanging over their heads was her wedding, which she hadn’t yet called off and dreaded doing so. She didn’t look forward to the embarrassment of standing up before a church full of guests to tell them the news, nor did she relish informing her mother, especially when Garrick was the reason she was breaking off the engagement—the same man who had gained control of Highburn from them.
But she’d also delayed because she wanted to tell Ewan in person. He deserved that much. So she’d sent a message to Edinburgh, asking him to return to Highburn early. But Ewan insisted that he couldn’t get away, that there was too much work to be done before their wedding and the sennight that he’d carved out for their wedding trip. She could do nothing but wait until he returned to Kincardine, bringing Mama with him.
She didn’t love Ewan. She never had. But he wasn’t a bad man, and he didn’t deserve to be hurt. Although, if truth be told, Arabel didn’t think Ewan would shed a single tear over losing her. Losing Highburn, on the other hand . . .
She sighed as she found the berry bowl in the cool pantry. Well, at least he’d cry over something.
As she made her way back through the basement, voices drifted from the servants’ hall where the staff had gathered to relax before heading off to bed. Arabel slipped past the doorway, not wanting to disturb them. And not wanting to be caught.
“ . . . somethin’ ’tween ’em. An’ sharin’ more than Highburn.” Jamieson’s voice reached her. “Sharin’ beds, certain o’ it.”
Arabel froze, her breath catching in her throat.
The servants were talking about her and Garrick. Heavens, they knew! Her face flushed hot with mortification. She should have known she could never keep something like this secret, certainly not from the servants, who knew everything that went on in the house. And surely, one look at the two of them together revealed all. But for the servants to gossip . . . oh, she wanted to crawl under the nearest rock!
“Now, Mr. Jamieson,” Mrs. Stewart scolded, coming to Arabel’s defense, “ye know the lass’s history wi’ the man. She’s a stubborn one, not easily forgivin’.”
Arabel frowned. There must have been a compliment in there somewhere.
“That silver-tongued devil wit’ his charmin’ grins,” the butler countered. “That one could convince a nun t’ lift her skirts.”
“Och, Mr. Jamieson! With the way ye talk, God’ll strike ye down right here if’n yer not careful.”
“Kinna blame her,” one of the young maids put in, and Arabel rolled her eyes. Even the kitchen staff knew? How would she ever live this down? “If’n a man like Lord Townsend e’er looked at me how he does at her—”
“Ye’d run straight back to yer room, if ye ken what’s good fer ye,” Mrs. Stewart interrupted. Then the older woman sighed heavily. “It’s love, that’s what.”
Arabel smiled as her chest warmed. Yes, it was certainly that.
Jamieson snorted. “Ain’t on his part! ’Cept love o’ revenge.”
Her heart thudded painfully. No, Garrick had given up his revenge against her family. The servants simply didn’t know that, although they seemed to know everything else.
“All them pretty words an’ smiles are nothin’ but English deception. He don’t care a fig for the lass ’cept to get back at her family.”
Arabel stood frozen in place, holding her breath as she strained to hear over the roar of blood coursing through her ears with every pounding heartbeat.
“I heard what he said t’ his man, how he wanted revenge.”
Arabel let out a silent sigh of relief. Jamieson was wrong. Yes, Garrick had wanted vengeance when he first arrived here, but no longer.
“Said he planned t’ seduce the property ’way from th’ lass.”
Her heart skipped. That hadn’t been part of his revenge . . . had it?
“Empty talk!” Mrs. Stewart scoffed. “You ken how them lords like t’ brag.”
“Said that havin’ her in his bed would be the perfect revenge ’gainst the Rowlands for what they did t’ him.”
Arabel’s heart stopped. All of her flashed numb. When it started again, the pain was excruciating.
A silence fell over the servants’ hall, until Mrs. Stewart broke it. “He wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“Wouldn’t he now? Also said he’d enjoy razin’ the place t’ the ground. Last I looked, the house was missin’ an entire wing, it was. How long ’fore he tears down the rest?”
Arabel squeezed her eyes shut. How long, indeed?
“But she’s done called th’ banker here,” the maid interjected. “If she an’ Townsend . . . well, why’d she want her betrothed here?”
“To call off the weddin’,” Mrs. Stewart said firmly. “So Townsend can marry her himself, as he should’ve done all them years ago.”
“Or t’ get his best revenge,” Jamieson insisted. “Seduce her into callin’ off the weddin’, then leave fer England an’ leave her wit’ no home nor husband.”
The berry bowl fell from her hand and smashed against the stone floor. Oh, she was going to be sick!
She pressed her hand against her mouth as she fled upstairs, seeking out the refuge of her room. No, it wasn’t possible! Garrick would never . . . Yet doubts swirled through her so fiercely that she could barely breathe.
Every inch of her burned with pain, and every beat of her heart hurt so much that she winced from it. He’d wanted revenge, he’d been clear about that from the beginning. But this . . . could Jamieson be right? Even if only part of it were true, how could she ever trust him again? How could she—
“Arabel.”
Garrick. When she saw him, a blinding pain shot through her.
He was waiting in the hallway for her, as he did every night, so certain was he that she’d not refuse him. Jamieson was wrong about that much at least. Garrick hadn’t needed to seduce her to get his revenge, because she’d gone willingly into his arms.
He frowned as came slowly toward her. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know,” she said softly, unable to sort through the confusion and doubt swirling inside her. If he’d given up his revenge as she’d assumed, if he wanted the same future together that she did, the future he had never spoken about . . . “If I asked you to give me Castle Highburn right now, would you?”
He stiffened, his back straightening. “Why are you asking me this?”
“Please answer,” she pressed, needing to know and desperately clinging to the love she hoped he carried for her.
