Chapter 29
Rose sat in her chambers that morning, refusing to leave for anything in the world. She had food brought up to her bedroom, water for a bath, and even insisted on communicating with Fiona within her room instead of down in the healer’s chamber or kitchen.
Now, she sat alone in front of the window, gazing out into the deep gray sky, choked with dark clouds and fog that signaled rain not far behind.
She’d been in that chair for God knew how long, her legs feeling tingly at the edges, her toes as well.
But Rose could not be moved. What was she to do about her situation?
She could not allow Dominik or any of Clan MacKay to feel the wrath for a problem of her own making.
Lord Egerton’s rush on the keep was her fault.
Yes, he had been the guilty party when he stole her dowry, in a way.
Still, she had been the one to antagonize him at the inn.
“Gah, how could I have been so stupid?” She dragged a hand over her face, not caring for how her hair had come loose from the pins in several sections. “I allowed my anger to get the best of me. And Dominik had paid the price for it.”
Then, breaking through the horrid cycle of her thoughts was the sound of hooves on the gravel below.
Rose looked down at the courtyard, recognizing a carriage as it approached the burnt main entrance and pulled to a stop.
Both her parents exited it as soon as the wheels stopped, and she could hear them calling for her from all the way inside her room.
Rose hurried down the halls and steps to the main door, hoping to greet them before too much of a commotion was made.
When she arrived, however, it was clear that both her parents had been making a fuss about seeing her.
In fact, the words she heard screamed by Horatia as she reached them were, “I demand to see my daughter! An attack! Rumors of abduction! What has been going on here?”
“Mother,” Rose cut in, hurrying to the woman to pull her inside and off toward the study in hopes of having a private conversation. “Father. Why have you come all this way?”
Horatia’s brows shot up, hitting her hairline as her mouth dropped. A twisted expression of sorrow, her lips curled down severely, broke free on Horatia’s face, and her father, Baldwin, was right behind the woman, looking terrified and unsteady.
“My darling!” Horatia threw herself at Rose, embracing her hard enough to make her spine crack. “I have been worried sick! We both have.”
Baldwin was at Rose’s other side in a flash, pulling her head to his shoulder and saying, “Our darling girl. What horrible troubles have befallen you? What is all this nonsense about abduction?”
Rose cleared her throat, straightening as the entire front entrance of the keep stared at her. Servants, children, men of the council and their wives, all of them drilled their appraising glares her way. She stiffened, gesturing down the hall toward the study.
“Please, if you’ll follow me, we can sit and talk. I know this all must be so much for you to learn of.”
They followed her, walking behind Rose as she led the way.
When she closed them all up together, Horatia let out an exaggerated sigh, plopping down onto the settee in the corner.
Her father stood nearby, Baldwin always the type to be as close to his wife as possible, looking to her incessantly for guidance when Rose was not there to deliver it.
“Darling,” Horatia patted the settee as she sat up, expecting Rose to join her, “are you indeed all right? What we have heard has been—”
“I am well, Mother. I am uninjured and healthy. Neither of you needs to worry.”
“Worry! Of course we worry,” Horatia returned. “What is all this about an attack right after the officials were here to determine if you had been abducted by Dominik? Have you kept something of your arrangement to him from us?”
“I have not, Mother. I assure you. Dominik and I were arranged through Miss Mirren Wood, the matchmaker, and we wed in the church before your very eyes. He did not abduct me. Unfortunately…” Rose paused, knowing that she had to reveal the truth and dreading it all the same.
“…Lord Egerton was residing at the same inn we used on our travel to the castle. I spotted him and…made the unwise decision to approach him. He learned of the land in the remaining dowry. He saw Dominik. It was he who spread the rumors of abduction, he who attacked the castle in a fit of jealousy because he desired the land, rich in copper deposits as it is.”
“Oh, my goodness.” Horatia put a hand on her chest, her brows raised once more. “This is all so much. There is copper on the land from your grandfather, and Lord Egerton wanted it? My dear daughter, has something…happened to him?”
“He attacked a Scottish keep just before sunrise with a band of mercenaries, Mother. Yes, something happened. He attempted to kill Dominik. But the Viscount was bested, and my husband took the final blow when Lord Egerton sought to harm me.”
Horatia pulled Rose into her arms, holding her tightly against her chest for several long moments. Even her father came closer, squeezing Rose’s shoulder as the room fell into silence.
“He is dead then,” Horatia confirmed, and Rose nodded solemnly. “What a terrible end. Oh, how I do wish he had been a better match.”
