Page 49 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

That thought was followed by a feeling that since she could think of nothing to say in her defense, her best defense was to say nothing at all.

During the time the duchess was explaining what she had seen going on in the garden beneath her window at Dunford Castle, Annabella busied herself with imagining what actions her father could and would make—none of which were very appealing to her.

“And so I thought the best thing to do, in your absence, was to separate the two of them before any damage could be done,” the duchess said.

Bella’s father answered, his voice trembling with anger, “You did the best thing that could be done under the circumstances, my love. I won’t be so lax in my duty with Bella again.

Every precaution will be taken to see that she is kept out of harm’s way until the wedding.

Bella, stop looking as though I’ve just ordered you to be boiled in oil.

I have decided you will remain sequestered, here at Seaforth, until the day of your wedding. ”

Her stricken gaze flew to her Uncle Barra, who was occupied with something outside the window. Forcing herself to look at her father again, Annabella gave a startled cry, “But…”

“Save yourself the wasted effort of pleading. My mind is made up. Your mother, Gavin, and I leave for Saltwood in the morning. Your uncle has graciously offered to keep you under his thumb. Try to conduct yourself in a dignified manner until we return.”

“When will that be?”

“A week or so before the wedding.”

“Couldn’t Gavin…”

“Your brother is needed at home, Bella. He doesn’t have time to play nursemaid to you. You should know that.”

“But, Papa…”

The Duke of Grenville looked at his daughter—the one daughter who had never given him an ounce of trouble.

That is, until recently. Still, the memory of his youngest was fresh upon his mind.

He sighed. “You need a tighter rein on you, Annabella, but I don’t mean it to sound cruel, or like punishment.

You know your place, as well as you know I want only what is best for you.

I wouldn’t have considered pushing you into a marriage like this if it hadn’t been for that grandfather of yours. ”

Later, after she left the library, Annabella went to the barn and sat on an overturned bucket. One of MacBeth’s kittens was on her lap. She was about to put the kitten back by its mother when Gavin found her. He gave her a warm smile and told her not to worry.

Annabella gave him a look of disfavor. “I doubt you would be sounding so cheerful if it were you being left behind.”

Gavin laughed and mussed her hair, then called her an infant.

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew the things that await me in England.

My days as a rakehell are over, I’m afraid.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all the things I have to do, just to inherit a title.

In some ways, Bella, my life is more out of my control than yours. ”

Annabella knew this, and she knew that in his heart Gavin really had no desire to become a duke.

He wasn’t against it, but he wasn’t obsessed with the idea either.

It made her feel worse to know that in spite of the turmoil in his own life, he would do his best to be smiling and teasing whenever he was around her and always try to keep her in a good humor.

“I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” she said, her voice quivering. “It’s such a long time until the wedding. A whole year.”

Gavin’s brows lifted. “Are you wanting to rush it, then?”

“No, but I might consider it, if it meant I would see you sooner.”

“I’ll be back before the wedding,” Gavin said. “Father promised me I could come back.”

While Annabella couldn’t go so far as to say her spirits were lifted, she did admit that having Gavin’s return to look forward to did improve her mood somewhat.

Early the next morning Annabella stood beside one of two massive stone lions that flanked the front door and took one last, long look at her family.

Her eyes were bright and angry with determination not to cry.

All her life she had struggled to be the daughter her father would love and be proud of, and what had it brought her?

Punishment. Banishment. A forced marriage.

She tried to look back over her life to see where she had gone wrong, hut like looking back for her tracks after walking through water, everything seemed to have vanished—just as her life in England had vanished.

For the loss of her home, she tried to grieve, willing tears of sorrow and loss to come forward, but none came.

She tried to call up beloved, happy times, fond memories of her childhood, hut like the summoned tears, none came forth.

Annabella had no fond, cherished memories of her childhood.

It wasn’t that she felt abused, or even unloved, for she knew her parents loved her, in their fashion.

