Chapter 25
“Maddie.” Hallie’s cry splintered the silence, pulling Madison from the mire of her thoughts. She looked up over the grassy knoll to find Hallie scrambling to get to her. The panic on her sister’s face was palpable. Panic shifted to terror as Madison jumped from her spot to meet her sister.
“What’s happened?” Madison pleaded as she grabbed hold of her sister. Dread filled her as she watched her sister gulp down the air. Clearly whatever news she had brought was of great importance. “Speak to me.”
“Ye’re gettin’ married,” Hallie blurted out between her huge gulps for air.
“What?” Madison said, completely dumbstruck at the idea.
There was no way anyone would come for her, not after the rumors that ripped through the providence.
It was as if Madison had become an illness no man wanted to take on.
Even distant cousins had heard of her being taken and refused to let her visit.
For the past two months her life had been in isolation, with only her family to cure her insanity.
“Pa is at home right now, negotiatin’ with someone as we speak,” Hallie said with such confidence that Madison couldn’t help but believe her.
“Well, do ye ken who?” Madison asked as hope sprouted through the dense fog of doubt and uncertainty. She couldn’t help but wish it was Theodore.
“Some laird or another. I forgot the name. I was just too excited to get the news to ye. But ye cannae go home yet, they’re sortin’ out the details now. Ye’re to be back nay earlier than dusk.”
Madison straightened. Every nerve was tight as if she were wound up like a top. She pulled in long deep breaths to steady her nerves.
“This cannae be right. He wouldnae come for me…” she mumbled as her mind instantly jumped to Theodore.
It was always him that captured her thoughts and attention.
How she wanted to be able to let him go, to release him just as easily as he released her.
But he lingered in the back her mind. The very memory of him tormented her dreams these past sixty days.
“We have to go home,” Madison said. Hallie’s hands curled around her wrists, determined to keep Madison captured for the time being.
“We cannae. We are to stay out while they talk about yer dowry,” Hallie insisted, but Madison wasn’t going to stay put.
Ever since he dropped her home with a necklace and memories so thick it choked her, she wasn’t about to just stay put.
She stopped a moment and let out the air she had trapped in her lungs.
The truth was, she wasn’t sure if it was Theodore who had come to claim her.
For all she knew, it was someone else, someone from the hunt who had heard of her reunion.
“How about this,” Madison said as she pulled Hallie to her. “Ye go back and listen for a bit. Ye come back and ye tell me everythin’ that ye hear. I want to ken who is there with Pa.”
Hallie pursed her lips into a tight line as she gave a bashful shrug. “I daenae ken if that’s a good idea. What if Pa is workin’ somethin’ out for me as well? I cannae risk me future the way that— ”
“Mine has been ruined,” Madison finished. Hallie clamped her hand to her mouth and shook her head.
"Nay!" Hallie grabbed both of Madison's hands, squeezing tight.
"Daenae say that. Ye're nae ruined, Madison.
Ye survived. Ye're here." Her eyes shone with fierce determination.
"And that laird of yers—did ye nae see the way he looked at ye?
Like ye hung the moon itself? A man like that doesnae see ye as ruined. "
Madison pulled her hands away. "Ye're just a child, Hallie. Ye daenae understand how the world works."
"Maybe I am." Hallie lifted her chin. "But I ken what I saw.
And I saw a laird who'd move heaven and earth for ye.
" She paused, her voice softening. "Ma and Pa are already talkin' about matches for me, ye ken.
They say we need to secure the family since we've nay brothers.
And I'm... I'm afraid." Her voice trembled.
"I'm afraid they'll choose someone cruel.
Someone who'll treat me like... like those men treated ye. "
Madison's heart clenched.
"But ye—ye found someone good," Hallie continued. "Someone who protects ye. Who cares for ye. Daenae throw that away because ye think ye're nae worthy of it. Please, Madison. If ye can find happiness, then maybe..." She swallowed hard. "Maybe I can too. Maybe there's hope for both of us."
“If that is truly what ye want, then I’ll stay here with ye,” Madison said as she scooped her arm into Hallie’s and turned to the stream of water. Madison drew Hallie over to the small rock. They sat and stared at the water.
“What are ye doin?” Hallie asked as she pointed to the twine drifting in the water.
“Fishin’,” Madison answered. “It’s somethin’ I learned to do nae too long ago.”
“See, this is what I’m talkin’ about,” Hallie said throwing her arms up in frustration. She spoke as if Madison had been a part of the conversation the whole time it was going on in Hallie’s head.
“Pardon?”
“If ye had never been taken from the street, would ye have ever learned to fish?” Hallie asked.
“Or would ye have ken what it is ye wanted out of life? What was really important to ye? Nay one really gets to be stripped down the way ye were. Ye were bare bones, and look at ye. Ye’ve come out of it all stronger than ever.
Yet, I see ye mopin’ around as if ye’ve lost yerself. ”
“I have,” Madison confessed as she noticed the line jumping, indicating something was biting. She didn’t move to the line but watched as the fish took the bait and launched back into the current.
