Chapter Nine #5
Before I could make a move of any kind, Aleck pulled me along with him, more gently now but no less forcibly.
His expression had changed from one of aggression to one of conflicted remorse.
“’Tis your father who insists that I be the one to enforce your punishments, Stella.
It always was. I never wanted to hurt you.
I was just following orders. But no longer.
Let me show you what kind of influence I have over your father.
And over the clan as a whole. ’Tis me who requested for you to be followed.
I have asked to be alerted to any and every move you make. ”
“Why would you do that?” I said, protesting both his pronouncement and his continued hold on me.
“Let’s just say I have a vested interest in your well-being,” he said, as though this might be favorable news to me.
“Aleck, nay—please.”
But he was already leading me into one of the buildings of the barracks, pulling me inside.
For a panicked moment, I thought he might be intending more than a reprimand, but I could see that we were in a meeting room and my father was seated on a high-backed chair.
The sight of him gave me little comfort, however.
His appearance, in fact, instilled me with a distinct sense of foreboding.
He looked unkempt, his wrinkled hand wrapped around his ever-present silver flask.
Aside from a small, vicious glow in his clouded eyes, he was completely devoid of vitality, shrouded instead by an aura of bitterness and regret.
“Grace,” he murmured, so low I couldn’t be sure I understood him correctly. My mother’s name.
“Look who I found raiding the storage sheds,” Aleck said smugly.
I began my defense. “My husband requested—”
But I was promptly interrupted by Aleck. “Your husband’s usefulness ends at the tip of his sword. Isn’t it so, Laird Morrison?”
“Aye,” my father agreed, his voice gravelly with age.
“He is a pest rather than the asset we had hoped for.” My father’s words were slightly slurred at the edges, and I wondered if his illness might be progressing.
“He was chosen for his skills with his weapons, and only his skills with his weapons. His arrogance will get him nowhere. I’m not interested in his plans to overhaul our army and our keep.
Glenlochie is fine the way she is.” My father was not only mean, abusive, ill and drunk; he was also deluded.
As we might all have been. It seemed my own veil was lifting, and with my new vision I could see that my father was not only wrong but quite possibly half-mad.
As though to prove that his state of mind was far worse than I thought, he said to me weakly, “I’ve never forgiven you for leaving me. ”
“Father,” I whispered, fearful to my bones, “’tis me. Stella.”
“Stella,” he said, recognition returning somewhere amid the bitterness and the madness.
“What is your complaint now? Must you continually taunt me like this, with her memory? Go to your chambers! Leave me in peace.” To his men: “Get her out of my sight. Out! I can’t bear it.
Leave me.” He slumped back in his chair, as though fatigue, vengefulness and heartbreak had finally overcome him.
I moved to obey my father, hoping fervently that Aleck would allow me to.
His hand still clasped my arm. So many times, at every turn, every attempt to live or to thrive on my own terms, I had been cut down.
By the very whip that hung at his hip. In a reflexive entreaty, I fell to my knees before him, to beg him for mercy.
My fingers found the corded rope, holding it, waiting for it to be yanked from my grasp and used upon my inlaid scars.
Not on my skin; care had been taken to keep me appealing enough to wed. These scars went deeper.
Aleck waited, as though taking a moment to savor my pathetic subservience. I hated myself for this, for allowing myself to be so thoroughly broken.
For the first time, Aleck did not reach for his whip.
Instead, he pulled me to my feet, resting me against his huge, rigid body.
I was so defeated, so conditioned to his orchestrated threats that I did not struggle, only pulling back when he allowed it.
His black hair was a blurry shape through my tears, which I wiped away with the back of my hand.
“I am capable of mercy and much more,” Aleck said close to my ear. “And I intend to show you all that I’m capable of as soon as I’ve tied up a few loose ends.”
I didn’t understand his comment, nor did I care to consider his meaning. To my wild relief, he let me go, and I took my first opportunity to escape him.
Watching my retreat, Aleck issued a disconcerting warning. “I’ve got my eye on you, lass,” he said, and his words echoed in my ears as I exited the barracks and walked quickly away.
