Taken by a Savage Laird (The Lairds’ Wicked Vows #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“Rose… Rose, wake, my love.”

The soft, trembling whisper pulled Rose from the loose edges of sleep. She stirred. Her brow knitted faintly as she shifted beneath the covers.

“Rose,” her mother said again, more urgently now, though her voice remained hushed.

A hand brushed her shoulder, pressing just enough to pull her fully into waking without shaking her.

Rose’s eyes opened slowly.

At first, she saw only shadows and the dim flicker of candlelight. Slowly, her gaze found her mother’s face hovering above her, pale in the wavering glow. The pins in her hair had been hastily set, strands slipping loose at her temples.

Something was wrong.

“Mama?” Her voice came out soft, drawn from somewhere deep in her chest. Her throat was dry, head heavy. She gathered what little strength she could and pushed herself up onto her elbows, the linen of her nightgown brushing against her skin. “What is it? Has something happened?”

“You must come with me to your father’s study,” she said, her tone carefully controlled, though it trembled at the edges. “At once.”

For a moment, she froze. But then, she summoned the strength to sit up fully, the covers falling from her lap.

Rose swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet meeting the cold floor. The sensation made her inhale sharply, her body jolting awake at last. She reached for the dress laid across the chair, her fingers fumbling slightly as she put it on.

Her mind clawed for an answer to what was happening, as she stepped into her slippers, her eyes darting, hunting for a shape to match the dread.

She braced herself without quite knowing why as she followed her mother into the corridor.

The house was too still.

Even at night, Briar Hall had its sounds, the distant murmur of servants, the quiet creak of wood, the wind pressing faintly against the windows.

But now, as they moved through the dimly lit hallway, Rose became aware of how sharply each small sound carried, the soft rustle of her robe, the muted tap of her mother’s steps.

Her mother walked ahead quickly, silently. There was a tension in the set of her shoulders, in the way her knuckles paled briefly around the candleholder when a draft flickered the flame.

Rose followed, her heart pounding, her thoughts trying to reach for reason, and finding none.

The study door stood ajar when they reached it, spilling a sharp light into the hall. Her mother stepped into the glow without hesitation.

Rose followed, only to freeze at the threshold.

Her father stood near the desk, his hands braced against its surface.

His head was slightly bowed, giving Rose the impression he had been in deep thought and had only just forced himself upright.

He looked older in that moment. The lines at the corners of his eyes seemed deeper, the set of his mouth heavier.

Her sisters were there as well.

Marion stood near the hearth, her hands clasped tightly together, knuckles pale. Her usual brightness was entirely gone, replaced by something frightened and uncertain. Giselle sat in the chair beside her, her posture rigid, her gaze fixed on nothing at all.

Rose became suddenly aware of her own breathing.

“Papa?” she said softly, taking a step forward, though she did not move too close. Something held her back, some instinct that told her that crossing that space would change things in a way she could not undo. “What is it?”

Her father looked up.

For a moment, he said nothing. His gaze moved slowly over her face, lingering in a way it never had before, tracing each feature with quiet care.

She was unsure why the silence made her want to look away.

“Rose,” he said at last.

Her name did not sound the way it always had. There was weight in it. Finality.

She felt it settle into her bones before he even spoke again. She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself, but her heart threatened to burst. Just tell me.

“Barnaby Henshaw is coming,” he said, then straightened with a slow, agonizing motion. “At dawn.”

The floor seemed to drop away. Rose stood frozen, her silence a brittle thing. The name alone carried a rot that had drifted through the walls of Briar Hall many times—stories of a man who destroyed what he couldn't buy. A ruthless shadow with decades of cold power behind him.

A slow, sickening awareness began to coil in her gut.

“And… why?” The question came out thin and fragile. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Beside her, her mother made a small, choked sound. Rose turned immediately.

Her mother’s composure had begun to crack. Her lips pressed together too tightly, her eyes shining in the candlelight. Her hand rose briefly to her throat as though she could not quite breathe.

“He intends to take you,” her father said. The words were steady, almost unreal. “As his bride.”

Rose went still, forgetting how to breathe. She swallowed hard against the sudden, jagged constriction in her throat, her pulse thrumming a frantic rhythm against the collar of her gown.

“He cannot,” she said, her voice low and controlled, though it trembled faintly beneath the surface. “You would not allow it.”

Her father’s gaze held hers. She had hoped to see defiance there, but it was only cold resignation.

“He does not come to ask,” he said.

Her mother stepped forward then, her freezing hands reaching for Rose’s, gripping them tightly, almost painfully.

“We cannot protect you,” she said, the words breaking as they left her. “Not from him. I’m so sorry, Rose.”

Rose stared at her. Her mother’s fingers trembled around hers, her eyes searching her face with a kind of desperation Rose had never seen before.

“He wants this land. Briar Hall. Its position near the border,” her father continued, his voice quieter now, though no less firm. His jaw clenched slightly. “With you, he gains access to Scotland.”

Her father went behind the desk, searching. The sound of coins shifting was deafening in the sudden silence—a heavy, metallic clatter.

He caught her hand and pressed a small pouch into it. The sheer, unexpected weight of it made her arm sag. It was cold and solid.

“You must leave,” he said, and the floor seemed to tilt.

