Chapter 30
She would be gone by now, on her way to the border. Arran was not exactly sure what time Victoria had meant to leave today, but then he did not know what time it was at all; he had been in his study for so long, seeking solace in his whisky bottle, that the hours had all sort of blurred together.
“There’ll be another war to distract me soon enough,” he mumbled to himself, tossing an apple core into the fire. It was all he had managed to eat when his stomach was in tangles, thinking about Victoria’s departure.
“Aye, someone will lead a skirmish in one of me faither’s territories, I’ll have to go and fight, and I’ll have nay time to even think about her,” he told himself more firmly. “Ye cannae be thinkin’ about lasses when yer life is at stake.”
The trouble was, he no longer wanted to go to war.
Being with Victoria had shown him what life could be like if he had someone to come home to — someone waiting at the gates for his return, someone who might beg him not to go at all.
She was the only person who could have made him reconsider the fight, to choose words of compromise and peace over bloodshed, and to let go of land he had never truly cared for.
I’m nae my faither. I daenae care if I hold more territory than anyone else.
I care for my clan, aye, but half the people on me lands are nae my clan folk.
He was tired of constantly fighting for nothing when disputes and battles invariably popped up again.
Conquered people did not favor their conqueror; it only bred rebellion, and he was beginning to wonder if he ought to just give back what his father had taken.
“Would that be proof enough that I’m nae a bloodthirsty monster?” he muttered, his jaw clenched.
How could Victoria be so blind to his true nature?
How could she accuse him of being a cold-blooded killer who ended lives on a whim?
It twisted him up in knots to be so misunderstood by someone that he cared for…
very much. It did not help that he had tried his best to explain himself, and it had not made a jot of difference; if anything, he had a feeling he had made her opinion of him even worse.
“Well, go,” he sniffed, speaking as if she were right there before him. “Go on back to yer fancy society and its fickle judgment. It makes nay difference to me. It’s nae as if ye owe me anythin’.”
He knocked back another glug of whisky, but the burn of it no longer had the same effect as it usually did. Try as he might, he felt completely and infuriatingly sober.
The study door burst open, his hand instinctively reaching for his broadsword.
“I hope ye’re nae thinkin’ of using that,” Kristin said, eyebrow arched.
Arran relaxed his grip on the pommel and sank back into his armchair, the crackling fire warming the soles of his bare feet. “Ye ken ye’re supposed to knock, aye?”
“When have I ever bothered to knock?”
He mustered a tight laugh. “Aye, ye’ve a point there.” He paused. “Are they gone?”
“Ye’d ken for yerself if ye’d been there,” Kristin retorted. “I told ye what time they were departin’. Why were ye nae there? Last I spoke to ye, ye said ye’d think about it.”
He nodded, considering another sip of his whisky but deciding against it. There was no point if it was not going to erase all memory of Victoria, at least temporarily.
“And ye, of all people, ought to ken that ‘I’ll think about it’ means I’m nae going to.”
Kristin scowled at him. “I ken we’ve had some choice words between us over the years, braither, but I never thought a day would come where I’d have to call ye an idiot. A true and proper idiot. The biggest idiot to wander the face of the earth. I daenae ken if I’ve met a bigger idiot than ye.”
“Are ye finished?” he asked dryly.
“Nay, actually.” She stepped further into the room, awkwardly covering Ruby’s ears, though the child was fast asleep.
“I think ye’ll regret it for the rest of yer life if ye stay right there, sat on yer arse, doin’ nothin’.
I think ye’re a bloody fool for nae showin’ up to say farewell to Victoria, but I think ye’re a bigger fool for nae chasin’ after her. Ye’re goin’ to lose her, braither.”
He laughed bitterly. “Ye cannae lose what ye never had, Kristin. She doesnae want me. Never did. I was an amusement to her until I wasnae. Now, she gets to return to her neat little life in England, where nay one ever has to make difficult choices, apparently.”
Another laugh joined his, more mocking than bitter. Neil appeared in the doorway, leaning against the jamb with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Did I hear that right?” the man-at-arms asked. “Did he just say that the Sassenach didnae want him?”
Kristin rolled her eyes. “Aye, because apparently he had his brain knocked out sometime between meetin’ her and now. Hard to say when it dribbled out of his ears, but I daenae ken if we’ve a hope of findin’ it. He’s gone all whisky-stubborn.”