She simply did not feel beloved, and that was what she wanted above all else, to be beloved and cherished, to feel she had some value.

She was like one of the toys in the nursery—one of so many lovely things one hardly took notice of her, and so she spent her childhood years standing on a shelf, being taken down occasionally and shown to friends and relatives, or scolded for the dust collecting on her dress, then, her hair brushed and braided and her arms stuffed into a new dress, she would be placed back on the shelf.

And now after so many years she was being tossed out of the nursery, callously sold to the peddler willing to pay the highest price. For Gavin, it had been different. He was the long-awaited—and only—son, while Bella was nothing more than the last in a long succession of daughters.

During all this time Barra Mackenzie studied his niece, remembering how he had said, “The lass seems biddable in temperament.”

Alisdair promptly said, “She is biddable in temperament only because she has been trained, like a vine, to grow that way, not because it is her natural wont.”

“And what do you think is her natural wont? ”

“To run wild as a heathen without discipline or self-control. I tell you, Barra, a more difficult time I’ve never had of it.

Bella has required more of a strong arm than all the other children put together.

By the time she was two years old, I knew I had a little hellcat on my hands.

She was as willful and headstrong as they came.

A firm hand is what turned the tide on all that.

Believe me, it wasn’t easy, guiding her in other directions, although I can’t say I’m exactly pleased with the outcome.

She’s a bit bookish and far too intelligent and educated—more than is necessary for a woman, I think.

All in all, she’s been a trying child to rear.

If she is malleable at all, it has come through force. ”

Just like her marriage, thought Barra.

As the Mackenzies stood with Annabella, watching the elegant ebony traveling coach of the duke and duchess make its way down the winding road in a cloak of dust, Barra put his arms around Una’s shoulders and let out a long sigh. His dejected niece disappeared into the house.

“Having the lass here will be good for Ailie. She’ll be a mite more pleasurable to have tea with and to make a fuss over the latest fashion books than Allan,” he said.

Lady Seaforth cast a skeptical glance at her husband. “You are oddly congenial about all of this. By the by, I would have sworn you were in a suffering state over having the lass thrust in your care.”

“Hmmmm,” was all Barra said, for he was smiling at the remembrance of a bit of whimsical idiocy that had occurred the past morning between this poor, lost lass and his daughter.

Ailie had invited herself to spend the night in Bella’s room and had just removed her clothes and was sitting on the bed with her cousin, watching her write in her journal, when they were summoned across the hall into the room occupied by Annabella’s parents.

Sitting en chemise when they were first summoned, the girls jumped up and made for their clothes at the same time.

In the confusion, the pot de chambre was knocked over and before they could summon help, the entire contents had meandered out their door and across the hall and beneath the door directly across the way.

When His Grace the Duke of Grenville opened the door to inquire as to the delay of his daughter and niece, he promptly stepped in the reason.

Chuckling to himself, Barra shook his head.

He could have expressed his opposition and had the lass carted off with the rest of her family, but he was not a man who always took the easy way out.

As it was, he surprised his wife and agreed to quarter his niece until the week of her wedding—after first having a man-to-man talk with Alisdair.

After so many scars, what was one more to his conscience?

A month after their arrival in Edinburgh, Ross and Lord Percival departed, their destination Dunford but not by the most direct route.

Ross, still nursing his wounds over the hasty departure of Annabella and her mother, wasn’t yet ready to return to Dunford and his grandfather.

He was steadfast in his belief that the old man had something to do with the duchess’s abrupt decision to take her daughter away.

Time, he told himself, was what he needed.

More time away from Dunford and his grandfather.

He was a bit put out with the old man, but he knew his grandfather wasn’t going to be around forever.

He didn’t want his anger to be what pushed him into an earlier death.

He would simply do as he had done for the past several years.

He would wander from place to place, drinking and whoring until he purged that ivory-skinned beauty from his mind and loins.

To Percy, he simply said he wanted to see more of Scotland. And in a way that was true.