Rose’s numb fingers curled instinctively around the pouch. The rough fabric bit into her palm, a coarse anchor to a reality she wasn't ready to claim.

“Leave…” she breathed, the word dissolving before it could even leave her lips.

“Now,” her mother said, her voice urgent, her hands moving to Rose’s shoulders, gripping them firmly. “Before dawn. Before he arrives.”

Rose shook her head slightly, willing to shake the words off.

“I have never—” Her voice faltered. “Alone, I?—”

Her father stepped closer.

“For a few days only,” he said, the words tumbling out with a hollow, jagged lack of certainty.

He began to gesture vaguely, his hands trembling as he traced invisible shapes in the air, his voice dropping to a hurried, frantic register.

“There are relatives in the north—beyond the pass, near the coast. You remember your aunt Margaret? You will go to them. Travel by night, stick to the deer paths, and do not—for any reason—stay on the main road. You will be safe there, Rose. You must be safe.”

Her mother was already reaching for the cloak draped over the chair, wrapping it around Rose’s shoulders, pulling it tight, her hands lingering there, smoothing it down.

If only fabric alone could protect me.

“You must not take the main roads,” her father repeated, his voice turning practical, urgent. “If you hear riders, you leave the path at once. Stay hidden. You must pass by the old oak, the stream?—”

His words blurred slightly, just as Marion made a small, broken sound and Giselle looked up at last, her eyes wide, bright with unshed tears.

“Rose…” she whispered.

Something inside her twisted.

Rose turned toward them, her chest tightening painfully now, her composure beginning to crack at the edges, though she held it tightly. She had always been the one who did not fall apart.

She stepped forward, pulling them both into a brief embrace.

“I shall return,” she said, forcing the words through a throat that felt like glass.

She stepped back before hesitation could root her to the floor and her mother’s fingers trailed down her arms. The lingering, desperate contact finally snapped, leaving Rose’s skin cold where the warmth had been.

She turned and moved.

The corridor was an icy vein, the air sharpening with every step toward the side door. She refused to look back, even as she crossed the threshold and vanished into the night.

The cold struck her like a physical blow, carrying the raw scent of wet earth and the ghost of distant hearth-smoke. She yanked her cloak tight, the fabric a thin shield against the vast, predatory silence of the night.

For a heartbeat, she was a statue in the dark, her pulse a frantic, deafening hammer against her ribs.

Then she took a step and did not stop.

The cold wind bit against her skin as she moved across the grounds, the damp earth uneven beneath her slippers.

Her steps were careful, though her heart was beating too quickly for the pace she forced upon herself.

The sky was still dark, though there was a faint shift at the horizon, the first suggestion of dawn that would soon follow, and with it, Barnaby.

She swallowed against the thought.

Do not think of him.

Her father’s directions returned instead. She repeated them silently to herself, clinging to them as though they might steady her. The old oak. The stream. The narrow path that cut away from the main road just beyond the bend.

She found the side path easily enough.

The familiarity of the grounds lasted only so long, and then it was gone.

The trees grew thicker, the path less certain beneath her feet.

The silence was broken only by the soft crunch of leaves and the faint rustle of branches stirred by the wind.

Rose drew the cloak tighter around herself, her fingers pressing into the coarse wool.

She hoped she could gather some strength from it.

She had never been alone like this.

Even when she had walked the gardens at dusk, or wandered the fields in the late afternoon, there had always been someone nearby, always the distant presence of the house, of voices, of safety.

Now, there was nothing. Only the path ahead and the darkness behind her.

Still, Rose moved forward.

She had been walking for what felt like hours when she heard a faint sound, carried in the wind. It was a distant rhythm that seemed almost like the beat of her own pulse, until it sharpened.

Hoofbeats. Her breath caught. For a moment, she stood frozen, her fingers tightening at her sides as the sound grew nearer.

Then she moved.

She stepped off the path quickly, her slipper catching briefly on a root before she steadied herself, pushing through the low branches until she was hidden among the trees, her back pressing against the rough bark of a trunk.

Riders.

Something in her chest tightened further, her fingers pressing into the bark behind her as she waited, counting each passing second until the sound faded and the silence returned.

Only then did she breathe. It came out slowly, uneven, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm that refused to settle.

But she could not wait long.

The moment the path was empty, she stepped back onto it, her pace quicker now, though she tried to keep it measured. Panic would not help her.

She repeated that to herself as the hours passed, as the darkness slowly gave way to the pale light of morning, as the path changed beneath her feet and the land around her grew less familiar with every step.

She never stopped for long, only to drink from the small stream her father had mentioned, or to sit briefly on a fallen log, her legs trembling beneath her as she tried to gather enough strength to rise again.

Hunger came slowly.

At first, it was little more than a hollow feeling, something she could ignore. But as the day wore on, it sharpened, became something that gnawed at her, persistent, distracting.

She had fled with nothing—no trunk, no keepsakes, no food. Only the heavy, cold weight of the coins and the wool of her cloak.

By the second day, she was no longer certain where she was.

In the hollow of her mind, her father’s voice continued its frantic cadence but the landscape before her was a jagged contradiction. She had either walked too far or veered in a different direction. She could no longer distinguish the two.