Instead of returning to my sisters, I headed in a different direction, to a place I hadn’t been in a long time.
I skirted the withered gardens, finding a back entrance to the manor that I seldom used.
I climbed a curved stone staircase, passing two servants, who eyed my distress and dishevelment with mute curiosity.
I found the door I was looking for, entering the silent, empty chambers and closing the door securely behind me.
My mother’s favorite place: the turret. My father had forbidden anyone to enter these chambers since her death, preferring to keep it as a silent shrine to her memory. As far as I knew, he’d never entered it since. I had, first, as a child.
“I told you never to go in there.” The lash of the belt, and again. “Leave your mother’s memory in peace.”
It was the very first time I’d been beaten.
Even so, it was a place I secretly went to when I most needed solace.
The chambers were eerily silent, the air cold.
A dusty, feeble ray of sunlight shone through a diamond-shaped window, painting a perfect replica onto the stone floor.
The only furniture in the room was a large four-poster bed whose faded cloth covering was filmed with dust. I walked to the small stone staircase at the far end of the room that led to an upper level: a tiny lookout, a single small elevated room strewn with her old cushions.
From the circular windows I could see across the villages of the keep to the gardens and the fields beyond.
The dark, glassy surface of the loch, the multihued forests, and the impressive, rising landscape of the Highlands.
I could understand why this had been my mother’s favorite place. I felt removed from them all.
And in this cozy enclosure, I could feel her.
This place was infused with her, as though the sunlight itself shone from her faraway memory.
The warm glide of tears wet my cheeks. I wasn’t sure why.
I’d been so young when she died. I had only vague, shadowy recollections of her face, which might have been shaped less by actual memory and more by the often-made comment that I was the daughter who looked most like her—so much like her, in fact, that older people of our clan occasionally gasped at the likeness, as though they thought I was a vision or a ghost when I passed by.
I cried more for the loss her death had created: a hole and a hatred in my father that had festered and eaten away at our clan like a disease.
My arms were sore from the bruises Aleck had made, and I rubbed at them, glad for the long sleeves of my gown.
The salt of my tears dried on my cheeks in the sunlight.
I took in the picturesque landscape, following the rolling line of the hills, the smooth surface of the shining loch.
The small turret was so warm from the contained rays of the sun, I felt mildly overheated.
I removed my cape and unbuttoned the top of my dress.
It didn’t matter—no one would see me up here, and I was reveling in the sumptuous heat of my haven and my isolation. I never wanted to leave this place.
Lulled by the silence and the warmth, I dozed off for a time.
I awoke with a start, jarred by the sound of heavy footsteps down below, ascending rapidly.
My heart lurched in my chest. Had my father found me once again? Was Aleck on my trail?
But it was Kade who appeared, windblown and wearing an expression of fierce concern.
My awareness was still murky at the edges and was difficult to shake off, as though I had slept for many hours.
But I was panicked by the possibility of being pursued and also by the suddenness of his arrival.
I shrank back from the sight of him, still in his full hunting regalia, bloodied from his kills, almost blinding with gleaming gold and silver light.
Like that very first time I’d ever seen him, I remembered well, he caught all the light of a room, whether it was a grand hall or a tiny enclave like this one.
His gaze slid from my face to my breasts, half revealed, rounded and rosy from the heat. He made a small sound, like a strangled sigh that might have been the words Holy God in heaven.
I clutched the fabric of my gown together and glared up at him with wide eyes.
“There you are, lass,” he finally said. His gentle tone clashed entirely with the spectacle of him.
He was invigorated and energized from his hunt, but his immense presence before me gave me a sudden, overwhelming feeling of relief that caught me completely off guard.
He looked so unexpectedly magnificent in his protective glory in that moment my tears threatened to spill once more.
But then I remembered Aleck’s pronouncement.
My momentary elation seeped away, replaced by a sad and seething regret. “How did you find me?” I asked coldly.
“A servant saw you walking this way. She said the corridor led to only one room.”
Kade watched my face, noticing the dried tears and registering my indifference, my anger. He looked mildly confused by it, squinting his eyes slightly in a measuring study. “What are you doing here, hiding away?”