Page 13 of A Match Made in Heather

“No worries about that, lass! I’ll be sure to give you my opinion on everythin’.”

Another laugh spilled from her thin lips, but Arabel suspected they were speaking of two completely different things. “Good.” She kept her smile firmly in place. “Because it’s going to be rather difficult to make arrangements for Edinburgh while I’m in the highlands.”

“Let that be the first I give—move the wedding to Kincardine. ’Twill be unavoidable then for ev’ryone.”

“I think you mean ‘closer’,” she corrected, yet only drew another cackle from her aunt. Oh, they were certainly speaking of two different things! She wished she knew what, though. “It’s not what Ewan wants, but I’ll consider it.”

“Not what the banker wants,” Matilda repeated with a scoffing wave of her gnarled hand. “Haven’t you figured it out yet, lass? This whole thing is about finally doin’ whatyouwant.”

With a long sigh, Arabel turned back to the window. When had her life ever been about what she wanted? Long before she was expected to marry Ewan, before she had to dedicate herself to helping Mama and Aunt Ethel in Edinburgh, before she was forced to leave the highlands . . . Truly, the last time she could remember doing as she pleased was when she gave her heart to Garrick. Loving him had been her choice, completely and freely hers. But in the end, she’d lost even that.

“All we need is for Ian Campbell to come ridin’ up the lane,” Matilda laughed, “and then wouldn’t we all have a grand time!”

“I don’t believe Lord Townsend would be welcoming to visitors,” Arabel muttered, imagining the fisticuffs that might break out if all three men were together.

“Oh, the lad would surprise you, given a chance.”

As Arabel rolled her eyes, a movement at the front of the lawn caught her attention. Speak of the devil . . .Garrick.

He strode across the lawn with two workmen flanking him, forcing them into quick steps to keep up with his long strides. Behind them bounced three young boys who were shadowing their fathers on whatever errand had brought them to Highburn.

Garrick gestured at the house’s façade, then said something to the two men that made them nod. With his back ramrod-straight, shoulders squared, and legs wide, he possessed a commanding air, the force of which struck her all the way up here on the first floor. She couldn’t tear her eyes away, even as her chest clenched at the sight of him.Notbecause she still cared about him, but because the irritating man strutted around the lawn as if he owned the place.

Well . . . perhaps he did. But only half of it.

Arabel frowned as he engaged in conversation with the men, all of them gesturing in turns toward the house. “Lord Townsend seems to be making plans.”

Matilda followed her gaze out the window. “An’ you should inquire ’bout what those plans are.”

“I will.” But the thought of confronting Garrick filled her with dread. She’d managed to avoid him since they’d moved into Highburn, which was no easy feat given that their rooms sat directly across the hall from each other.

“We’ll take the first trunks over to the dower house, an’ Townsend will come with us,” her aunt decided. “You can ask him then.”

Arabel stiffened. That was decidedlynotthe way she wanted to spend her afternoon, having to make polite conversation with that devil in front of her aunt and the servants.

Sensing her unease, Matilda wrapped her arm around Arabel’s. Then she smiled as Garrick finished whatever instructions he was giving to the men and threw aside his commanding presence to catch one of the boys as they darted past. He tossed the boy into the air, and the child laughed with such glee that the happy sound drifted up to them.

“The most important families aren’t the ones we’re born into, but the ones we choose,” Matilda commented as she watched the other two boys fling themselves at Garrick’s legs to capture his attention.

Choosinga family? Heavens. Arabel already had enough trouble with her blood relations. How many more families did she need to be concerned about?

She patted Matilda’s arm. “I don’t think—”

“Your own,” her aunt challenged. “Your own wee bairn you’ll have. And soon. I want to live to see the next generation of clan Rowland.”

“You will, Auntie,” Arabel assured her quietly. After all, wasn’t that the main reason she was marrying Ewan? For security and children? But as she watched Garrick play with the boys, chasing them in a spontaneous game of tag, she couldn’t imagine having any man’s child but his. In all her fantasies, even in the decade since he left, she’d always imagined children who resembled him. The same emerald eyes, the same mahogany brown hair, the same crooked grin . . .

“His lordship will make a good papa,” Matilda commented as Garrick handed the smallest of the boys over to his father, his hand tousling the lad’s hair. “The lucky lass he chooses to make his countess will give him the family he deserves.”

“I’m certain,” Arabel agreed, but did her reply sound as brusque to her aunt’s ears as it did to her own? It wasnotjealousy.

“He has no family left in Kincardine, nor anywhere in the highlands, in fact. His mama died when he was young, an’ his father right ‘fore he came to work at Highburn. His brothers and sisters had all died off or moved away by then, too.”

Arabel knew all that, but she’d never really considered what that meant to him until this moment. Seeing him with the children only reinforced how alone he must have been in those years before he left. Was that the reason he never understood why her family meant so much to her?

“He had no one in Kincardine to call kith nor kin when he left.”

“He had me,” Arabel countered softly, unable to stop the old pain from tightening a knot low in her belly.