Neil and Kristin exchanged a look… and immediately burst out laughing, the sound prickling down the back of Arran’s spine. He glared at his sister and man-at-arms, but they were not looking at him, too lost in their own amusement. Not that he could see what was so very amusing.
“Glad to be of entertainment to the pair of ye,” he snapped, his lip curled.
With a fading wheeze of hilarity, Neil gestured to his Laird. “I’m sorry, me Laird, but it’s too ridiculous nae to laugh. Ye cannae seriously think that the lass doesnae want ye. Ye’re nae a stupid man.”
“She wanted to leave,” Arran countered. “She hastened her departure; she was that eager to be away from me.”
Neil groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did ye ever actually ask her to stay? Did ye tell her how ye feel about her?”
“And daenae say that ye daenae feel anythin’ for her,” Kristin interjected, “because that would be a barefaced lie. Ye love the lass, and if she’d kent that, I daresay she’d have thought twice about leavin’.
I might have told her myself, but it’s nae up to me to make confessions on me braither’s behalf. ”
Arran stared at the pair, racking his brain for a moment in which he had asked Victoria to stay or a moment where he had told her what was in his heart.
He could not pinpoint a single instance.
There had been allusions to his wishes and his feelings, or so he thought, but, admittedly, nothing outright.
“Aye, well, I made it fairly bloody obvious,” he protested.
These two did not even know how obvious he had made it, and he wasn’t about to go into the sordid details.
Still, Victoria must have come from a strange world indeed if being so intimate with someone did not mean anything.
Not to mention the fact that he had done everything within his power to keep her safe; was that not an obvious sign of his feelings, either?
Neil and Kristin shared another infuriating look.
Puffing out a breath and clawing a hand through his hair, Arran muttered, “I am an idiot.”
“Aye, and yer redemption is gettin’ away,” Kristin said, a twinkle of hope in her eyes. “So, get off yer arse and set it on a saddle instead.”
Arran did not need her to tell him that; he was already up on his feet, barging past them in his hurry to get to the stables.
He did not know how far ahead of him Victoria might be; he had not paused to ask, but nothing would prevent him from finding her and telling her the truth of his heart, even if he had to ride all the way to the south of England to do it.
“Do you hear that?” Victoria asked with a frown.
Her father, dozing off, raised his weary head. “Hmm?”
“That noise.” She tried to peer out of the window, but the angle showed her nothing but the dramatic moorland that bordered the road, stretching to the horizon.
She wondered if she was hearing things, but the percussion did not cease: a steady, thudding rhythm that she might have mistaken for her heartbeat, but it was even faster than that. If it had been her heart, she would surely have required a healer.
“What is that?” her father said, sitting up a little straighter. “Do you think it is someone from the castle? Might you have forgotten something?”
I was taken away with only that awful wedding dress to my name, she thought about replying, but held that to herself. Her father did not need to know every detail of her time with Arran, or Charles, for that matter. It would only hurt him more.
She gasped as a silver blur shot past the window, so startling that she jolted away from the pane altogether.
Were they under attack? Could she really be so unlucky?
She thought about those mercenaries who had been demanding payment, and wondered if, perhaps, they had been waiting for an opportunity to simply take what they felt they were owed.
A deep voice boomed, too muffled for her to hear, but the command soon became obvious as the carriage came to a rattling standstill.
“What is happening?” her father hissed. “Is it the Earl? Has he come back to punish me?”
Victoria glanced at him. “The Earl is dead, Father.”
“Yes… right, the Earl is dead,” he mumbled, scratching his head. “It is that woman’s tonic, making me forgetful.”
Suddenly, the carriage door was wrenched open, and strong arms reached in to grab her. The figure wore a hood over his face, Victoria’s heart racing as fast as those hoofbeats as she was pulled from the carriage without so much as an introduction or a threat.
“Unhand me!” she yelled, remembering her lessons with Arran.
As their sparring played out in her mind, she stamped down hard on her would-be captor’s foot before bringing her knee up into the man’s groin.
She was about to finish the steps by driving the heel of her hand up into the figure’s chin, when a wheezing voice gasped out, “Stop, lass! Mercy, would ye stop!”
Her hand flew to her mouth instead of his chin, her eyes widening in horror.
“Arran?” she squeaked.