Awaiting the Wolf Killer Highlander by Alisa Adams
14
The morning after the Fraser clan celebration, numerous servants about the castle, including the chinless stable boy, reported to their posts quite late indeed and blamed it on the revels of the previous night. Sorcha made it clear that all of them were to be forgiven for this rather than disciplined. (This gesture made many of them love her all the more.)
The laird’s carriage was brought to the front gates, pulled by four magnificent white horses. The vehicle was covered in gold leaf and featured extremely flattering commissioned portraits of Nathan himself on both sides.
“I take it this triumph of excess was proposed by your uncle as well?” Sorcha guessed as she stepped into it.
Nathan grinned sheepishly. “You are correct. Still, it is quite comfortable, is it not?”
“Oh yes. We shall travel luxuriously indeed, for the handful of hours before we are set upon by highwaymen attracted by our garish means of transport.”
Nathan chuckled. “You have a very droll wit, my lady, do you know that? One more reason I strongly suspect that we shall enjoy each other’s company tremendously once we are married.”
I should hope so, she thought sourly, since I am certainly not enjoying his company now. At least he is pleasant to look at and seems like he will surely be easier to associate with as a spouse than Ryan McKenna would be.
She wondered how many times she would be forced to repeat this to herself during the journey back to Castle Campbell.
“And to allay your fears,” he went on as the carriage trundled over the drawbridge, “we are being escorted by a pair of my castle guards, so we should be perfectly safe.”
A pair of underfed palace guards clad in armor more gaudy than functional, against a band of brigands?Sorcha thought distastefully. Am I to be wed to a simpleton?
She feared she knew the answer well enough.
The first few hours of the journey were spent in awkward silence as they both stared out the windows of the carriage, making a great show of admiring the scenery so they might not feel compelled to interact.
But it was a long trip indeed, and eventually, Nathan broke the stillness.
“So, I suppose we should take this time to get to know each other better, eh?” Nathan suggested amiably.
“Should we?” she replied. “I would think we have a great many years ahead of us to do that.”
He laughed loudly. “Ah, there’s that splendid sense of humor again! Delightful! Now then, let’s see, what shall I ask you first? Oh, I know! What is your favorite color?”
“I have never given it much thought,” Sorcha admitted. “I spent much of my girlhood trapped in a rather gray and terrible place following the murder of my parents, so I never had much time to ponder the merits of color.”
“Yes, yes, but you are free to do so now!” he insisted. “So go on! What color do you find the most fetching?”
What a peculiar man, she thought, not for the first time. He has just been informed that I was orphaned by an act of violence and that I spent the years which followed kept in a dreary place against my will, yet he remains fixated on his initial question, almost as though he had not heard me.
“If I were forced to choose,” she replied slowly, “I would say blue.”
“Ah, yes, like the flowers you wear in your hair!” he observed cheerfully. “They highlight the color of your eyes most splendidly, by the way. Although the ones you wear now are somewhat withered. You might want to replace them.”
“Thank you,” she retorted in a brittle voice. “How kind of you to point that out.”
An awkward pause followed, and he asked, “Do you wish to know my favorite color?”
“If you wish to tell me, yes,” she said mildly.
“The color of your hair!” he answered immediately, as though he had been sitting upon his response for far too long. “I find it most remarkable!”
“You are far too kind.”
Sorcha was uncertain of what else she might say under the circumstances. She had noticed, however, that he seemed to enjoy being asked questions, so she asked the first one that came to her mind. “What is your worst memory of life?”
For a moment, his defenses seemed to tumble, and she caught a glimpse of the man he truly was behind his glib exterior—deeply frightened, uncertain, and vulnerable.
“Why would you ask me such a thing?” he breathed.
“Because I, too, wish to be acquainted with the person I am about to marry,” she replied flatly, “and I doubt whether I will learn much about you from your favorite color.”
He laughed mirthlessly. “Aye, you speak the truth there. Very well. My worst memory of life is the night I watched Marcus ride away. So we have that in common, I suppose.”
She was disarmed by his words and by the sadness and sincerity of his tone. For the briefest of moments, she wondered whether there might be far more to him than she had seen thus far.
Suddenly, she heard approaching hoofbeats, followed by the voice of one of the guards who rode with their carriage: “Halt! Who goes there?”
Nathan’s eyes widened, and she knew at once that her words from earlier haunted him now; he was petrified by the thought that they were about to be waylaid by bandits, robbed, kidnapped, ransomed, or worse.
Then she heard the response to the guard’s query, and her heart felt strangely pulled in two directions as she wondered whether she was better off or worse.
“We mean you no harm. We are here with a message for Laird Nathan Fraser, from Ryan McKenna of the Campbell clan.”
Nathan looked over at her and shrugged. “Where is the harm in accepting such a message?”
“Where is the harm?” Sorcha could not believe her ears. “This man plots the downfall of my family, and you would hear a message from him? You must not!” She leaned forward and gripped Nathan’s hand urgently.
He looked down at her hands, his eyes filled with a hard sadness. “Aye, now that you want something from me, you rejoice in my touch, is that it?”
Sorcha did not know how to respond. He was not wrong, but she dreaded what was to come next.
Nathan leaned out the window of the carriage. “Laird Nathan Fraser will hear this message.”
