Chapter 19 #2
Then he strode through the door into the bright sunshine, feeling his heart break in two. He would pay the price of his sins.
But he would make damn sure he paid it alone.
RUBY HAD NEVER KNOWN an hour to pass so slowly.
The courtyard lay bathed in the soft gold of early evening, the sky streaked with pale lavender and fading blue. A breeze moved lazily through the trees beyond the outer wall, carrying the scent of cut grass and distant peat smoke. It should have been peaceful.
Instead, she could barely keep still. She stood impatiently outside the stable, resisting the urge to pace up and down. Her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird, and she couldn’t decide whether it was excitement or nerves that kept squirming in her belly.
Come on, Evan, she thought. Hurry up!
They had arranged it that morning—an evening ride.
He had said he wanted to show her the places he’d loved as a boy.
The stream where he’d fished with a crooked branch.
The hill he’d climbed to avoid lessons. A ruined watchtower where he used to sit and imagine far-off places.
The work he’d started on the manor house.
She smiled to herself. These were places he’d once wanted to avoid like the plague. Now he wanted to share them with her. So much had changed between them. And after tonight, things would change again.
Tonight, she was going to tell him.
She had gone over the words a dozen times since burning the parchment in the hearth. I’ve decided. I’m staying. You’re stuck with me.
The thought of his expression when she told him made the warmth inside her deepen. She could picture it already—the surprise, the relief, the way his shoulders would loosen, the way that smile of his would curl his lips, the way he would step forward and kiss her...
She let herself drift into thoughts of the future. Their future. The manor house restored, sunlight pouring through polished windows. Rooms filled with laughter. She imagined herself learning the rhythms of the land, finding her place in a community that was slowly, quietly, becoming hers.
But still Evan didn’t arrive.
The shadows began to lengthen. Ruby frowned. Where the bloody hell was he?
The sound of the door opening broke her thoughts.
She turned, expecting to see Evan striding toward her, apology on his lips, but instead, Charlie and Flora stepped out.
They looked around, spotted her, and began walking in her direction.
Neither of them was smiling. In fact, they both looked decidedly. ..uneasy.
Ruby’s stomach twisted. “What is it?” she asked as they reached her.
Charlie exchanged a glance with Flora. The housekeeper spoke first, her voice carefully neutral. “I’ve just been up to Evan’s room. To change the bedding.” She fell silent.
Ruby glanced between the two women. “And?”
Flora swallowed. “The room was empty. All his things are gone.”
The world tilted slightly. “What do you mean, ‘gone’?”
“Gone,” Flora repeated gently. “His clothes. His gear. Nothing left in the room but rumpled sheets.”
Ruby stared at her. “No,” she said automatically. “He wouldn’t leave without telling me.”
Charlie stepped closer. “Ruby, no one has seen him all day.”
“No,” Ruby repeated, shaking her head. “That’s not possible. We’re going for a ride. That’s why I’m waiting for him.”
But a sick, hollow feeling was opening up inside her. She turned abruptly and began walking—then running—toward the stables.
She shoved the door hard enough that it banged against the wall and burst through, hurrying down the row of stalls. She stopped at one of them—the one in which the horse Evan had borrowed from the innkeeper in Edinburgh had been stabled.
The stall was empty.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. Her eyes roved over the stall as though trying to find evidence to the contrary, but all that she saw was used straw—and a bit of parchment tacked to the wall. She yanked it down and opened it. Scrawled inside was just one word.
Sorry.
Something inside her cracked. The shock came first—numb and disbelieving. Then the hurt, hot and immediate. And beneath it, something darker.
Anger.
He had stood in that manor house and told her he loved her. He had asked her to imagine a life together. He had kissed her as if she was the only thing in the world that mattered.
And now—
Sorry.
“You coward,” she whispered.
She crumpled the note in her fist. Heat flooded her face, humiliation burning through her veins.
She fled the stable, bursting past Charlie and Flora and running back to the house.
She pushed through the door and up the stairs, not stopping until she reached her room.
For a moment she simply stood there, shaking, thoughts tumbling through her head so quickly she barely registered them.
Then she moved.
She dragged a canvas bag from beneath the bed and began shoving her things into it with frantic, jerking movements. Dresses, undergarments, the few belongings she’d accumulated here. Tears slipped down her cheeks unchecked.
