Page 16 of One Forbidden Kiss with the Laird (The Cinderella Shepherd Sisters #2)
W ith the tears stinging her eyes and clouding her vision, Selina stumbled more than once as she ran from the cottage back towards Taigh Blath. The pain she felt was deep and visceral, as if Lord Leven had reached into her chest and ripped her heart from her body.
‘You stupid girl,’ she muttered to herself.
Once again she had been swept away in the fantasy, despite telling herself she would not become embroiled with Lord Leven.
When he had looked at her with that animalistic yearning in his eyes she had felt something throb and pulse deep inside her.
She was not naive, she had known they could have no future, yet as he had pulled her from the creaking staircase and pressed her against the wall she had been powerless to resist him.
The kiss had been inevitable, the culmination of all of those fleeting touches and the building attraction they had felt for one another, but it did not excuse it.
Lord Leven was determined to marry Catherine, they were practically engaged.
Selina should have known no mere physical attraction could make him waver from his path, yet when he had been kissing her she had felt as though it was everything she had ever wanted.
Suddenly she had felt a clarity unlike anything she had ever known before.
It was intoxicating, the dream that they might get to spend their life in one another’s arms, and for a few minutes it had been all Selina had wanted.
Until she’d seen the look of abject horror on Lord Leven’s face.
Selina felt the rush of shame and sorrow.
Back home she had attended the local dances and had never struggled to fill her dance card.
She knew she was attractive enough and hadn’t ever thought anyone would look at her with such a look as Lord Leven had given her.
It was as though she was the biggest mistake he had ever made.
What made it worse was mere seconds earlier she was imagining him dropping to his knees and begging her to be his wife.
Selina looked up, realising she had been running without even thinking about the direction.
The rain was persistent, although a little lighter than when they had first taken shelter, but there was a pervasive mist that obscured the trees and landmarks in the distance, meaning anything more than ten feet away looked hazy and out of focus.
They had been on the edge of the land belonging to Sir William and attached to Loch View Lodge.
Selina had made her way to the road and was now still on it, but she wondered if she was heading in the wrong direction, going away from the house rather than towards it.
She spun round, trying to find something that would allow her to pinpoint exactly where she was, but everything looked the same.
She could not even see the cottage she had fled from.
The sensible thing to do would be to stick to the road.
It ran between the house and the village of Ballachulish and so if she kept walking on it she would arrive at one or the other, but Selina hesitated.
All she wanted was a warm bath in front of a hot fire.
She did not want to walk to the village only to have to turn around to go all the way back again.
Despite knowing her next move was foolish, Selina decided to do it anyway. After everything that had happened she did not want to be out in this weather for any longer than was necessary.
Choosing the direction she thought the house was in, she stepped off the road.
There was a grassy path where the ground was flattened by people walking and she thought if she followed this it would bring her into the gardens of Loch View Lodge.
She had seen the other end of the path on her exploration of the gardens one day and she was almost certain this was the right route.
Pushing away the niggle of doubt, she pressed on.
* * *
After walking for ten minutes Selina was beginning to get nervous.
The path had petered out to nothing a few minutes earlier but she had carried on, hoping in a little way it would start up again, but that had not happened.
She still could not see the house and she was getting a sinking sensation that she had just done something very, very stupid.
Panic seized her and she wondered if anyone had ever died out here in these hills. She knew she was not far from the house, but with the visibility as poor as it was now she could be a hundred feet away and not know it.
She bit her lip, regarding the way ahead and the way she had come. Every time she stopped, she worried that she was turning a little and had a fear of walking in circles for hours on end.
Selina made a decision, turning to the right and heading for a large tree twenty feet away. It had big branches and a full canopy of leaves, which would provide some shelter at least. She would have to wait for the worst of the mist and rain to pass and then head back to the road then.
Selina shivered. She was soaked to the skin, her dress sticking to her and chafing with every move she made.
As she slumped down against the tree trunk she felt the tears well up inside her and she let them fall on to her cheeks.
Her emotions had always run close to the surface, bubbling up unbidden.
