Page 3 of The Chieftain’s Feud (Chieftain #3)
Jamie was never going to come for her, come here and fetch her away. As usual her heart sank, for why would he when it had been naught but lies? Her father had tricked Jamie Ruthven, aye and her along with him.
Evangeline Buchan struggled into an auld sheepskin jerkin belonging to one of her brothers; it covered her frae neck to knee, to the top of the boots another brother had worn as a boy. Under it she wore silk next to her skin and worsted o’er it for warmth, and had added a fur-lined short coat her father had broken out and provided so that that she might wear it at court—all for show. Providentially, this was one of the times her father’s meanness worked to Eve’s advantage. Buchan had always been sweered to part with anything, a born miser except when it came to the king and using his wealth to gain advancement.
Now his ambition was like to kill her.
She tugged a dark knitted bonnet down o’er her ears and tucked her hair under its edges to make sure the moonlight didn’t shine on its brightness, giving her away as she made her escape.
Softly, she opened a small door that led to the upper Bailey, her hand filling the gap betwixt the handle and the door, hitching it higher to make sure the bottom corner didn’t scrape on the flagstones, since no one had seen fit to mend the hinge that made its weight sag.
A quick peep and she was off, running for her life and holding up the plaid o’er her arm to make sure it didnae trip her up. The cobbles were dangerous enough since a frost lay o’er all, making them slippery. The stables were warm in comparison to the night air. A temptation to linger there swamped her, nae matter that there was a strong scent of their steeds and the inevitable puddles of horse piss and piles of droppings—a temptation that could be excused since it was freezing outside, icy; but it wasnae like she had any choice in the matter even if her stomach churned at her boldness.
I t wasnae only her life at stake this night.
Three lives counted on her flight. Aye three, if she counted Jamie Ruthven.
Her father’s and brothers’ mounts were given the best stalls, the best feed; however, she had snuck out earlier and given her palfrey, Mirabelle, a bucket of oats without anyone being any the wiser of her visit to the wee stall at the far end of the stables. She had thought long and hard about ways of hindering her brothers and father but had abandoned them, even though the three of them had conspired to rip her away frae Jamie with falsehoods. On the morning her father and Hadron took her away frae Dunfermline, they had made her fear for her brothers’ lives, and all the while John and Callum had sat snug at home in her father’s Keep, unaware that they too had been used.
She hadnae believed the Buchan quarrel with Ruthven ran so deep, hatred ingrained. It was indeed more than a quarrel; it was a feud that had parted her and her lover, her man.
Mirabelle’s restlessness came as nae surprise, unaccustomed as she was to being saddled up at midnight, or to being ridden at all of late. Her father hadn’t been backward about informing her he didnae trust her not to run away. If only he knew… It was now or never.
It was the knowing that she could nae longer disguise her growing belly beneath the folds of her plaid that had made her situation imperative. Every time she sat at the board in her father’s company, she ate large amounts to explain her extra weight. It had been little bother to share a fair portion of her food with the dog that lay at her feet, but the time had come when she could nae longer be sure of fooling him, of fooling her maid—though Gillian at least made a pretence of ignoring the expansion of the waist under her kirtle. Leaving her flight o’er late would bring her father’s wrath down on the only friend left to her in this cold loveless Keep.
It had been different when her mother was alive, though she had heard tales of her father storming out of the Keep when he couldnae get his own way. And the brothers that she had left Jamie for were of nae use, both lads being proud to follow in their father’s footsteps with hardly a thought for her feelings, though she had rushed to their sides when believing them to be at death’s door.
Wrapping her plaid around her frae nose to hip, she mounted Mirabelle, speaking softly to the nervous beast, all the while wishing she had Jamie’s way with horses. Seated in the saddle at last, she aimed Mirabelle’s nose at the side gate and headed out through a site used as a midden for the Keep’s rubbish, including frae the stables. Gillian was already there waiting to let her through and close the gate behind her.
She could hear the lass crying, snuffling into her plaid to hide her sobs. “Whist now,” Eve whispered. “Go back to yer bed in the kitchen and quit yer crying. It will give us away. Come spring I’ll find a way to bring ye to me, my word on that, Gillian. This is my only chance and I have to take it. Now shut the gate after me and sneak back inside while they are still all the worse for drink frae celebrating the fetching of the Yule log into the hall.”
“I’m afaird for ye Mistress, so I am.”
“Well I cannae afford to be afraid. I must be on my way to Cragenlaw, for I heard my uncle laughing about all the McArthur allies meeting there, and Jamie’s sister Iseabel is married to Graeme McArthur. I’m certain he’ll be with them.”
She brought round Mirabelle’s head, kicking her heels into the palfrey’s flanks, for she couldnae afford to hang around the gate. However, Gillian wasnae done, “I heard it might snow,” she warned.
“I’m not worried. Look up. Did ye ever see such a bonnie starlit night. I’ll be well away and nearing Cragenlaw by morning,” she told her, filling her words with a confidence she didnae truly feel. But what alternative did she have?
There was nae way her father would allow a Ruthven bairn to live in his Keep.