“Have you broken off your engagement to Murray?” he asked instead.
The simple question pierced her. She stared at him, unable to do anything but return his gaze, thankful that the shadows hid the glistening of angry and hurt tears in her eyes. Her chest squeezed so hard that she could barely breathe.
Ownership of Highburn predicated upon breaking off her engagement, just as Jamieson claimed. Was this his revenge now, to dangle the estate in front of her like some shiny bauble, only to snatch it away once she’d done his bidding? The memory flooded back of their first night together, how he’d pressed her to call off the engagement even then.
Her eyes stung with humiliation. When the accusation came, her voice was barely a whisper, “You used me . . .”
His head snapped back, stunned. Then his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t use—”
“I know what you told Reeves,” she continued. Now that she’d breached the topic, the words spilled out of her in an uncontrolled flood. “How determined you were to get revenge against my family. How you wanted to raze Highburn to the ground.” She shook her head, giving herself time to blink away the tears before they fell. “Don’t play me for a fool by denying it.”
“Yes, I said those things,” he reluctantly admitted. When he took a step toward her, she stepped back, unable to bear his nearness now, when only a few minutes ago she’d craved it. “I was still angry at you and your family then, and surprised as hell to have to split ownership with you.” He forced out a deep breath and raked his fingers through his hair. “But I didn’t mean them like that, and you bloody well know it.”
“And when you said that seducing me would be the perfect revenge?” His face blurred beneath hot tears as she choked out, “What did you mean by that?”
His expression turned as dark as the shadows around them. “That wasn’t it at all.”
She shook her head, fearing that it was exactly that. “I understand why you wanted me in your bed.” She lifted her chin, every fiery ounce of pride inside her surging to the surface and somehow keeping her from collapsing to the floor in uncontrolled sobs. “But you didn’t have to lie and tell me that you loved me.”
“Damnation, Arabel,” he growled out. “I do love you!”
When he reached for her, she moved away. Her stomach knotted with torment. Only an hour ago she would have been overjoyed to hear him declare so vehemently that he loved her . . .
“But not enough to let go of the past,” she whispered.
Garrick said nothing, his jaw clenched hard. In that moment of silence, she had her answer, and it ripped through her, slicing into her heart so viciously that she gasped. She couldn’t breathe, as if all the oxygen had been sucked from the house. She stared at him as the world pitched beneath her feet, and each gasping breath she drew felt like flames searing her lungs.
He moved slowly toward her, closing the distance between them until he stood so close that she felt the anger radiating from him, a fury born of resentment and bitterness. His flashing green eyes held hers and refused to let her look away.
“For ten years, I believed that I’d lost you, and I didn’t give a damn what happened to me except that staying alive meant that I might find a way to make your family pay for what they’d done to me. To us,” he explained giving her no quarter from the venom he carried for her family. “So I fought to stay alive, day after day, doing whatever I had to in order to survive—stealing, cheating, taking any job I could get no matter how grueling. And when I went into the army, I did the same thing. One day at a time.”
Guilt and recrimination burned inside her for what her family had done to him. But they needed to purge the past from their lives if they were to ever have a future. “Garrick, please—”
“Ten years of revenge and hatred shaping me—that’s the man who returned here to claim Highburn.” He sucked in a shuddering breath to tamp down his anger even as his hands still clenched into fists at his sides. “Not once did I give this place another thought except for how much I hated your family for what they’d done.”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she shook her head. All his words formed a cacophony of confusion with what she knew of her family, what she’d heard Jamieson say, what she thought she knew about Garrick. The tempest of it overwhelmed her, and she couldn’t find her way through the turmoil.
“So, yes. I came here wanting revenge, and I said those things . . . about the family I despised and the woman who couldn’t find the courage inside herself to stand up to them.” He captured her face between his hands and rested his forehead against hers. A grimace twisted his face, as if touching her now pained him. “But then you were back in my arms, as if in a dream.” He shifted away to look down into her eyes. His warm breath tickled her lips, branding her with each word that emerged as black as the shadows around them. “I love you, Arabel. I want nothing more than to make you happy. But I cannot forget what your family did to us, nor can I ever forgive.”
She covered his hands with hers, her fingers trembling. “I don’t know why they did that, or if they even knew what hell they’d thrown you into,” she whispered. “But you need to let the past die. You have to forgive them, or you’ll never have my full love.”
He straightened his spine, his jaw clenching as he drawled, “Is that an ultimatum?”
“No,” she said softly, her shoulders falling. “It’s simply a fact. If you don’t let go of the past, it will always be between us.” She drew in an erratic breath, and her fingers tightened on his, desperate to hold onto him, however she could. “Will you give me Highburn?”
A hard gleam flared in his eyes. “Will you stop letting your family dictate your life?”
The pain that pulsed through her at his cutting question came brutally, stripping her breath away. Her hands dropped away, and her empty fingers clasped at the cold air. The anguish inside her burned so intensely that every inch of her ached with loss.
Unable to keep the desolation from her voice, she whispered, “Nothing’s truly changed for us after all.”
He looked away, this time unable to reassure her that she was wrong.
The realization that she’d lost him should have killed her. Yet her foolish heart still beat on, still not wounded enough to stop and spare her the hell of losing him again, despite the needles of pain that pricked at her and the utter misery that gnawed at her belly.
“If you can’t understand why Highburn means so much to me, if you can’t let me bring good from the ashes of my family, then—” She choked on the words. “Then you’re not the man I once loved.”
Frustration twisted his features. He rasped out, “Arabel—”
“Go back to England, Garrick,” she breathed out as her world shattered around her. “There’s no highlander left in you to love.”