Chapter 1 #2
He considered the question. “I wish to live,” he replied. “To see more than council chambers and ledgers and fields. To ride where I please, to drink too much, to lose coin at dice and win it back at cards, to kiss whoever I like and nae answer for it.”
“Ye wish to be free,” Ariella concluded.
Hunter studied her, his expression serious for once. “Aye, and I can see that ye ken me trouble already.”
For a moment, they understood one another. Two pieces in a game that neither had chosen.
Then he leaned in, his expression turning mischievous again. “Now tell me, me Lady. Do ye truly wish to marry me?”
Ariella met his eyes, thought of the debt, the threats, her brother’s strained face. “If it keeps me clan safe, I will do me duty. Wishin’ has got nothin’ to do with it.”
“That isnae what I asked,” he said softly.
She held his gaze. “Nay, I daenae wish to marry ye.”
His lips twitched. “Fair enough. For what it is worth, ye seem far too good for the likes of me.”
“That is nay comfort,” she said.
“Nay,” he agreed. He tapped a finger against his lower lip, as if considering. “If ye truly daenae wish to marry me, there are ways.”
Her heart gave a startled leap. “What do ye mean?”
His eyes glinted. “Oh, I daenae suggest ye refuse outright. Yer braither would never allow it. But brides have been kent to trip. To fall ill. To run away in the night. There are songs about it.”
“That is foolishness,” Ariella scoffed, though the image flashed before her eyes, bright and dangerous. The dark hills, the open road, the taste of freedom. “What of me braither? Me maither? What of them?”
Hunter’s smile faded for a heartbeat. “That is the rub, is it nae? Someone has to pay for our freedom.”
He stepped away then, the moment of gravity gone.
“In any case, I speak only in jest,” he said lightly.
“Daenae look so alarmed, me Lady. We shall stand before the priest like good little lambs, and Maxwell and Frederick will surely sigh in relief. I ken at least me braither will. He loves a good contract.” He winked at her, his voice lowering only slightly, but conspiratorially, nonetheless.
“Unless, of course, ye decide to do something about it.”
Those last words followed her long after he left the solar. Through supper, she heard them. As she lay in her bed that night, staring at the rafters while the fire died down, she heard them.
Until finally, Ariella sat upright. She had made her choice.
I will do something about it. I will leave tonight. Right now.
She threw her blankets off her and started frantically shoving her belongings into a sack. By the time she was packed, the bag pulled over her shoulders, her winter cloak donned, and her riding boots laced, she had a plan.
If anyone could help her choose a new path, it would be Skylar and her husband, Zander Harrison, the Laird of Clan Strathcairn. She would ride to Strathcairn tonight.
Ariella eased her chamber door open quietly and then ran. She was pushing her way through the front door a few breaths later. The cold bit at her bare hands and face, and she immediately halted at the thought of her brother come the morning…
Frederick will be so upset, and so will maither. Hunter will be laughing with glee, I’m sure of it.
Then she thought of Hunter’s brother, the Beast of Murdoch, and his anger at the embarrassment and the broken contract.
She stood half inside the keep, and half outside in the icy night. It was now or never.
Ariella inhaled sharply, letting the sting of the cold assault her senses, and then exhaled.
It is now or never. Choose!
Now. She inhaled.
Or never… and then she held her breath as she repeated it once, twice, a third time. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears when suddenly —
“Now!” she hissed in a firm whisper and leapt around the corner. She started running for the shadowed side of the yard, keeping close to the wall, so as to not be noticed by the night watch.
Once safe between two stone pillars, Ariella risked a glance toward the gate. The guard had his back to her, hands cupped before his mouth as if he were warming them with his breath.
If I can reach the stables and lead a mare out quietly, I might get past the outer field before anyone realizes I am gone.
Every step forward felt like a vow broken. Her mother’s face swam before her eyes, pale and anxious. Frederick’s hand on her shoulder, heavy and warm. Hunter’s glinting smile, his careless words.
“Like good little lambs…”
She scoffed, the entire notion of marriage seeming more and more outlandish with every step she took.
A sudden gust of wind drove a swirl of dead leaves across the yard. She let out a slow breath, stepped away from the wall, and fixed her eyes on the dark line of the stable door.
“Stop there!”
The voice cut clean through the night. Deep, unhurried, carrying easily across the yard.
Ariella halted as if the word itself had turned to stone around her feet.
The voice had come from the shadow by the corner of the keep. From the place where the lantern light did not quite reach.
Her fingers tightened convulsively around her bundle.
Slowly, she turned.
A man stepped out of the darkness.
He was taller than Frederick, broader in the shoulders, the bulk of him filling the space as if he were made for it. The scant light caught in the planes of his face, in the rope of an old scar that carved a pale line from his brow to his jaw. Another jagged mark disappeared into his beard.
There were more, she noticed. Faint ridges on his throat. A slash along his temple. His eyes were a deep, unreadable green, hard as river stones in winter.
The Beast of McNeill.
Her breath hitched.
This was no smooth, laughing younger brother. This was the Laird himself.
And he had caught her in the act of running away.