Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“The pigs are getting thinner and thinner every year,” Aileen complained as Fergus stole bacon off the plate she was about to serve. She huffed out a breath, glaring at him.
Aileen was one of the few people in the castle who could scold Fergus and get away with it. She had been the cook for his family for two generations now, and she was nearing eighty years of age. She had practically raised Fergus and Lottie after their parents had passed away in the fire.
“Ye’ll have to forgive me appetite, but I need me energy if I am to run this place,” Fergus apologized, but the smirk he gave her suggested he was not being genuine.
She sat the plate down between him and Aiden, and the two fought over the plate for a moment before Fergus yanked it away from his man-at-arms.
“I daenae ken if I like Liliana being in the castle,” Aiden mumbled, and Fergus shot a gaze at him.
“Why nae? She’s helpin’ Lottie, isnae she?”
“Aye, and I’m grateful,” Aiden said. “But with her here, ye’re in better spirits and eatin’ all me food.”
Fergus snorted. “It’s never been yer food, Aiden. It’s mine; ye’re just lucky enough to enjoy me spoils.”
“As if I daenae collect the taxes from the clans people,” Aiden argued, but Fergus knew it was well-intentioned and good-natured.
Aiden was a good man, and someday, he would marry his sister, but he certainly had a mouth on him.
And he was not wrong. Fergus had been in good spirits, especially after his moment with Jeane in the forge. She was not repulsed by him; she just did not trust him. Which he supposed was a whole other set of problems, but it was easier to deal with than if she thought him a monster.
There was nothing he could do about the scars on his face and body, but Jeane would grow to trust him, to know that he was not a cruel person. She would learn that he loved her and would never do anything to hurt her.
“We have to go and pick up the meat for the festival,” Fergus pointed out. “We’ll have to take the wagon.”
“Aye,” Aiden answered easily, eating his bacon and bread.
Fergus had only half finished his plate when Lottie came gasping through the doors, struggling to breathe.
She doubled over, coughing, gasping for air as if she had been drowning, and Aiden went to her, knocking over a glass of mead onto the table. Fergus did not even notice.
“Lottie, what happened? Are ye all right?” Aiden asked, patting her back as she coughed and spat.
Lottie shook her head, but she could not seem to speak. Fergus stood, discarding his plate on the table.
“Where’s Liliana?” he demanded, and Lottie gasped in another breath, unable to speak as she looked up at him with streaming brown eyes. Fergus softened, changing tactics immediately. “Breathe.”
Lottie drew in a stuttering breath through her nostrils. Fergus had seen Jeane demonstrate these breathing exercises to Lottie several times.
He breathed slowly in through his nostrils, out through his mouth, and Lottie mimicked him. After a few breaths, she started to breathe more evenly, and her cough stopped.
“She’s been taken,” she managed, her voice strained.
For a moment, Fergus couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
Taken.
Jeane had been taken.
“Where?” he finally managed, his voice eerily calm. Too calm.
Lottie flinched at his tone. “By the woods. We were just walkin’, and these men came out of nowhere. They grabbed her and—Fergus, she saved me,” Lottie said, tears streaming down her face. “They threatened to hurt me if Jeane dinnae go with them. She sacrificed herself for me.”
Fergus’s hands curled into fists. He could feel his control slipping, feel the rage building inside him like a wildfire.
“How long ago?” he demanded.
“Maybe an hour. I tried to run as fast as I could, but I had to keep stoppin’ to catch me breath.”
An hour. They had an hour’s head start.
All he could see was Jeane’s face. Her brown doe eyes looking up at him with trust. Her smile when she’d told him she loved him.
I failed her.
He’d promised to protect her. Promised she was safe with him. And he’d failed.
Just like he’d failed Murphy.
“Me Laird,” Aiden’s voice came from the doorway, cautious. “We need to—”
“Get out,” Fergus snarled.
“We need to organize the men. We need to ride after her.”
“I said get out!” Fergus growled, and Aiden took a step back.
But Lottie didn’t move. She walked toward her brother, tears still streaming down her face.
“Fergus,” she said softly. “Please. Liliana needs ye.”
At Jeane’s name, something in Fergus broke.
