Chapter 4
The cold water hit her like a slap across the face. Her limbs immediately felt stiff, and all the air seemed to freeze inside of her lungs.
That was the next thing she registered: She could not breathe.
The water was all around her, soaking through her clothes, weighing her down, pulling her further under.
Her eyes were open, but it was all darkness.
She had no idea which way was up, which was down.
All she knew was that she was being sucked deeper into the loch, that the water was claiming her, making every inch of her feel as heavy as the anchor of a ship.
She wanted to scream. To cry out for help. But she couldn’t open her mouth, couldn’t risk the rush of water that would come in and drown her.
Fear was making it hard to think. That and the lack of oxygen. She thrashed this way and that, reaching for the surface but she met only more water.
And then something solid touched her.
She screamed, and it came out as bubbles.
Seconds later, she felt something grab her hard around the upper arm and haul her to the surface, and she was greeted by the cool, life-giving rush of air.
Cassandra gasped, sucking in the air, and then choked. There was water in her lungs, and she fell onto her hands and knees again, still half-submerged in the water.
Then a hand took her firmly by the arm, pulled her to her feet, and led her out of the loch and onto the grass.
She was safe.
She blinked and tried to look around.
The light was too bright. The world too sharp and full of angles.
It took her several moments of blinking and rubbing at her eyes before she could see properly again.
And when she could, she realized that she was crying.
The water on her face was not just from the loch.
They were tears of fear but also relief. And gratitude.
And then a voice spoke.
“What in God’s name were you thinking?”
The voice was rough, masculine, and filled to the brim with anger, and it startled Cassandra out of her shock.
She turned toward it, and then her heart nearly stopped.
Towering over her was the largest man she had ever seen in her life, broad as a doorframe, glowering down at her. He wasn’t just large, either, he was wild-looking. With long dark hair that was curly and plastered to his face from the water, brown eyes, a weather tanned face, and a thick beard.
“Have you lost your mind?” the man demanded, his accent thick with Scottish lilt but no less furious.
Cassandra took a step back.
This man was no gentleman. Of that she was certain. He was too tall, too wild-looking, too unkempt. No gentleman she knew had a beard, they were all clean-shaven, and they did not speak with such grating fury to a lady.
“How do ye not know about rain lochs?” the man thundered, his hands flying up in the air as he gesticulated.
“Their depths are deceptive, everyone knows this. Even a child could have told you this! And yet, you waltz into one, without a care in the world, without a thought! What if I had not been here to rescue you? You might have drowned! And then O’Murphy would have had to fish a dead girl out of his loch? Have you any consideration?”
Cassandra gaped at him. She could not quite believe what she was hearing. Not only because his accent was difficult to follow, but because he seemed to be mad at her—the person who had just nearly drowned.
“I beg your pardon!” She cried, raising a hand and interrupting him in the middle of his lecture. Her voice was hoarse, but audible, and he froze, staring at her. “Is this always how you speak to ladies, or just to those who have nearly lost their lives?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, but she thought she saw a slight reddening in his cheeks as well.
“I appreciate the information about rain lochs,” she continued, even as her vocal chords screamed at her in agony, “but I am from Cornwall, not the Highlands, so I hardly think I can be expected to have known this beforehand. Furthermore—” she continued brusquely, when he looked as if he might interrupt her, “I would suggest that in the future, you have some compassion and kindness for someone who had nearly just drowned, rather than startling them off their feet in the first place and causing the accident about which you seem so displeased.”
There was a long, tense silence, during which the large man continued to stare at her. But she glared right back.
As she did, she became aware of the fact that she was soaked through, and that her pale walking dress was clinging to her body in the most scandalous way. She was also cold and beginning to shiver. In every way, she felt vulnerable and exposed.
But she would not let this man see her fear. She would not let herself be intimidated.
And to her surprise, as she glared at the man, her hands firmly crossed in front of her chest, her eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, the man’s anger seemed to melt away.
The fury left his eyes, his shoulders relaxed, and something even like respect fluttered across his face as he considered her.
“Well,” he said after a long moment. “You may not be from the Highlands, but you certainly have the spirit of our women.”
She blinked, taken aback, and the faintest hint of a smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
“They are warriors too,” he said.
She swallowed. A prickling awareness was going through her.
The man was not just large, she realized.
Nor just wild. He was also… handsome. Not in the way that gentlemen of the ton were; certainly not in the way the elegant, lean, and impeccably-dressed Lord Christopher was.
But there was a brutish attractiveness to his dark eyes, to the way they seemed to bore into her as if he could see all the way into her very soul, and in the size of him, which made her feel small and delicate for the first time in her life.
Without another word, he moved around to his horse, where he unwrapped a tartan blanket from under the saddle.
Returning to her, he draped it around her shoulders.
As he did, she got a look at his hands—the hands that had rescued her.
They were large and calloused. The hands of a real man who worked in fields.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and she felt her stomach quiver.
“We should get you home,” he said. “Where can I take you?”
“C-calder Castle,” she stammered, then blushed. Why was she stammering like an idiot? Surely it was just the cold, which was beginning to make her shiver.
