Chapter 23
“Ido not think I will attend at all,” Victoria said with a shrug, as she pulled funny faces and dangled a ribbon to make Ruby laugh.
The baby lay on her back on a comfortable square of straw-stuffed mattress, her big eyes taking in every sight. Everything must have been so new to her that even the dullest thing could fill her with such delight. It was an enviable condition.
“We three can just stay up here and be out of everyone’s way,” she added.
Had she not done her part by being the lure to bring Charles here?
She did not have to stand at the very center of the trap for it to be a success.
As long as the Earl thought she was in the keep and made the mistake of entering to retrieve her, then her part had been played, and she could take her bow in the safety of the upper floors.
Then, when it was all over, she could take her leave of the keep… and of Arran.
“What’s that look for?” Kristin asked.
Victoria glanced back at the woman who had become such a wonderful friend. “Are you talking to me or Ruby?”
“What do ye think?”
“I think… you have the most beautiful little girl that I have ever seen.”
Which was strange when Victoria thought about where the child had come from. Who the child had come from. The ugliest man she had ever met… although she had to concede that he was not ugly on the outside. He had only become ugly on the outside to her once he had revealed the wickedness within him.
Kristin snorted. “And I think ye’re tryin’ to distract me. I saw that look, Victoria. Ye’re sad.”
“Sad? Not at all.” Victoria cleared her dry throat.
“Nervous is a more appropriate description. It is a peculiar situation. I do not want to see that man again. I do not want him to come here at all. Yet, I know that he must, or all of this is for nothing. For you, for this little one, for Melody, for your brother, for me, for all the ladies that beast might hurt—I know he has to come here. I just… do not like it. Any of it.”
A faraway look fell across Kristin’s face. “I ken the feelin’. I feel it too.” She shuddered as if she had just been brushed by an icy draft. “That wee lassie there is my entire world. I ken the Earl isnae interested in her, but I have this… dread that he might try to take her. Out of spite.”
“That is why all three of us should stay up here when the cèilidh is underway,” Victoria urged.
It certainly had nothing to do with the fact that she was trying to avoid Arran. No, it had nothing to do with that at all. And it certainly had nothing to do with the fact that she did not want to bear witness to the man she had begun to care for killing someone. She knew he would not reconsider.
“I think ye should be there at the cèilidh,” Kristin said.
“It’ll ease yer nerves. Otherwise, ye’ll be up here wearin’ a hole in the floor with all yer pacin’.
Every little sound will drive ye insane.
And, nay offence to ye, but I daenae want yer nerves feedin’ mine.
We’ll be two madwomen by the time the Earl arrives. If he arrives.”
Victoria tilted her head to one side. “If? You do not think he will come?”
“I daenae trust that man to do anythin’,” Kristin replied gravely. “Do ye?”
The question rocked Victoria. She had, perhaps naively, assumed that the plan would run smoothly.
Her certainty that Charles would come for her had overruled everything else, preventing doubts from creeping in.
But if the cèilidh and the engagement looked like a snare and felt like a snare to the Earl, then would he still step right into it?
How blinded by his need to possess her could he be?
He was slippery, after all.
“I trust in his obsession,” she answered after a moment. “That devil would beat a maid for daring to remove my shackles… and worse.”
Things she did not care to mention.
Her mind wandered back to the footman who had all but saved her life on her wedding day.
What would Charles do to him when he discovered that was the reason she had escaped that day?
What had he already done? She hoped that the young man had had the common sense to flee in the chaos, perhaps with Melody in tow.
“How did he end up here?” Victoria asked suddenly.
“Who? The Earl?”
Victoria nodded. As far as she was aware, the Earl of Ashbrook was a staunchly proud Englishman, for it was in England that he was allowed to get away with anything and everything. Why had he ever had a reason to be in Scotland?
“He was passin’ through,” Kristin replied tightly, a flinch of painful memory creasing the corners of her eyes.
“Said he’d been to a hunt in the north and had lost his way.
