Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
"No."
The single word was spoken quietly, but it stopped her father mid-step. Edmund moved to block their path, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword.
Elinor's pulse quickened. Men and their pride. Men and their swords. And she would likely be caught between them.
"You will not take her inside," Edmund said.
"I will do as I please with my own daughter."
"She should be mine." Edmund's composure cracked, and something wild showed through. Something possessive that made Elinor's skin crawl. "I made my intentions clear. You had no right."
"I have every right!" Her father's grip tightened until she could feel each individual finger pressing into her arm. "She is mine to give or sell as I see fit. You had your chance, Langley, and your purse was not heavy enough. Now move."
He yanked her forward. She stumbled, catching herself against his arm.
"No!" Edmund lunged forward, his hand reaching for her other arm. "You'll not—"
Her father jerked her back. Edmund's fingers caught her wrist, closing around it like a manacle.
And suddenly she was trapped between them, pulled in opposite directions.
"Let her go!" Edmund snarled.
"Release her, you fool!" her father countered.
They were speaking in loud voices now, their faces inches apart, and neither seemed to notice or care that they were tearing her apart between them.
Her father's nails dug crescents into her skin.
Edmund's grip was iron around her wrist. She tried to pull away from both, tried to wrench herself free, but they were too strong, too focused on each other to acknowledge her struggle.
"She is not a prize to be auctioned!" Edmund's voice was righteous, as though he were her savior rather than another man trying to possess her.
"She is whatever I say she is!"
"Stop it. You’re hurting me!"
But her father responded by yanking hard. She pitched forward, her feet slipping on the frozen ground. Edmund pulled back, refusing to release her. Her head snapped to the side.
And then her father's fist landed hard across her face.
The blow was not meant for her. She knew that in the split second before pain exploded across her mouth. He had been reaching for Edmund, trying to shove him away, but she had been between them. His ring, the heavy gold signet he wore on his right hand, caught her lip, tearing the delicate skin.
She tasted blood at the exact moment the world went very quiet. Not silent. She could still hear Edmund's ragged breathing, her father's muttered curse. But distant, as though she were underwater.
Both men froze, their hands still locked around her arms. Warmth trickled down her chin. She raised her free hand to her mouth, her gloved fingers coming away dark and wet.
"Elinor..." her father began, his voice taking on that false note of concern he used when servants were watching.
She looked at him. Not at his mouth forming empty apologies, but at his eyes.
At the calculation already returning to them, sharp and cold as winter.
He was not sorry. He was assessing. Wondering if the split lip would lower her value.
Wondering if he should take her inside now or wait for the bleeding to stop.
A wave of hatred so pure it nearly stole her breath rolled through her chest. She was about to tell him what she thought of his actions, when the sharp voice sounded from behind them.
"Unhand her."
Deep, steady, and utterly calm in the midst of this chaos.
All three of them turned.
The man stood only five paces away. Tall and lean, with dark hair tied back and a face that might have been handsome if it were not so carefully expressionless.
He wore dark clothing, practical rather than ornamental, and though she could see no crest or colors, everything about him spoke of authority.
From the set of his shoulders to the way his hand rested near his sword.
His eyes, black as a winter sky, moved from her father to Edmund to the blood on her chin.
When his gaze met hers, she saw something flicker there. Recognition, perhaps. Or anger on her behalf, though that seemed unlikely from a stranger.
"I said unhand her." His accent marked him as Scottish. One of the men her father had been so eager to attract.
"This is none of your concern," her father snapped, though his voice lacked its earlier certainty. Even he could sense danger when it stood before him.
The stranger's gaze did not waver. "A lady is bleeding. That makes it me concern."
"She is my daughter."
"And that excuses ye striking her, daes it?" The words were soft, but they cut like winter wind through wool.
Edmund finally released her wrist, though whether from shame or strategy, Elinor could not tell. Her father's grip loosened but did not let go entirely, his fingers still pressing into her elbow as though she might flee if given the chance.
I might. If I had anywhere to run.
"I did not mean it. It was an accident." Her father's explanation sounded hollow even to her own ears.
"Aye. I'm certain it was." The stranger took a step closer, his movements deliberate and controlled. His eyes found hers again, and this time she saw something unexpected in them. Not pity. She could not have borne pity. But a question… and oddly a flash of concern. "Are ye hurt, me lady?"
The simple courtesy of it nearly undid her.
When had anyone ever asked her that? Not her father, who had caused it. Not Edmund, who claimed to want to protect her. Not her mother, who was too afraid of her husband to show any type of alliance to Elinor.
Not once in all the years she had lived beneath her father's roof had anyone asked if she was hurt, as though her pain mattered, as though she were a person whose suffering deserved acknowledgment.
Her throat was too tight to answer. She pressed her handkerchief to her lip, tasting linen mixed with copper, and tried to gather the scattered pieces of her composure.
"Who the devil are you?" Edmund demanded, apparently recovering himself enough to remember his pride.
The stranger's attention shifted to him, slow and deliberate as a drawn blade. "Someone who daesnae like seein' a lady bleed."
His gaze returned to her father, and Elinor saw Edmund stiffen at the quiet authority in his voice.
"This is none of your concern."
"It is now." The stranger's voice remained level, almost pleasant, but there was steel beneath it.
"Release her."
"I will not be ordered about by some Highland savage."
A second man appeared at the Scotsman’s shoulder. Sandy-haired, younger, with a soldier's build and an expression that suggested he had seen his laird do inadvisable things before and expected to see him do so again.
"David," he said, very quietly. "What are ye daeing?"
"Preventing a lady from being mauled in the street, Tristan." His tone was cool, the type that accompanied a man who was capable of anything.
"The auction is about tae start."
"Aye. I'm aware."
Tristan looked between them all and sighed like a man whose worst suspicions had been confirmed. "This is madness."
"Perhaps." David’s eyes––for that it seemed was his name––never left her father. "But I'll not walk past a woman bleeding while two men fight over her like dogs over a bone."
"How dare you." Edmund started forward, his hand moving to his sword.
The Scotsman's hand moved to his own blade. He did not draw it. He did not need to. The message was clear enough, written in the set of his shoulders and the steadiness of his gaze.
Edmund stopped.
In the silence that followed, Elinor heard the manor door open. A servant stood in the doorway, his face carefully blank in the way of all good servants who had learned not to see their betters' shame.
"My lords," he said, his voice carrying across the frozen drive. "The proceedings are about to commence. If you would care to come inside?"
Her father's grip shifted to something almost gentle. A mockery of paternal concern for the servant's benefit. "Come, Elinor. We mustn't be late."
She looked at the door. At the light spilling from within, warm and false as her father's sudden solicitude. At all the men gathering inside to bid on flesh and futures, to purchase women as though they were bolts of cloth or parcels of land.
Then she looked at the Scotsman who had asked if she was hurt.
His expression was unreadable, but something in his eyes steadied her. Some flicker of understanding.
He sees me. I’m not property or prize to him. He sees a person.
It was such a small thing, and yet it felt like the first kindness she had been offered in years.
She lowered her handkerchief from her lip, lifted her chin, and met her father's eyes with all the cold fury she had learned to hide beneath compliance.
Without a word, she turned and walked toward the door.