“Why are ye nae excited to be gettin’ married?” Hallie asked. “Is it because there is someone else ye’d rather be with?”
“It doesnae matter. He doesnae want to be with me. If he did, he wouldnae have just dropped me off without a word. He wouldnae have given me that stupid necklace,” Madison reached for the silver chain around her neck and yanked it off.
She’d been wearing it since Boyd put it on her, and now, it felt like a noose around her neck.
If she was to be married to another, she couldn’t wear something reminding her of another life.
“What was his name again? The laird ye mumble in yer sleep?” Hallie asked.
“Ye cannae make me say it,” Madison said.
“Laird McPeon?” Hallie asked as she nudged Madison playfully with her elbow.
“MacLeon,” Madison corrected.
“Aye, that’s the one. He’s the one at the house.”
“What?” Madison jumped to her feet. “And ye only now decided to mention that to me?”
“I couldnae think of it before,” Hallie answered as she stood and dusty the grass from her dress. “But he’s at the house negotiatin’ for yer hand.”
“If ye’re lyin’ to me, I will smother ye in yer sleep with a pillow,” Madison answered as she turned on her heels and started back for the cottage.
Hope made her lighter than air as she raced along the dirt path.
Every fiber in her being jolted as if she’d been hit with electricity the moment she caught sight of Theodore’s horse tied to her parent’s post. She skidded to a stop and rubbed her eyes ensuring she wasn’t hallucinating.
Her pulse fluttered sporadically as she started for the cottage.
“Then we have an agreement,” she heard her father proclaim. Anger sliced through Madison as she pushed through the door.
“Nae without me say in the matter, ye daenae,” she snapped as she charged into the cottage.
Her heart dropped to the pit of her stomach the second she saw him.
Theodore. He stood in the corner near the fire as if he’d been made out of the house.
How he managed to fit inside was beyond her. He always seemed so much bigger to her.
“And here’s the happy bride to be as we speak,” her father said as he guided her over to Theodore.
“Laird MacLeon has asked for yer hand,” her father whispered into her ear. The words sounded foreign. There was no way Theodore was standing before her. She had to be dreaming.
“Lady Madison.” Her name dripped off his tongue like it was honey and a balm to her soul.
It seeped into every broken bit of her and solidified like resin.
She wanted to throw herself in to his arms. “I ken that ye’ve only just returned to yer family, but I was hopin’ that ye’d come and be me family. ”
Madison’s chest tightened as she glanced over at her parents. They shared the same eager expression as if they were hanging on every word that escaped her lips.
“Can I please have a moment alone with the laird?” Madison asked. Her parents stood straighter, both shocked at the request but were eager to comply. She watched her father usher her mother from the cottage, leaving her alone with the laird.
She swallowed hard, hoping that she’d have the courage to look at him directly. Despite how intimidating he was in size, he reminded her of one of the orphans, so vulnerable and weak.
“Madison, come back with me and stay,” he said as he inched closer.
“Ye left with nay word, nay hope, only a necklace,” she grumbled.
“I ken and believe me when I say I hadnae expect to come here,” he confessed. His voice broke with emotion she never heard escape him before. “I thought the necklace would be all that ye’d have to remember me by. And I was alright thinkin’ that.”
“Then why are ye here?”
“It was Sister Marget,” Theodore confessed.
“She told me ye were to be married to another. I couldnae stand to think of ye with another. They wouldnae treat ye the way ye rightfully deserve. I came to tell that man that if I heard he violated ye in anyway, he’d answer to me.
But then yer father told me I had been misled. ”
“Aye, there’s nay one to come for my hand. Mine or me sister’s. The hunt ruined me and ye leavin’ the way ye did, it dinnae help to squash the rumors.”
She watched as Theodore bobbed his head as if he understood all too well the isolation she had gone through.
And as much as she wanted to be angry with him, she couldn’t.
It was him after all she craved over everything else.
He’d become her rock and safe place. The thought of any other man touching her the way he had done sent her body into a violent tremor.
“I could have handle the situation differently, I see that now. But what else was I to do? If I kept ye, the rumors would that I stole ye for myself. Then what sort of marriage would we have if I dinnae give ye that choice?”
Madison opened her mouth to respond, only to clamp it shut once again. She looked at him as he dared to steal another step closer to her.
“I dinnae want to let ye go then, and I daenae have it in me to let ye go now. I’ll go mad thinkin’ another has ye. I cannae promise our life will be easy. But I will promise to love and honor ye.”
Madison tilted her head as a smile stretched across her lips. “What was that? Say that again.”
Theodore inched even closer until he shared the same space as her. Madison’s body yearned for Theodore’s secure embrace. The heat of his body crashed against hers as he lifted a hand to brush back the loose strand of her hair.
“Marry me, and I’ll tell ye whatever ye want to hear,” he said as he leaned closer. His lips brushed against her lighter than a whisper.
“I’ll marry ye, if say it again.”
“And what is it ye want to hear?” he teased as he curled his arm around her waist and drew her closer to him.
“That ye’ll love me,” she answered.
“Aye, Madison, I love ye,” he said as he crushed his mouth to hers.