“Idiot,” she muttered, not sure whether she was referring to herself or Evan or both. “Idiot.”
A knock sounded at the door. “Ruby?” Charlie called.
“Go away.”
The door opened anyway. Charlie stepped inside, her expression filled with worry.
“We don’t know what’s happened,” she said softly. “He may not have left willingly.”
Ruby let out a sharp, broken laugh. “He took his clothes. His horse. And he left me a note that says sorry.”
Charlie flinched. “That’s not—”
“It is!” Ruby snapped, whirling to face her. “He’s gone! I feel it in here!” She thumped her chest.
Charlie’s eyes searched hers. “All right. But you don’t know why.”
“I don’t need to. He’s done this before. He runs. That’s what he does.” She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth. “I can’t stay here,” she said, voice cracking. “I can’t sit at dinner and pretend. I can’t look at that manor house and—” She swallowed hard. “I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Home.”
The word felt strange now. She had hoped this would become her home. Idiot. Idiot. Idiot.
“It’s late,” Charlie said gently. “Perhaps we should sleep on it. In the morning—”
“You’re not listening! I have to go!” Ruby cried, her voice laced with a faint trace of hysteria. “You know the way to the portal. Take me there.”
Running again, eh? A voice whispered in the back of Ruby’s mind. First, you ran here. Now you’re running home. When will you learn?
Charlie hesitated. “Ruby—”
“Please.” Her voice broke. “I can’t stay here another minute.”
Silence stretched between them.
Charlie closed her eyes briefly, then nodded once. “All right.”
After that, they moved quickly. Within minutes they were in the courtyard, saddling horses.
Ruby’s hands felt numb as she tightened the straps.
She refused to look east, towards where Evan’s lands lay.
She refused to think about the life she had imagined.
She swung into the saddle just as the gates began to creak open.
“Charlotte! Ruby!”
She stiffened at the shout and looked around. Niall was striding towards them accompanied by Hamish MacLaren and a third man Ruby didn’t recognize. The newcomer was tall, bearing a resemblance to Evan but older, harder.
“Who is that?” Ruby asked.
Charlie frowned, looking puzzled. “That’s...Bryce,” she murmured incredulously. “Niall and Evan’s elder brother. The Earl of Newborough. What’s he doing here?”
Ruby’s grip tightened on the reins. She didn’t care. Nothing mattered except the fact that Evan had left her. She set heels to her horse, but Niall stepped in front of her, making her pull up short.
“Wait!” he said, raising a hand. “There is something ye need to hear.”
Ruby didn’t want to hear anything. She wanted distance. She wanted escape.
“Hamish, tell them what ye told me.”
The village headman looked troubled as he lifted his chin and met Ruby’s gaze. “Men came to the village. Bad men. They were looking for Evan.”
“And when I heard who they were, I sent for Bryce,” Niall said.
Men? The ones who had been chasing him?
Ruby shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
Niall shared a long look with his brother. “Evan didnae leave through choice, Ruby. He left out of necessity. He ran to lure the men who came for him away from here. To keep all of us safe. But it willnae work. Seoras MacInnes will never stop hunting him. He’s too valuable.”
“What are you talking about?”
Now Bryce looked at her. The Earl of Newborough’s eyes were dark and serious. “This goes wider than ye know. There are things going on that neither ye nor Evan understand,” he said, in a deep, rumbling voice.
Ruby didn’t know what he meant by that. As Bryce continued speaking, Ruby’s thoughts drifted elsewhere, and she heard only fragments.
“...MacInnes has been pushing further south...”
“...estates pressured into cooperation...”
“...uses proximity to Edinburgh for transfer...”
It all blurred. It washed around her like river water around a stone. All she could hear—repeating over and over in her head—was Niall’s voice.
Evan didnae leave through choice.
Her thoughts went flying back to the merchant caravan, to that night up on the moors. The clash of steel. The smoke. The shouting. Evan shoving her toward safety. That look on his face—grim and resolved.
He always made the choice that would keep her safe, no matter the cost to himself. He’d done it that night after the merchant caravan had been attacked, walking alone into the darkness in order to draw their attackers away, and he’d done it again now.
This had been his life. Always running. And she—she had thought he’d left because he didn’t want her enough.