Me braither opened the gates and the keep to him because that’s what a good laird does; he heeds guest rights and doesn’t let the hungry starve or make the weary keep walking.
“Then, my braither was called away to fight, and the Earl stayed awhile. Long enough for me, in all my stupidity, to believe all the promises and allurin’ things that came out of his lyin’ mouth.”
Victoria hesitated, glancing down at the now-sleepy child. “Do you think he might suspect he has a child, or are you certain he knows nothing?”
“I cannae say for sure, but I’ll nae risk her being anywhere near that rat,” Kristin replied with venom in her voice. “By the end of the cèilidh, she willnae have a sire anymore. That’s my hope, and I’ll be sore nae to see the end of him with my own eyes, but… at least I’ll ken that he’s gone.”
Her faith in her brother and the soldiers of Clan MacLeon intrigued Victoria. She would never have proclaimed to know much about military strength or tactics, but how could someone ever be sure that one side would win? No one would fight at all if they already knew the outcome.
Then again, in this instance, one side had an army, and the other had, at most, a few frightened servants who would do their master’s bidding because they feared him more than they feared facing seasoned Scottish warriors.
“Will his death truly satisfy you?” Victoria needed to know, mulling over her “misguided sense of morals” as Arran had called it.
A fury flared in Kristin’s eyes. “Only the slowest, most painful death would satisfy me for what he did to me, ruinin’ me life and leavin’ me waitin’ for him like the most…
ridiculous, pathetic creature. But a swift death will appease me well enough.
As long as he’s nay longer breathing, I’ll be at peace. ”
The violence in the woman’s voice made Victoria want to cover the ears of the tiny, innocent child. Surely, it could not be good for a baby to hear such awful things, even if they could not understand?
The reminder that she was not in England anymore, where gentlemen might occasionally duel but most settled their differences with money and words, remained jarring.
She could not imagine any of the gentlemen she had encountered during her debut just running someone through with a blade or shooting them with a pistol because that someone had offended their family.
Aside from Charles.
Perhaps that was the difference, the piece that she had been missing from her perspective. Charles was not like other gentlemen. He was the truest incarnation of the devil. And there was nowhere for devils to go but straight back to hell.
“I sometimes think about the mornin’ after I…
” Kristin began, closing her eyes, “… made that mistake. How I just… unraveled. I suppose I thought I was better than that, that I was someone who couldnae be hoodwinked. Ye should have seen how gleeful I was, pleased as anythin’ that I’d found myself a handsome, wealthy man without anyone’s help.
It sickens me now to think that I ever hoped to marry the beast.”
Victoria listened, sensing there was more to come. Almost like Kristin was winding up what had been unraveled by Charles, some manner of healing came from finally being able to talk about it.
“I didnae ken what was happening to me when the sickness started,” Kristin continued.
“I thought it was because I hadnae been eatin’ or sleepin’.
Me maither kenned what had gone on between me and the Earl, but I think that even she suspected it was because of the state I was in.
I remember it was evenin’, and me maither had brought some soup in, as she had been doin’ for weeks.
I smelled it before she even entered the room, and it knocked me sick.
That was when she sat down—without the soup, fortunately—and asked me about my monthlies.
The healer came in a few days later and confirmed it. ”
“You must have been heartbroken,” Victoria murmured, unable to imagine such a thing. To have been abandoned so cruelly, only to discover that she was pregnant with that man’s child. A lasting memory of that pain.
A deep frown carved crooked lines into Kristin’s forehead.
“I daenae remember what I felt. I didnae feel much at all until she started to move.” Her frown smoothed out, her mouth a soft curve.
“The moment that wee rascal kicked, I kent I had to live for her. I started eatin’ more, sleepin’ better, though, of course, after she was born, all of that was undone.
Nothin’ will ruin yer sleep and yer ability to remember to eat more than a baby. ”
She laughed at that, such love filling her eyes that it warmed Victoria’s heart…
and brought to mind what it might be like to have children of her own.
Children with green eyes and dark hair, perhaps.