The man raised an eyebrow. “Calder Castle?” He clearly was impressed, she thought. “And what are you doing there? As far as I know, there is no lady of the castle.”
“I only arrived yesterday,” she admitted. “I am to visit with my fiance, Lord Christopher Dunmore.”
The man grunted. “Well, then, we ought to get you back to your little lordling.”
Something about the way he said it, like he was mocking her, made her bristle.
However, before she could say anything, he had taken her by the shoulders—quite rudely, in fact—and was directing her toward her shoes and stockings, which she pulled on rather awkwardly before making her unsteady way over to the horse.
“I can take you back to Calder Castle,” he said. “You will ride the horse.”
“And what, you will walk?” she asked, distracted by this new development. “That does not seem fair. You rescued me, after all?”
She was standing in front of the horse now, and the man held out his hand, as if to help her up. However, she did not take it, putting her hands on her hips instead.
“I mean it,” she said, her voice lower. “It is not fair to make you walk. It is a long way back to Calder Castle. I should know—I just walked all the way here. You should ride on the horse with me.”
The man gave her a look that seemed to brook no opposition. “I am not riding on the horse with you,” he growled. “It would not be appropriate.”
All at once, her cheeks flushed red. Of course it would not be appropriate. Had she lost her mind?
“O-of course not,” she murmured. “You are right.”
The man nodded toward his hand, and, very tentatively, she took it.
His hand was warm, much warmer than she had been expecting, and rough. It unsettled her, especially compared to Christopher’s, which had been so smooth and unfamiliar with hard labor.
She leaned on him as she put one foot in the stirrup, and he took her whole weight like it was nothing. Which of course, to a man like him, it wasn’t.
Then she was up, on top of the horse. He took the reins and began to lead the horse back up the path toward the main trail. It was the same trail she had followed here, after getting directions from Mrs. Drummond. As they turned right at the top of the hill, she studied him.
“You know the way to Calder Castle,” she said. It was not a question.
“Everyone knows the way to Calder Castle in this area,” the man said without looking at her. “It is the main source of income and livelihood for the local population.”
Does he work for Calder Castle? She wondered.
She wanted to ask, but for some reason, she was afraid to.
It almost seemed better to never know his identity.
After all, if anyone were to see them together, alone and soaked through to the bone, it could ruin her reputation forever.
Lord Christopher might even refuse to marry her.
It was far better if they both pretended this had never happened.
She now regretted having told him anything of her identity.
What if he blackmailed her?
“Are you happy about your marriage?” the man asked abruptly, shocking her out of her thoughts.
She stared at him, her lips slightly parted. “That is a very impertinent question,” she said.
The man laughed darkly. “Perhaps so. But I think we are past impertinence, do you not?”
“No, I do not.”
“Then think of it as a boon for having rescued you,” he said, a devilish smile slipping across his lips. “I get to ask you one impertinent question in exchange for my services.”
Her lips twisted in annoyance, but she could not deny the logic of this. He had saved her life.
At last, she sighed heavily, and looked out across the landscape, toward the mountains, which reached upward as if to scrape the blue sky.
“I am hopeful,” she said at last. “Which I consider braver than happiness.”
“How so?”
“Well… many young women go to their weddings happy,” she said.
“They are in love, or think they are, with a man they have met half a dozen times and who has charmed them by showing them only one side of himself. But they do not really know him. Their happiness will undoubtedly be short-lived, once they get to know their husband as he truly is. But my hope is practical. Measured. Reasonable. I think I know who Lord Christopher is, and I am hopeful that we shall be a good match, despite our differences.”
The man grunted again. His eyes were no longer on her, but the road. “That is… very wise,” he said after a long moment. “I hope you are right. I hope that Lord Christopher is who you think he is.”
Cassandra said nothing. In truth, she wasn’t sure. She had come here to find out, only to find him missing. But his being missing told her a great deal as well. He was a man who might shirk responsibility. Who, very likely, was wild and unreliable.
But that could be used to her advantage, she supposed, if her mother was to be believed.
If she could be the one who was reliable and dutiful, then perhaps that was how she would win the approval and respect of the duke. It wasn’t how she wanted to think about her brother-in-law, but she knew her mother might be right.
At last, they crested a bluff, and Calder Castle came into view, sitting on the hill opposite them, the turrets rising up high, the stone reflecting the afternoon sun and making it look golden.
The man let out a small sigh, and his expression was lighter, happier, as he led the horse down the hill toward the castle.
They did not speak again until they reached the drawbridge of the castle, which was already lowered.
“Perhaps I should go alone—” she began, her fear at the idea of being seen together making her hands prickle with sweat. But before she could finish her sentence, a shout rang out across the courtyard.
“You are home!”
Cassandra looked up to see the little girl she had seen yesterday running toward them from the front doors of the house, her arms stretched wide as if to embrace… someone.
Cassandra felt her heart tighten, and she nearly stopped breathing. Because the man, her rescuer, was now striding forward, a smile on his wild face and his arms open.
And then the little girl, the daughter of the duke, was throwing herself into his arms and shouting, “Papa! I missed you!”
Cassandra felt so faint she thought she might fall off her horse.
Her rescuer was none other than Ewan Dunmore, Duke of Calder.