The rage drained out of him all at once, replaced by something worse. Grief. Despair.
He sank into a chair, one of the few still standing, and put his head in his hands.
“I should have been there,” he said, his voice cracking. “I should have been with her.”
“Ye couldnae have known—” Lottie started.
“I kent her father was lookin’ for her!” Fergus said, looking up at his sister with anguished eyes. “I kent, and I still let her walk around the grounds with only two guards. I thought… I thought she was safe here. I thought the castle walls would be enough.”
“It’s nae yer fault,” Lottie insisted, kneeling beside him and taking his hands. “Ye did everythin’ ye could.”
“Clearly I dinnae,” Fergus said bitterly. “Or she’d still be here.”
He thought of Jeane in her father’s hands. Thought of that cruel man hurting her, forcing her to marry Lord Fraser. Thought of her afraid and alone, thinking maybe Fergus wouldn’t come for her.
“Ye’ll find her,” Lottie said fiercely. “I ken ye will. And when ye do, ye’ll kill anyone who tried to hurt her.”
Fergus looked at his sister. She’d never seen him like this—broken and vulnerable. He’d always been the strong one, the one who protected her after their parents died.
But Jeane… Jeane had become his whole world. Without her, he was nothing.
“I love her, Lottie,” he whispered. “I love her more than I’ve ever loved anythin’. If I lose her—”
“Ye willnae,” Lottie said firmly. “Ye’re the strongest man I ken, Fergus. Ye’ll get her back.”
Aiden cleared his throat from the doorway. “Me Laird. The horses are ready. The men are waitin’ for yer orders.”
Fergus stood, and as he did, he felt the grief transform back into rage. But this time it was cold, controlled. Deadly.
“Good,” he said, his voice like steel. “Because we’re ridin’ to McKay castle, and we’re nae comin’ back without her.”
He strode toward his chambers, Aiden following.
“Gather twenty of our best men,” Fergus ordered. “Armed and ready to fight. If Bennet Forrest wants a war, he’ll get one.”
“Aye, Me Laird.”
In his chambers, Fergus armed himself. His broadsword across his back. Daggers at his belt. He pulled on his leather armor, the pieces he usually only wore for battle.
Because this was a battle. A war for the woman he loved.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror—scarred, armed, his eyes blazing with fury.
A monster, Iris had called him.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he was a monster.
But if being a monster meant he could save Jeane, then he’d embrace it.
He thought of her smile, her laugh, the way she’d touch his scars like they were something precious instead of hideous.
I’m comin’ for ye, little mouse. Hold on. Just hold on.
Lottie appeared in his doorway, her face pale but determined.
“Bring her home,” she said. “Please, Fergus. Bring her home safe.”
“I will,” Fergus promised. “Or I’ll die tryin’.”
He walked past her, down the stairs, out to the courtyard where his men waited. Twenty warriors, all armed, all ready to follow him into hell if he asked.
Aiden stood beside Fergus’s stallion, holding the reins.
“We’ll get her back, Me Laird,” Aiden said quietly.
Fergus mounted his horse, looking down at his man-at-arms—his friend.
“Aye,” he said. “We will. And anyone who stands in our way will die.”
He kicked his horse forward, and his men followed, a wave of warriors riding out to rescue their lady.
Fergus’ heart pounded with every hoofbeat. Every moment that passed was another moment Jeane was in danger.
Hold on, Jeane. I’m comin’. I’m comin’ for ye.
The wagon took off as soon as the man threw Jeane inside, and she had to right herself while the wagon was jostling around.
When she did, she met the steel-blue eyes of her father, who was sitting in the back of the wagon.
“Good to finally see ye again, me Jeane,” he said cordially, and Jeane could have strangled him if she were not so terrified.
She recoiled as he tried to take her hand.
“Where are ye takin’ me?”
Her father smiled. “To the church of course. Ye’re finally goin’ to be married.”
Jeane stiffened, but she had expected he would say something like that. The only reason her father wanted her was to marry her off, to grow his own power and influence.
“I daenae want to be married.”
“I’m way past worryin’ about what ye want, Jeanie.”
“Daenae call me that.”
“And ye daenae think I have the right to give ye a nickname? After all the nights I sat up with ye while ye were unwell.”