She heard the sound of a rider dismounting, his boots striding across the grass. His riding cloak filled the window on the young laird’s side, and he leaned down, revealing the tricorn hat and smirking visage of Currie.
“Good afternoon, Lady Sorcha,” he sneered. “A pleasure to see you again, truly.”
“Never mind that,” Nathan cut in. “You say McKenna has a dispatch for me?”
“Indeed he does,” Currie hissed. “Or rather, a proposition. McKenna’s private wealth far exceeds that of the Campbell family. He knows of your debtors and the substantial sums you owe each of them. He wishes to inform you that he has already sent emissaries to all of them, along with bags of gold to buy your debts from them. The riches you have squandered belong to him now, and he is willing to forgive them all, down to the last coin…all that, aye, plus five thousand pounds sterling for you to waste as you see fit.” He gestured to a fat sack of coins hanging from the saddle of his horse by way of emphasis. “All he asks in return is that you forsake your betrothal to Lady Sorcha and return to your own lands at once.”
“Preposterous!” Sorcha exclaimed. “You may return to your foul master and tell him that Laird Nathan rejects his outrageous proposal!”
She turned to glance at Nathan, and her heart became a leaden weight in her chest.
He was considering it, God help her.
“You cannot be tempted by such a proposition!” she blurted, horrified.
“Oh no?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Would your family clear my debts in a stroke, then? Would they hand over five thousand pounds, just like that?”
“Not in a stroke, perhaps, no,” she stammered. “Not just like that. We do not have such riches on hand. But in the longer term, our alliance would benefit you tenfold!”
“I have no interest in the longer term,” Nathan informed her. “I have labored beneath my debts long enough, and I wish to be rid of them immediately.” He cleared his throat and addressed Currie. “I hereby accept Ryan McKenna’s proposal and take custody of the, er, monies he has chosen to bestow upon me.”
“You fiend!” Sorcha shrieked, enraged. “You traitor! You monster! How could you? How could you?”
Nathan smiled at her sadly. “For the greater good of my clan, Lady Sorcha, of course. You of all people would understand that, I’d think.”
“But all those things you said about us getting on as we got to know each other!” she flailed desperately. “Were those nothing but falsehoods?”
“You are a most handsome woman,” he answered, “and you do have a formidable wit. I have no doubt that it would soon have been wielded as a weapon against me since you so evidently find me a fool and a boor. But now, not only will the poverty of my clan be ended, I will be able to someday marry for love rather than money! And you…well, I suppose you can marry Marcus now if you wish, or marry a scarecrow, or die a lonely hag for all I care! Now kindly remove yourself from my carriage!”
Sorcha was shocked, and she gave a moment’s honest consideration to stubbornly remaining where she was. But she did not fancy the notion of being dragged from the vehicle by the rough (and perhaps lecherous) hands of the guards who would be ordered to remove her.
So she gave Nathan one last cold glare, opened the door, and stepped out of her own volition.
The carriage door slammed shut behind her so suddenly that it provoked a yelp from her. Currie walked back to his horse, removed the bag of coins from the saddle, and presented it to Nathan. Sorcha could now see that he had brought two guards on horseback with him; clearly, he hadn’t expected that he’d need to take her by force, and he had been correct.
“You have made a wise decision this day, Laird Nathan,” Currie snickered, “and you have made an ally as well. My master will not forget this.”
“How kind of him,” Nathan answered with a grin. “Do send my regards.”
Then the carriage driver lashed the horses with the reins, and they started, galloping back in the direction from whence they came so swiftly, in fact, that within moments, all the evidence that was left of their existence was a cloud of dust.
“And now, my lady,” Currie said mockingly, “I would suggest that you allow us to escort you back to the Campbell lands. It can be so dangerous, you see, for a woman to travel such a distance alone. Any number of…grotesque fates might befall her, were she to insist upon it.”
“You are nothing if not subtle, Currie,” she remarked dryly. “Let us not mince words: You have taken me as your prisoner, and I am to be at the mercy of Ryan McKenna.”
“Aye, so you are!” he concurred gleefully. “Just as your older brother and his wife are, and their cherub of a child!”
Panic gripped Sorcha, wrapping itself around her midsection and squeezing as remorselessly as a corset. “What on earth do you mean, you villain?”
Currie bared his rotten teeth in a grin. “I mean that the thief Dand, his servant wife Maisie, and their wriggling worm of an infant—who, if allowed to live, will doubtless become a pox-ridden harlot—have all been confined in the dungeons. If you cooperate, lass, there is a chance that their lives might be spared. If you do not…well, then the gutters which carry the muck and filth of the prisoners will carry blood as well. Do you understand me, you worthless wench?”
The horror of his words clawed at her insides, and she nodded, numb with fright.
I will do whatever it takes, she thought, panicked. I will agree to anything, if only it will preserve my family. I spent too many years away from Dand, and I cannot risk his life—or his wife’s or their daughter’s—no matter what the cost. Perhaps Nathan was right, and I am being governed by my emotions in ways that a man in my position might not. So be it. I am who I am, and I will not be the woman who condemned her older brother to torment and death.
And besides, she added, there is one advantage: They have not mentioned Aodh or Freya, which means neither of them are in danger.
At least, not yet.
