Seducing a Scottish Bride (42 page)

His continued stare, narrow-eyed and penetrating, was more than proof.

Arabella started to lower her own gaze, but caught herself and frowned instead. And rather than returning her attention to
her wooden bowl of slaked oats as she would have done perhaps even just a few days ago, she sat up straighter and squared
her shoulders.

She only hoped that no one else heard the wild thundering of her heart.

It wasn’t every day that she dared defy her fierce-eyed, hot-tempered father.

Indeed, this was the first time she meant to try.

Her contentment in life — she couldn’t bring herself to use the word happiness — depended on her being strong.

Firm, resolute, and unbending.

“I’m not interested in Kintail seals, Father.” She cleared her throat, careful to keep her chin raised. “And there
is
a need. Besides that, I want to make this journey. The Seal Isles are mine now. You gave them to me.”

“I added them to your bride price!”

“Which makes them my own.” She persisted, unable to stop. “It’s only natural I should wish to see them. I can make a halt
at the Isle of Doon on the way, bringing your felicitations to your friends the MacLeans and the
cailleach
, Devorgilla. You can’t deny that they would welcome me. After that, I could perhaps call at —”

“Ho! What’s this?” Her father’s gaze snapped to a quiet, scar-faced man half-hidden in shadow at the end of the table. “Can
it be a certain long-nosed loon of a Sassunach has been putting such mummery in your head?”

Arabella bit her lip, not about to admit that her head had been fine until a courier had arrived from her younger sister’s
home a few days before, announcing that Gelis had at last quickened with child.

A pang shot through her again, remembering. Hot, sharp, and twisting, her bitterness wound tight. Just recalling how the messenger’s
eyes had danced with merriment as he’d shared the long-awaited news had upturned her world.

It’d been too much.

The whole sad truth of the empty days stretching before her had come crashing down around her like so much hurled and shattered
crockery.

She refused to think about the cold nights, equally empty and warmed only by the peats tossed on the hearth fire and the snoring,
furry bulk of whichever of her father’s dogs chose to scramble onto her bed of an e’en.

Setting down her spoon, she fisted her hands against the cool linen of the table covering and swallowed against the heat in
her throat.

To be sure, she loved her sister dearly. She certainly begrudged her naught. But her heart wept upon the surety that such
joyous tidings would likely never be her own.

“Faugh!” Her father’s deep voice boomed again. “Whoe’er heard of a lassie wanting to sail clear to the edge of the sea? ’Tis
beyond —”

“Hush, you, Duncan. . . .” Stepping up to the high table, her mother, Lady Linnet, placed a warning hand on his shoulder.
“Bluster is —”

“The only way I ken to deal with such foolery!” Her father frowned up at his wife and, for a telling moment, all the fury
drained from his face.

The mirror image of Gelis, only older, the lady Linnet flicked back her hip-length, red-gold braid and leaned down to circle
loving arms around her husband’s broad shoulders. Blessed with the sight — another gift she shared with her youngest daughter
— Lady Linnet’s ability to soothe and banish her husband’s worst moods wasn’t something Arabella needed to see at the moment.

The obvious love between the two only served to remind her of the intimacies she’d never know.

Burning to call such closeness her own, she winced at the sudden piercing image of herself as a withered, spindle-legged crone
humbly serving wine and sweetmeats to her parents and her sister and her husband as they reposed before her, supine on cushioned
bedding and oblivious to aught but their blazing passion.

Arabella frowned and blinked back the dastardly heat pricking her eyes.

Her mother’s voice, clearly admonishing her father, helped to banish the disturbing vision. “Ach, Duncan.” She smoothed a
hand through his thick, shoulder- length black hair, sleek as Arabella’s own and scarce touched by but a few strands of glistening
silver. “Perhaps you should —”

“Pshaw!” He made a derisive sound, breaking free of her embrace. “Dinna tell me what I should and shouldn’t do. I’d rather
hear what that meddling lout who calls himself a friend has —”

“Uncle Marmaduke has nothing to do with it.” Arabella spoke before he could finish. “He is a better friend to you than you
could wish. Though he did mention that he’s here because a south-bound trading ship — ”

“A vessel said to be captained by an Orkneyman you know and trust.” Her uncle sipped slowly from his ale cup, his calm chasing
her fears and giving her hope. “Word is that the trader is large enough to take on your girl and an escort in all comfort.”

“Hah! So speaks a meddler!” Her father smacked his hand on the table. “Did I no’ just say you were the cause of this?” He
roared the words, glaring round. “Aye, there’s a merchant ship set to call at Kyleakin. Could be, the captain is known to
me. I ken most traders who ply these waters!”

“And I
ken
when you are about to make a bleeding arse of yourself.” Sir Marmaduke set down his empty ale cup and leaned back in his
chair, arms casually folded. “A pity you do not know when to heed those who care about you.”

Duncan MacKenzie scowled at him. “And I say ’tis a greater pity that you dinna ken when to hold your flapping tongue!”

The words spoken, he flashed another look at Arabella. “If you’re of a mind, I’ll take you to see what wares the merchant
ship carries. There are sure to be bolts of fine cloth and baubles, perhaps a few exquisite rarities. Maybe even a gem-set
comb for your shiny black tresses.”

Pausing, he raised a wagging finger. “But know this, when the ship sails away, you will no’ be onboard!”

Arabella struggled against tightening her lips.

The last thing she wanted was to look like a shrew.

Even so, she couldn’t help feeling a spurt of annoyance. “I have coffers filled with raiments and I’ve more jewels than I
can wear in a lifetime. There is little of interest such a ship can offer me. Not in way of the goods it carries.”

She took a deep breath, knowing she needed to speak her heart. “What I want is an adventure.”

“
A what?
” Her father’s brows shot higher than she’d ever seen.

He also leapt to his feet, almost toppling his chair in his fury.

Out in the main hall, several of his men guffawed. On the dais, one or two coughed. And even the castle dogs eyed him curiously,
their canine eyes full of reproach.

Duncan MacKenzie’s scowl turned fierce.

“A little time away from here is all I ask.” Arabella ignored them all. “I’ve grown weary of waiting for another suitor to
make his bid. The last one who dared approached you over a year ago and —”

“The bastard was a MacLeod!” Her father’s face ran purple. “Dinna tell me you’d have gone happily to the bed of a sprig of
that ilk! We’ve clashed with their fork-tongued, cloven-footed kind since before the first lick o’ dew touched a sprig of
heather!”

“Then what of the Clan Ranald heir who came before him?” Arabella uncurled her fists, no longer caring if anyone saw how her
hands trembled. “You can’t deny you’ve called the MacDonalds good allies and friends.”

Her father spluttered, frowning.

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.

THE DISH

Where authors give you the inside scoop!

From the desk of Sue Ellen Welfonder

Dear Reader,

My editor absolutely thrilled me when she told me this book’s title: SEDUCING A SCOTTISH BRIDE (on sale now). After all, seduction
plays a strong role in romance, and Scotland is the heartbeat in every book I write.