Jeane scowled. “It wasnae ye that stayed up with me. It was the maids and the rest of the staff.”
“Me staff. Without them, ye would have suffered, aye? I kept ye from that fate.”
Jeane stared at him. She could not believe he wanted some kind of credit for raising her, just as any other father should. Yes, he had kept her in fine clothing, taught all the social graces, but she had been neglected in nearly every other way. Abused, even, emotionally and verbally.
“I was never good enough for ye. Why now?” Jeane asked, hoping that keeping him talking would slow time. The wagon continued on, not at a breakneck speed but not slowly, either. All Jeane could think about was Fergus, how he must be frantic, looking for her.
And Lottie. They had been nearly a mile from the castle. It would have taken her at least an hour to get back into her state, maybe more. Despair settled over her like a shroud.
What if Fergus did not come looking for her? What if he had had enough? Lottie and Ian were both doing better. What need did he have of Jeane? What if he did not want to risk his men and the peace of his clan for her sake?
But he had said he wanted her. Wanted to marry her.
Could she trust that, though? Could she trust him?
Just because she loved him did not mean he loved her back. He had not said it.
“Lord Fraser made me an offer I cannae refuse,” her father said, still giving her a vapid smile that made her shudder.
“Lord Fraser? Ye will marry me off to the most awful man in any clan?” she asked, even though she was not surprised at all.
“He has quite a castle. Our clans will unite, and we’ll have more power, ye see.”
“Is that all ye want out of life?” Jeane asked desperately. “Power?”
“Is there anythin’ else?”
“There’s friendship. Like the friends ye took away from me. The friends ye isolated me from. There’s love. Love instead of convenience.”
“And ye think someone will love ye?” he asked, his smile fading. “Ye really think someone will love a woman as useless as ye?”
Jeane swallowed hard and did not answer, looking straight ahead.
She looked down at the rocks and roots rushing by as the wagon continued on its trail.
She could jump out. She may jump to her death, but would not that be better than the pain and embarrassment of having to marry a man like Lord Fraser?
Would it not save her pain and suffering to do so?
And there was a slim chance she might survive though injured. Would Fergus still love her if she were scarred up from a wagon incident?
“Daenae even think about tryin’ to escape,” her father warned, as if he could read her mind. “If ye do, I will send me men to slaughter the clan that sheltered ye.”
“Ye wouldnae,” she gasped, but her father just looked at her.
“Aye, I would. And I think ye ken I would.”
Jeane looked straight ahead again. She thought maybe she could hear hoofbeats in the distance, but that might be the hoofbeats from the horses pulling the wagons.
They trailed to a stop near a clearing where a fancy carriage sat, the stallions harnessed to it freshly washed and brushed. It would be a beautiful ride if it were under any other circumstances.
Jeane thought about running again as she stepped down out of the carriage, ignoring the hand that one of her father’s men offered her. There were four guards plus her father, including the man who had captured her.
But her father was serious when he said he would send his whole clan after Fergus. She knew he would; he was more worried about her upcoming nuptials than about the fate of his clan.
She knew Fergus could hold his own in battle, had witnessed him training, and had traced the battle scars on his chest with her fingertips.
But she was terrified that her father’s men would ambush him, give him no warning, and maybe take him down.
She could not live with that. She did not want to be part of a world without Fergus.
So instead of running, Jeane stepped up into the carriage with her father’s help, sitting next to him as if it were any other day. She hated herself. Hated every moment of this. But she had no choice.
She wondered if there would be another opportunity to take herself out of the equation at the church. Perhaps someone would leave a pair of scissors in her general vicinity. She could use them to slit her own throat, to keep her from the torture she knew her future husband would inflict on her.
Lord Fraser was a cruel man with a wife that died under suspicious circumstances. But that did not matter to her father. All he wanted was Fraser’s land and money.
“Luckily for ye, I ken yer measurements and got ye a weddin’ dress.”
Jeane did not respond, just staring at the trees whipping by her as the carriage moved down the trail.
One man drove the carriage while the other three rode around the vehicle, protecting the cargo—Bennet and Jeane.
All Jeane could do was sit in the carriage, praying for a miracle.