Chapter Two
The fog did not lift for hours.
It clung to the low country like damp wool, trailing after them over broken ridges and narrow streams until Claire could no longer tell how far they had ridden—or how far England had fallen behind.
The land itself seemed to change beneath the horse’s pounding strides.
The soft order of the south disappeared first. The roads roughened. Stone thrust through the earth in jagged seams. Wind bent the gorse low against the hills, and the air turned sharper with every mile north, carrying the scent of rain, pine, and distant peat fires.
Scotland.
The word settled uneasily in Claire’s chest.
Or perhaps it was not Scotland unsettling her.
Perhaps it was the man behind her.
Lachlan Cameron rode as though horse and rider had been forged together at birth. Effortless. Certain. Entirely too comfortable carrying off abducted English ladies as though it were an inconvenience interrupting his afternoon.
Worse still, he had scarcely spoken in nearly an hour.
Claire had decided she disliked silent men.
Particularly men who smelled of leather, smoke, and rain.
“You might, at the very least, explain yourself,” she said at last.
“I might.”
She waited.
The brute said nothing more.
Claire turned sharply enough to glare at his profile. “Is this the famed Highland charm I have heard so much about?”
“Have ye heard of it?” he asked mildly.
“Not favorably.”
“Then perhaps I ought not disappoint ye.”
The man had the audacity to sound amused.
Claire narrowed her eyes. “You are impossible.”
His arm tightened fractionally around her waist as the horse descended a rocky slope. Why had a man capable of stealing her from England taken such care with her?
“Aye, English Rose,” he said. “I’ve been told.”
The endearment startled her as the warmth of his hand seeped straight through her cloak.
Exasperating.
Everything about him unsettled her composure.
His voice.
His calm.
The way he never seemed rushed or uncertain.
Even his silence felt deliberate.
Around them, the other Highlanders rode watchfully through the mist. They spoke rarely, and when they did, it was in Gaelic—low, rough, strangely musical.
Claire understood none of it.
But she understood enough to know these were no ordinary brigands.
A clan.
A loyal one.
The realization tightened something inside her.
She studied the men more carefully now. Their discipline. Their weapons. Their watchfulness.
And always, somehow, their quiet deference toward Lachlan.
Even in silence, he commanded the road around him.
“Where in Scotland are you taking me?” she asked.
“To my lands.”
She nearly laughed from sheer irritation.
“And where precisely are those?”
He was silent so long she wondered if he meant to ignore her entirely.
Then—“Safe.”
Claire blinked. “That is not a place.”
The man shrugged. Such a vexatious action. “For now, ’tis.”
“Oh, how reassuring,” she said with a sardonic tone.
The blasted man flashed a quick grin. How it transformed his already handsome face. “I aim to please.”
“You fail magnificently.”
A low sound rumbled in his chest. Not quite laughter.
Worse.
Because she liked the sound of it far more than she ought. Damn him.
Claire turned her face forward before he could notice the heat climbing her cheeks.
The horse surged through a shallow burn, cold water splashing over stone. Wind tugged strands of dark hair loose from beneath her hood, whipping them across her mouth.
Immediately, Lachlan’s hand came up beside her face.
Claire froze.
He caught the strands gently and tucked them back beneath her cloak.
Such a small gesture. Yet startlingly careful for a man who had stolen her at sword point. And too intimate by far.
“There,” he murmured. “Ye looked ready to bite the wind itself.”
Claire stared ahead rigidly. “Perhaps I was deciding whether death by weather might improve my circumstances.”
“Aye?” His voice drifted warm near her ear. “And what conclusion did ye reach?”
She held the shiver his closeness wrought. How the heat of his breath tingled the sensitive skin right below her ear. “That I would first enjoy watching you fall from your horse.”
This time he did laugh, low and rich behind her. The sound curled strangely through her chest.
Claire loathed the fact she wanted to hear it again. “You’re remarkably cheerful for a man committing treason,” she muttered.
“Treason?” he mused. “Is that what England calls refusing to die quietly?”
The teasing vanished from his voice so abruptly it startled her.
Claire glanced back slightly.
His expression had changed.
Not softer.
Never soft.
But shadowed somehow. Older.
As though something heavy lived behind those pale green eyes.
“You speak in riddles because you enjoy tormenting me,” she said, not allowing the shift of his demeanor to gain her sympathy.