Shame burned through her chest. Of course he’d left to protect her. Of course he had. Her heart clenched painfully. How many times had he stood alone on some dark road believing it was the only way to keep others safe? How many times had he told himself it was better that way?
Bryce was still speaking. “...We need to know exactly what MacInnes wants from Evan—”
Ruby lifted her hand sharply. “Stop.”
All eyes fixed on her.
“Enough talking. We have to go after him.”
Charlie turned to her. “But we don’t know where he’s gone.”
“No,” she agreed. “But they do.” She pointed at Bryce and Niall. “Or at least, I bet they can guess.”
She was pleased when her voice didn’t shake, even though inside she was trembling—anger and love and fear braided tight into a knot. She would not let him make this choice for both of them. She would not let him disappear into whatever lonely exile he thought he deserved.
“Where would he go?” she demanded. “What route would he take?”
The brothers exchanged a look.
“Edinburgh, I think,” Niall said at last. “It’s the easiest place to vanish. Crowds, trade, traffic. MacInnes’ men would have difficulty tracking him in the city.”
“But he wouldnae take the main road,” Bryce added. “Too exposed. Too predictable.”
“He’ll cut across country,” Niall said, turning to look out over the hills to the east. “Through the lower moors, past the old quarry track. There’s a narrow ridge path above the burn that leads toward the approach. Hard riding, but faster if ye ken the ground.”
Ruby nodded. “Fine. You can show me. Let’s go.”
Bryce studied her for a moment. Something shifted in his expression—a reassessment, perhaps. Then he nodded. “Aye.”
Charlie dismounted, allowing Niall to take her horse, while another was brought from the stable for Bryce. In moments, Ruby, Niall, and Bryce were ready to go. Hamish and Charlie watched with worried expressions as Niall led the way through the gates.
They clattered onto the road but soon turned off it, making their way through fields and meadowland. The land rolled ahead—green and lazy beneath the evening sun—but Ruby barely noticed any of it. Urgency boiled in her gut like acid. She had to find Evan.
Niall took the lead, cutting diagonally across pasture toward a break in a low stone wall. He vaulted it cleanly, Bryce close behind. Ruby clung to the saddle, almost losing her seat as her own mount followed.
As they moved, the land began to change. Open pasture gave way to scrub and heather. The earth grew uneven, rocky beneath the grass.
“Up there,” Niall called over his shoulder, pointing toward a rise that sloped into a narrow ridge. “If he rides hard, he’ll take the heights. It’s empty up there. Less chance of being seen.”
They angled upward. The climb was steep, and her horse snorted, working hard, but kept pace. Bryce rode slightly behind her now, watchful but silent. She’d had no time to appraise Evan’s eldest brother, the one who, according to Evan, had caused all the strife in the family.
Was Bryce thinking about that right now? Was he wondering what kind of reception he would receive from the brother he hadn’t seen in years? Or was his mind entirely on the information he thought Evan could provide him?
They reached the top of the ridge, and Ruby glanced back, seeing the land spread out below like a huge quilted blanket. Had Evan paused here? Had he looked back, just like she was doing now?
The wind was stronger up here, grass flattened in long streaming lines. From this vantage, the land toward Edinburgh unfolded in muted blues and grays—distant woods, the suggestion of roads, faint glimmers of habitation.
Evan could be anywhere. What if Bryce and Niall were wrong? What if he’d doubled back? Taken a different turn? What if they couldn’t find him?
They rode on. Stands of pine began to dot the landscape and the raucous cries of crows joined the moan of the wind. They crested another rise and Niall drew up sharply. He stood in his stirrups, shading his eyes as he gazed out, and then pointed.
“There.”
Ruby squinted. On the next ridge she made out a darker silhouette against the sky—a lone rider moving along the crest. The figure was small at this distance, but she knew it was him. The posture. The way he sat a horse.
“Evan,” she whispered.
“If we press hard, we can intercept him before he descends into the wooded lowlands,” Bryce said.
Ruby shook her head. “No. From here, I go on alone.”
Bryce frowned. “Ruby—”
“This isn’t up for debate! He won’t speak to you. If you don’t want him to run, you’ll let me go to him alone.”
Bryce glanced at Niall and then nodded. “All right. We’ll hang back.”
Ruby nodded once then turned to look back at the ridge. The figure was just disappearing into a stand of trees. Setting her heels to her mount, she went racing after him.