She could not help but smile if she found something amusing and she found it hard to stop the tears when she was upset.
The tears were cathartic, allowing her to acknowledge the hurt she was feeling deep inside.
She told herself it would not hurt for long.
In a few weeks she would be heading south, never to set eyes on Catherine Kingsley or Lord Leven ever again.
They would be welcome to their miserable life together.
It was obvious they would be unhappy. Catherine loved the vitality of life in London—the whirl of the social calendar, the visits to the modiste and the gossip she could share with friends.
Lord Leven was completely the opposite and she doubted he would ever have any desire to visit London, or even Edinburgh.
His passion was the land, the wilderness of Scotland and the people who called this part of the world their home.
Selina closed her eyes, trying to control the shudders that were threatening to take hold of all of her, clenching her teeth together and willing her body to be still.
* * *
The door opened before Callum could even raise a hand to knock and a footman peered out, concern etched on his face.
‘Where is Miss Shepherd?’ he said, his tone a little demanding before he remembered who he was talking to and quickly added, ‘My lord.’
‘She has not returned to the house?’ An icy hand of dread clutched at him.
This was what he had been afraid of. For him the journey back to the house from Mrs Douglas’s cottage had taken only ten minutes.
He’d walked briskly and stuck to the paths he had known well, but for Miss Shepherd it would all look confusing in the mist.
Before the footman could answer Sir William emerged, a smile on his face.
‘You made it. Catherine is in the drawing room. I have sent for the local doctor although I understand he lives some way away. She is comfortable, though.’ Sir William clapped him on the back.
‘I thanked your friend for bringing her back and invited him to stay for tea, but he was eager to be on his way.’
Callum wondered if it had been Bruce’s horse on the road that had made Hamish stand to attention and bark when they were in Mrs Douglas’s cottage, that fateful bark that had broken the spell woven between him and Miss Shepherd.
‘Come on through,’ Sir William said, the most effusive Callum had seen him. ‘I expect you wish to dry out. I will send for someone to light a fire.’
‘Miss Shepherd, is she back?’
Sir William frowned as he looked around the grand entrance hall. ‘Was she not with you?’
‘No, we got separated in the mist. It is bad weather out there.’
The footman stepped forward, his hands clasped together and his voice a little tremulous. ‘She has not returned, Sir William.’
‘Ah. I expect she’ll be along shortly,’ Sir William said.
‘Peters, keep a watch on the drive. Come through, Lord Leven, my daughter is eager to see you.’ Callum allowed himself to be ushered into the drawing room and was greeted by the sight of Miss Kingsley reclining on a sofa, her ankle propped up on a pillow.
She looked cooler and more composed than the last time he had seen her an hour earlier, riding off on the back of Bruce’s horse.
‘I must thank you, my lord,’ Miss Kingsley said as soon as he entered the room. ‘Your assistance up that mountain was chivalric.’
It had been a small hill, hardly a mountain, but he didn’t correct her. He was more concerned at their lack of worry about Miss Shepherd.
‘Miss Shepherd is missing,’ he said without any preamble. ‘We got separated in the mist and she has not yet found her way home.’
‘Separated?’ Miss Kingsley said sharply. ‘Surely it is hard to get separated on the straight road home.’
‘Miss Shepherd must have strayed from the path.’
‘Fool,’ Miss Kingsley muttered.
‘Of course, we will arrange for some of the servants to search for her. I expect she will appear any minute, but it is better to be safe,’ Sir William said.
He moved without any sense of urgency and Callum had to fight the urge to grab hold of the older man’s shoulders and shake him.
Sir William disappeared into the hall for a few moments and there was the low rumble of voices as he issued instructions.
‘The male servants are going to set off and scour the local area.’
‘Why don’t you sit?’ Lady Kingsley said, motioning to a free armchair close to Miss Kingsley. ‘I expect you will want to stay until you know Miss Shepherd is home safe and well.’
‘It could be a good opportunity to discuss the details of Catherine’s dowry,’ Sir William said.