“Mother,” Rose chastised, “he was a cad and a heartless aggressor. Ambrose deserved what he got. He had poisoned animals here at the keep to get the people to distrust me, he spied on us for months, and then he set fire to a castle full of people in the dead of night. There will be no light of heaven for that man.”
“Rose.” Horatia clutched at the front of her dress.
Her parents looked scandalized momentarily, then they both seemed to consider what they had heard, nodding their heads in unison.
“I suppose you are right,” her mother corrected. “Though that is a harsh way to put it. Still, he tried to hurt our child. It is indeed better that he should be removed from the world where he can no long cause such trouble.”
Rose nearly laughed. Her mother always had such an interesting way of making the horrendous circumstances around them seem like nothing more than a mild inconvenience.
“Perhaps,” her father added, “it would be best if you returned to England, where you are safe.”
“You wish for me to leave Scotland?” Rose cocked a brow, regarding both her parents as they stared at her, grim looks now painted on their faces.
A lump formed in her throat as the room grew quiet.
She looked down at her hands. Rose had tangled her fingers together in the folds of her dress, soothing herself by working the fabric between them.
Should she consider it? She’d been so torn about what to do regarding the danger she put Dominik in.
It hardly occurred to her to protect herself from something.
It was she, after all, who’d brought calamity down on her husband’s doorstep.
“Returning with us to England will keep you safe, dear.” Horatia reached for one of Rose’s hands as the women sat near each other, taking hold and squeezing.
“This country is not a place for high-born women of society. It is too rugged and wild. There is still so much to be seen regarding the attack on the castle as well.”
That made Rose’s heart lurch in her chest, a significant ache accompanying it. Fiona had said something similar when she sat at Dominik’s bedside. The closest thing to a friend Rose had here asked, “What happens to the Laird now that an Englishman has been killed?”
In truth, Rose did not know. But there would be something coming down the line.
English justice was rarely malleable and often resolute.
He had killed Lord Egerton. Yes, Dominik had done so because the man attacked his keep, but Rose was unsure if the Crown would care about that rather important detail.
All her choices appeared to be terrible ones.
Rose did not want to leave Dominik behind.
She knew now more than ever that she loved him with her entire soul.
But risking his life or his standing was something she would never forgive herself for doing.
Putting him in jeopardy would be so much worse a crime than leaving him, wouldn’t it?
What will the Crown do?
It was a question she could not answer herself, and one she was desperate to see resolved. Rose’s affiliation with Lord Egerton was what started this entire mess, and she worried that because of her connection with him, the authorities would be even less lenient and forgiving of the Laird.
“Darling, we just want what is best for you,” her mother offered, still squeezing Rose’s hand. “You must not allow yourself to be swayed by ease or distraction. You must put your safety first.”
Rose didn’t often put anything of her own first. She had spent years caring for her parents, putting their standing and protection above her own happiness. She had denied herself dozens of times in the course of her life, always putting the people closest to her first.
Even now, this decision was not about her own safety.
It was about Dominik’s. She needed to do whatever she could to ensure his well-being, didn’t she?
As his wife, as someone who loved him, was it not more important to ensure that he would live and prosper despite how much the idea of leaving him pained her?
The world felt small, as if its borders were closing in on her. It felt less impressive and beautiful, only a shell that she was forced to tread on each day, forced to endure. Would her life never be free of complications? Would her happiness never be assured?
Rose honestly thought it was different this time.
When she had become closer to Dominik, as the two of them had walked the slow, winding path of romance, Rose had seen light in her future instead of darkness.
Her heart had been full and light at once, uncontrollable, and yet so beholden to a single person.
But there was darkness now.
Every step she had taken to make the situation right, everything she had done to ensure the happiness and livelihood of the man she loved, had crumbled in one evening.
It felt as if nothing she did would matter, the stars had aligned against her, and the only way to keep her dear husband free of the terror that followed her was to break him free of it.
“Perhaps you are right.”
It was all she could bring herself to say, the thickness of her throat and the stinging of her eyes haunting her every second.
“Of course, darling.” Horatia patted her hand. “We will be here for you as you have been there for us.”
It was strange to feel such remorse and sorrow when she was in the face of her mother as she admitted to Rose’s long work caring for her parents.
It should have been a joyful moment of vindication.
But Rose felt only pain, only the fear of what loomed ahead of her and the desperate need to get away from it.
That would not happen. Rose was well and thoroughly trapped.