Page 5 of A Match Made in Heather

Lord Townsend?Her lips parted in bewilderment. Impossible. This man was Garrick McGuiness, son of a blacksmith and former groom in her uncle’s stables. She knew him as well as she knew her own face. Not even ten years’ distance could make her forget him.

Mr. Davidson introduced them. “Your lordship, may I present Miss Arabel Rowland and her fiancé, Mr. Ewan Murray? Miss Rowland and Mr. Murray . . . Garrick McGuiness, Earl of Townsend.”

She caught her breath as the world shifted beneath her. Somehow she’d slipped into a nightmare and was staring at a ghost.

“Welcome to Village Kincardine, sir,” Davidson said.

At that, Garrick’s lips twitched, such a small reaction to the irony of the solicitor’s greeting that no one else would have noticed. But Arabel did. There was a time when she’d noticed everything about him, so in love was she that she’d wanted to burn into her heart’s memory every detail about him.

Shehadloved him. More than she ever thought possible. Garrick hadn’t cared that she was only eighteen, with a stubborn streak and temper that sometimes got the better of her. Or that her ginger hair was more unruly than fashionable, and that she loved to ride and shoot just as much as her brothers. When she was with him, she’d felt feminine and soft, and he calmed her, reassuring her in ways no one else could. He’d been tall and broad, all solid muscle, but with her he was gentle as a lamb. She’d soon begun inventing reasons to linger with him in the stables. Then she’d found herself in his arms, and he’d found his way into her heart.

She’d never doubted that she would be his, as the beloved wife who would give him children and keep his home.

Until everything changed.

With the old anguish rising inside her, Arabel stood with as much dignity as she could muster. “Lord Townsend needs no welcome.” She offered her hand to him, not at all certain of the protocol for meeting again the man she’d refused to marry. “He was born in Village Kincardine and once worked at Highburn.”

“Aye, I did. But apparently I now own it.” A dark smile of amusement played at his lips as he ignored her outstretched hand until she uncomfortably lowered it to her side. “Or at least partially.” His eyes flicked to Davidson. “That was what you wrote in your letter, requesting this meeting. A co-bequeathal.” When his gaze returned to Arabel, the iciness in him sent a shiver speeding through her. “Although you failed to mention with whom.”

The blood seeped from her face, and Arabel sank slowly onto her chair, not caring how rude that was. If she didn’t sit, she would have fallen to the floor.

Davidson gestured for Garrick to sit, but the earl declined with a wave of his hand and remained standing. His commanding presence in the tiny office only grew as he widened his stance and rested one hand behind his back in a posture of pure authority and power.

Sensing the tension between them, Ewan placed his hand on her shoulder. “You are distressing my fiancée.” Oblivious to the sharp narrowing of Garrick’s eyes at that blatant scolding, Ewan turned to Davidson. “Explain, sir.”

For once, Arabel was grateful that her mother had convinced her to marry him. As a banker in Edinburgh, he knew how deeds and entailments worked.

The solicitor cleared his throat. “Laird Rowland wanted the property’s ownership to be split between Miss Rowland and Lord Townsend. Apparently, he felt that running the estate would be too much of a burden for Miss Rowland to assume by herself.”

Knowing her uncle’s conservative nature, Arabel was certain of it. But withGarrick,of all men! Had her uncle gone mad?

“The provision was made last year. Miss Rowland had no one to help her with the property when her uncle revised his will,” Davidson explained.

Ewan’s chest swelled with possession, certainly not with love. “She does now.”

“Yes,” Garrick answered, interjecting himself into the conversation as he sank lazily into the chair. “She has me.”

Arabel gaped at him. Oh, he was mistaken about that! She hadn’t had him to support her since that night ten years ago when he walked out of her life. Her family had needed her. She’d tried so hard to explain all that to him, to make him understand, to ask only for a delay in their plans. But he’d vanished in the night, without so much as a goodbye.

If he thought he could come sweeping back into her life now, after the way he’d wounded her, he was sadly mistaken.

With anger rising inside her at his audacity, she turned to the solicitor. “Lord Townsend has no familial connection to the estate. Why would Uncle Malcolm leave it to him?”

Garrick said nothing, most likely wondering the same.

“Your uncle claimed to be indebted to Lord Townsend,” Davidson explained, shuffling through his papers. “Stemming from an incident shortly after his lordship began working for him.” Blinking rapidly behind his spectacles as he read through his notes, the solicitor glanced up at Garrick with an expression of awe. “You saved his life?”

Garrick casually shrugged. Only when Arabel arched a brow did he quietly explain, “The harness broke on the four-in-hand. There was no postilion on the lead horse and no way to control the team, so I stopped them.”

“How?” Ewan demanded.

“I jumped from the top of the carriage onto the rear horse, then climbed across the thill to the lead and wrestled it to stop.”

Arabel let out her breath, not realizing until then that she’d been holding it or that her heart flipped painfully at the way he’d risked his life.

Ewan scoffed. “Anyone could have done that.”

Wordlessly, Garrick slid his gaze sideways to Ewan, as if critically sizing him up. Then he looked away with a roll of his eyes.