Page 34 of A Match Made in Heather

He tenderly brushed the tears away, then placed a soft, reassuring kiss to her lips. But the shaking sigh that came from her only twisted his gut tighter. Arabel in tears. This was nothing like he’d planned tonight to be. Of course, he hadn’t planned on spilling himself inside her either, which could never happen again. But his desire for her had been too great, the pleasure of being inside her too overwhelming, and he’d lost control before he could slip from her warmth.

But tears . . .Good Lord,was she already regretting giving herself to him?

“What is it?” he pressed gently. He leaned over her and brushed a ginger curl away from her forehead, coaxing her to open her eyes. The watery green depths glistened in the faint light from the dying embers in the fireplace. “Tell me.”

She swiped a hand at her eyes. “It isn’t you.”

He arched a brow, not believing her.

“Not like that, I mean.” She touched his cheek. “You were wonderful.”

He wasn’t certain he believed that either, since the only man she’d ever been with had just brought her to tears. But he knew one thing for certain. Arabel was in his arms again, right where she belonged.

“Everything is going to be all right,” he whispered, soothingly caressing his hand along her side.

She choked out, “How can it be?”

Before he could stop her, she slipped out of bed.

He sat up and watched as she snatched up his dressing robe that he’d earlier flung across the chair when he’d been debating what to wear tonight, like some green pup before his first tryst with a woman. The cashmere robe draped over her petite frame, hanging nearly to her ankles.

She tied the belt, then faced him. “A decade since . . .” She raked a hand through her disheveled hair that fell in a tangled cascade of fire down her back. “But has anything really changed?”

“Everythinghas changed,” he half-growled.

He crawled off the bed and yanked on his breeches. As he finished buttoning the fall, he crossed the room to the fireplace, where he reached for the poker to stir up the fire, but only to keep from reaching for her, to carry her straight back to bed and make love to her until she realized what he already knew. That they were fated to be together.

“I’m engaged to another man,” she explained, exasperation trembling in her voice. “You’re planning on leaving as soon as you can. And we’re still fighting over my family.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He stabbed at the coals. “And I don’t give a damn about your family. Or their choice in husband for you.” This was their second chance, and he refused to let history repeat itself.

When she didn’t respond, he leaned back on his heels and glanced over his shoulder at her. The anguish on her face nearly undid him.

“Why . . .” She drew a deep breath to ask the question he knew was coming. The one he’d been dreading. But Arabel was nothing if not predictable in her doggedness. “Why do you hate my family so much?”

His gaze fixed solemnly on hers. “Because they took you from me.”

“They didn’t. It wasyouwho left.” She choked out the aching whisper—“You abandoned me.”

His head snapped up, and he rose to his full height. “I didn’tabandonyou.” He set the poker aside and clenched his hands as he stared at her, refusing to look away. “I would never abandon you, Arabel.”

Her eyes glistened. “But you did. You wanted me to elope with you, but when I didn’t, you left. You left me here.” She swallowed down a sob. “And I never saw you again.”

As he moved slowly toward her, his chest squeezed until he could barely breathe. This conversation had been ten years in coming, yet he didn’t find any relief now that it had arrived. Revealing the truth of that night would only hurt her.

But if they had any hope of a future together, then they had to put to rest all the ghosts from their past.

“Your family made me leave,” he explained quietly, trying to keep the old bitterness from his voice. “They told the land agent to take care of me, to make certain that I didn’t have any ideas about stealing a Rowland daughter.”

Her lips parted in surprise, but she remained silent, trying to take in all that he was telling her.

“Your family wanted me away from you and the highlands. So MacTavish and two of the grooms beat me up until I was half dead, and then some more for good measure.” He ran a fingertip along a faint scar on his chin and over another at the corner of his left eye. “They gave me these, right before they tied me up and threw me onto the back of a wagon headed for the coast, where I was impressed onto a ship bound for Spain. When it put in anchor near Margate three days later to take on supplies, I jumped overboard and swam ashore to England.”

She didn’t move, not even to breathe, as her gaze remained locked with his.

“I had no money, no friends, no way back to the highlands,” he answered. “I thought I’d lost you forever. Worse, I blamed you for telling your family about me, for setting them on me that night.”

“I didn’t,” she breathed out, so softly his ears couldn’t hear her. But his heart heard every word. “I never told anyone about us. I didn’t know what . . .” Her voice cracked, unable to put into words what her family had done to him. “Oh God, Garrick, I’m so sorry.”