“Nay.” His voice dropped quieter. Rougher. “I speak in riddles because the truth . . . the truth cuts.”
The answer struck harder than she expected.
Something in his tone stole the heat from her anger, leaving curiosity in its place. And unease.
A raven burst upward from a crumbling stone wall nearby, disappearing into the mist.
Claire watched it go.
“My father did not send me willingly,” she said softly.
Silence.
The silence told her enough.
Pain flared sharp and humiliating beneath her ribs.
Claire tightened her grip on the saddle until her fingers ached. Wind lashed the edge of her cloak across her arm, but she barely felt it. “He bargained me,” she whispered. The words tasted bitter now they existed aloud.
Lachlan’s arm remained steady around her waist.
“Nay,” he said after a long moment. “Men like Ashford bargain land. Titles. Alliances.” His jaw tightened slightly. “Women are merely what they spend when they’ve run out of honest coin.”
Claire went very still.
No one had ever spoken so plainly in front of her before.
As though she were capable of hearing ugly truths instead of needing protection from them.
Oddly, his honesty hurt less than the lies.
“You speak as though you pity me,” she said carefully.
“I donna pity ye.”
“No?”
His gaze remained fixed ahead.
But his voice deepened. “I respect what ye’ve survived before ever meeting me.”
The words settled somewhere deep inside her. Respect. Not beauty. Not even obedience or usefulness.
Respect.
No man had ever offered her respect before. No man had ever looked beyond what she represented long enough to see the woman herself.
Claire hated the warmth rising unexpectedly in her chest. Hated him for causing it.
And perhaps hated herself a little more for wanting to hear him say it again.
# # #
By late afternoon, the land began speaking in its own voice.
The fog finally thinned, revealing towering hills streaked gold and brown beneath the fading autumn light. A silver burn twisted through the glen below them. Pine forests gathered darkly along the slopes while distant cliffs disappeared into rolling clouds.
His Highlands.
Wild.
Beautiful.
Untamed.
Lachlan watched Claire carefully from beneath lowered lashes.
He had noticed almost immediately the English beauty missed very little.
She studied the terrain constantly. The riders. The weather. The distance between horses. Measuring. Planning.
Looking for escape.
Good.
A woman who planned was a woman who survived.
And bollocks, he wanted her to survive.
Far more than he should.
The wind tugged another strand of flaxen hair free across her cheek. Claire huffed in annoyance and blew it away again.
Lachlan nearly smiled.
“You are laughing,” she accused instantly.
“I am not.”
“You nearly were.”
“Ye nearly leapt from the horse earlier.”
Claire made a sound of utter disgust. “Your wit is abominable.”
“And yet ye continue speaking to me.”
She huffed a sigh, pushing her body tighter against his. “Only because throwing myself into a ravine seems excessively dramatic.”
“Give it time. We’ve hours yet before sunset.”
Didn’t the woman turned enough to glare at him properly then.
Christ.
Her eyes were darker in the fading light. Storm-gray with flecks of blue hidden beneath thick lashes. Angry eyes.
Beautiful eyes.
The kind would undo wiser men than him.
Lachlan looked away first.
She muttered something he suspected was not a prayer.
It was better this way, he told himself.
Better she keep her temper on him. Better she not see the full weight of what pressed at his back—old loyalties, broken promises, letters hidden, blood already spilled because men in England believed Highland lives were cheap.
If she knew everything now, she would either fear him or hate him beyond repair.
Perhaps she would anyway.
But every mile north increased the odds she would remain alive long enough to decide.
And Lachlan, who had spent years burying men he could not save, found that mattered more than it ought. He still remembered every widow standing silent in Raven’s Berry after their men vanished south and never returned.
Ashford would discover her disappearance soon enough. And when he did, others would begin moving. Men with English titles and clean hands who buried their sins beneath treaties and crowns.
If Claire knew everything now—about the letters, the betrayal, the blood already spilled—she would either fear him or hate him beyond forgiveness.
Perhaps she would anyway.
But Lachlan found himself caring less about her hatred than he should.
What mattered was keeping her alive long enough to earn it.
That alone should have worried him.
Instead, what truly unsettled him was the memory of her in his arms.
Soft despite her fury.
Proud despite her fear.
And far too tempting when she glared at him as though she wanted simultaneously to slap him and kiss him senseless.
God save him from English women with sharp tongues and brave hearts.
Particularly this one.