“For old lang syne,” he murmured before bending his head tenderly.
Sabrina felt her heart wrench. She wanted to leave quietly, but just then Rab whined in confusion, calling attention to her presence.
Abruptly Niall lifted his head and looked directly at her.
Seeing his jaw clench, Sabrina took a stumbling step backward. It should not have surprised her so to discover him kissing yet another of his paramours. She’d known from the first he was a rake of the first order. But unreasonably she felt betrayed. For him to conduct his amorous flirtations under her very nose, in her grandfather’s own home, where anyone could stumble across him, including herself, where her kinsmen could witness her humiliation—
Hurt coursed through Sabrina, yet anger kept her voice from trembling as she remarked coolly, “I understood you desired to speak to me, my lord.”
Betsy jumped and abruptly scrambled away from the laird, staring in dismay at Sabrina.
“I shall await you outside, sir,” Sabrina added with a supreme effort at calm. “Perhaps you might deign to join me when you are quite finished.”
Rigidly she forced herself to turn and walk away. Her ire sustained her as she crossed the cobblestone yard, yet she was trembling when she came to a halt by a towering rowan tree.
She was scarcely aware that Rab had followed, even when he pressed his cold nose into her palm, offering silent comfort. A sheen of tears blurred her vision as she stared blindly at the emerald countryside spread before her.
Niall’s dalliance this time wounded her more than she would have thought possible. She hadn’t expected this heaviness in her chest, this hurt that seemed suspiciously like heartache. Faith, she shouldn’t be so distressed by his public display of indifference. She’d been rejected before and survived, by a man who had won her heart with his honor and gentleness. Niall McLaren had little honor where women were concerned, and she most certainly did not love him.
Sabrina clenched her jaw, telling herself she would not cry. She would not dwell on the fiercely tender look on the McLaren’s face when he’d kissed that…that dairy wench, or the intimacy they’d shared. She refused to yearn after a man who cared so little for her.
Several moments passed before Niall emerged from the barn to join her, which fortuitously gave Sabrina time to compose herself. She favored him with a disdainful glance. He wore his hair carelessly tied back in a queue, and a thigh-length leather waistcoat covered his full-sleeved linen shirt and tartan trews.
The air between them trembled with raw tension as their gazes clashed. He would never know, she vowed, what it cost her to maintain a semblance of dignity.
“I regret you witnessed that incident,” Niall offered mildly.
The lacerated emotions inside Sabrina curled and twisted, yet she masked them with a wry smile. “Pray don’t play me for a fool, sir, by pretending you have any regard for my sensibilities. I imagine your only regret is that I interrupted your pleasure at an inopportune moment.”
Niall frowned. Despite appearances, he had not been engaged in a seduction or even a heated flirtation. His embrace of Betsy was all perfectly innocent—a kiss of friendship and celebration, nothing more.
He’d known the dairymaid forever. A widow some half dozen years his senior, Betsy had lost her husband to a rising against the English when Niall was a mere lad still wet behind the ears. To his delight and gratification, she’d assumed his carnal education, teaching him about passion and how to please a woman. Now she was to wed a distant cousi
n, a good man who would ease her burdens and support her ailing mother. Niall would always remember Betsy with particular fondness. He’d sought her out, merely to while away the time awaiting Sabrina Duncan’s return—
But he would not make excuses for his conduct.
He raised a slashing eyebrow. “What is this, mouse? A retreat into moral outrage?”
His mockery cut deep, yet she refused to let him goad her. “Morality has nothing to do with it.”
Niall surveyed her levelly. “Then pray explain your disapproval. I seem to recall your claiming to desire only a marriage of convenience. That you would not object to my diversions. This is how you display your tolerance, mistress, acting the wronged innocent at the first occasion? As memory serves, I warned you I would not be faithful to any marriage vows—and we have yet even to be formally betrothed.”
Sabrina bit her lip hard, knowing she had little right to complain. Niall had been entirely honest with her from the first. He wanted to be free to seek his pleasures outside the marriage bed—and desired a meek wife who was too spineless to interfere with his licentiousness. Well, she was not feeling particularly meek at the moment!
“Indeed you did. Yet it is not your dalliance that I object to. It is the public manner of it. In a stable…in my grandfather’s own home, no less. Your taste is execrable.”
Their gazes collided and held. Her scorn relieved Niall to a degree. He much preferred her anger to the stricken, wounded look he’d surprised from her moments ago when she’d discovered him embracing the dairymaid.
Inexplicably wanting to soothe the distress he had caused her, he adopted a conciliatory tone. “My meeting with the lass was purely by chance, Mistress Duncan. In truth, I came here to discuss with you the marriage arrangements we failed to settle yesterday. I did not seek Betsy out with any intent to insult you—”
“Spare me your explanations. It matters not to me.” Sabrina took a deep breath. Enough was enough; she would no longer play his games. It was not in Niall McLaren’s nature to be constant, but she was not prepared to suffer his infidelities for the rest of her days. If he wanted out of the betrothal, she would gladly release him.
“I have given our union a great deal of thought,” she said resolutely, “and I have come to agree with your view.”
“How so?”
“You were entirely correct when you said we would not suit.”