If it were a girl, maybe she would be raised to swing a sword and throw a punch and have every capability when it came to protecting herself, instead of being raised weak and reliant.
A girl who would have her fate in her own hands, instead of it being passed around by others.
If it were a boy, maybe he would one day be a laird too, as brave and fearless as his father.
“Ye’ve got that look again,” Kristin pointed out, as if she had a special sense for when Victoria’s mind started wandering toward her brother.
A faint heat warmed Victoria’s cheeks. “I was just thinking about all you have been through.”
It was not a lie, just not what she had been thinking about at that exact moment.
“I’m grateful for some of it,” Kristin replied and reached over to stroke Ruby’s cheek.
“I’m grateful for her, and I’m grateful that the Earl didnae come back to the room that mornin’.
I’m grateful he left, because if he hadnae, if he’d married me, I’d have ended up miserable at best, maybe dead at worst if his cruelty is as bad as it appears to be.
But that doesnae mean I daenae want to see him suffer for the way he hurt me, and the way he hurt ye, and the way he has probably hurt countless more before us. ”
Victoria slowly nodded. “I… think I am beginning to understand.”
All she had to do was picture Melody in her situation, bound and abused and threatened until her very soul started to shrink, disappearing.
Victoria had found strength that she did not know she had during the term of her imprisonment at Charles’ violent hands, but Melody…
Melody was sweeter, softer, more sheltered.
She would break far quicker if Charles ever got his vile paws on her.
“It will do no good to lock him away,” Kristin insisted. “It willnae be anything close to enough. Do ye want to spend the rest of yer days lookin’ over yer shoulder, worryin’ that he’s weaseled his way out of imprisonment?”
Victoria shook her head. “No…”
“That’s why it has to be this way, even if it doesnae sit well with ye.”
Try as she might, Victoria could not offer a convincing riposte.
Earls were not imprisoned; Earls were given a “stern” scolding and a slap on the wrist. Had she not heard the same tale a hundred times at balls and gatherings, and in the scandal sheets?
Young ladies with reputations left in tatters, cast out from society, while the gentlemen involved were absent for a week or two and then returned as if nothing had happened.
Then, there were the whispered fates of wives with violent husbands. The wives were told to stay quiet and endure. The husbands were told that, perhaps, they should not strike their wives where it could be seen; the bruises more unseemly than the act that had caused them.
“I’d prefer to kill him myself,” Kristin said coldly.
“But I daenae ken if I’ll be attending the cèilidh either.
Arran isnae keen on me puttin’ meself in a situation where I might thwart his well-laid plans.
Ye see, if I were to see that bastard again, I wouldnae be able to restrain myself.
I’d launch myself at him and claw out his eyes.
So, maybe me braither makes a fair point.
Although I still think ye should attend. ”
Victoria frowned. “I do not know. For one thing, I have nothing to wear… and I am uncertain how I would respond if I saw Charles again. I do not think I would claw out his eyes. I do not know if I would even be able to say anything. I think I would freeze, which also is likely not of much use.”
“I have a gown ye could wear,” Kristin said with a smile. “I had it made shortly before all of this, so I havenae ever worn it. Someone ought to. It’s a beautiful gown.”
Huffing out a breath, Victoria winced. “We shall see. If I feel more courageous in the morning, maybe I will attend the cèilidh, but I cannot promise anything at present.”
“I wouldnae force ye.” Kristin put up her hands in mock surrender.
They remained in a companionable, thoughtful silence for a short while, interrupted here and there by the babble of the baby as she struggled to reach for the tail of the ribbon.
Her little fists could not quite figure out how to grasp it, her big eyes crossing in concentration.
A sight that could not help but lighten the tense mood.
“Do ye ken what the worst part is?” Kristin said a few moments later, an odd flicker of mischief in her eyes.
Victoria grimaced. “I do not know if I do, but… tell me anyway.”
Kristin leaned in and, with a grin, whispered, “He wasnae even that good in bed.”
At that, both women erupted into laughter that would have bewildered anyone who might overhear, for who would be mad enough to laugh on the eve of chaos?