Page 9

CHAPTER 9

As morning dawned, Gordon didn’t have the stomach for breakfast with the Lane family. He assumed he would be expected, but assumed no one would mind if he didn’t appear; they would likely all breathe a sigh of relief at the continued emptiness of his chair at the feasting table.

Fresh air will be nourishment enough.

On horseback this time, he tried to find his way back to the serene loch he had visited the night before, so he wouldn’t forget the route, whether he was on foot or on his stallion.

But where he could easily slip between the trees of the loch’s surrounding woodland, his mighty war-horse, bred for intimidation, muscle, and bulk, struggled to force his way through the densely packed trunks that Gordon had passed through the night before. And Gordon didn’t want the creature gaining any injuries.

As such, man and beast took the long way around, searching for a more suitable entrance into the forest.

What games have I thwarted this mornin’, I wonder? He imagined Anna coming down to breakfast in some unusual attire, only to be disappointed that he wasn’t there to see it. Laird Glendenning would have to be her sole audience, though Gordon was certain he was already ahead of that man in the suitor standings.

Then again, she did run from me…

The morning was fine and crisp, cloudless but cool; he hadn’t been informed of any event or occasion he needed to prepare for, so he was in no rush to return to Castle MacTorrach. Nor could he think of a better way to pass a few pleasant hours, calming his thoughts, before the imminent onslaught of Lairds, vying for what was already—to his mind—his.

Finding a good path on the opposite side of the woods to where he’d entered previously, the trail well-trodden by deer, Gordon felt almost at peace as his stallion plodded at a leisurely pace through the wych elms, sycamores, rowans, and hazel trees. Ancient citizens of this corner of the Highlands, watching over the petty squabbles of man, each Laird of MacTorrach barely a notch in the bark of such old sentinels.

“Aye, that’ll serve me for breakfast,” Gordon murmured suddenly, spying the glisten of fat blackberries, thriving in untouched clusters on a nearby bramble bush.

He got down and left his stallion to snatch up tufts of the verdant undergrowth, as he picked the tart fruits, devouring them by the handful. He didn’t care that his hands grew sticky with the juice or that anyone who spotted him would see the dark red smeared around his mouth and think the worst: they already did.

He had almost eaten his fill, when a harrowing sound struck him like a cold blade to the spine.

A scream, shivering through the forest. One word, repeated in desperation: “Help!”

The voice was feminine, bursting with panic, and though history dictated that he should be wary of traps, he was running toward the sound before he had time to consider the possibilities. His horse followed, the two of them crashing and snorting through the underbrush, wending around the trees, seeking out the source of those desperate screams.

“Please! Please, help!” the voice begged, getting closer.

Barreling through a wall of fir fronds, swallowing down the feeling that he was walking right into a snare, Gordon juddered to a sharp halt.

Mud sucked at his boot, threatening to steal it from his foot, but his powerful muscles managed to drag his foot out again. Breathless, testing the ground beneath him to make sure it was solid, his sharp eyes surveyed the terrain. He stood on the edge of a bog, one of nature’s most dangerous traps: it looked solid to the untrained eye, but, as he’d just discovered, putting a foot wrong would see a person trapped.

And someone was.

Submerged in the viscous, liquid earth to her waist, flailing frantically, causing her body to get sucked further and further in, was Anna. Her slender fingertips were reaching desperately for something, caught on a spiny tuft of grass, apparently oblivious to the fact that, the more she struggled, the more stuck she’d become.

“Stop movin’!” Gordon yelled, as his horse came through the firs.

Anna twisted her head around, her green eyes wide with terror. For a moment, he wondered if her fear came from her predicament or the fact that he was there in the woods with her, alone.

It’s ‘cause she’s about to drown in a bog, ye fool, he chided himself. After all, since meeting him, she’d rarely looked at him in fear. An exception to most he encountered.

“Laird Lyall!” she shouted, a flicker of relief crossing her beautiful face. “Laird Lyall, I’m stuck!”

“Aye, I can see that,” he replied gruffly, retrieving a coil of rope from the back of his horse’s saddle. “That’s why ye’re to stop movin’. The more ye move, the worse it’ll be.”

Instead of freezing, she lunged forward, snatching what seemed to be a folded square of paper off the tuft of marsh grass.

“Bloody hell! Stop movin!” he barked.

She stilled at last, clutching the square of paper to her chest.

“Better,” he said, testing the spongy earth with the toe of his boot.

There was always a way through bogs such as this, and if he were in his own lands, he’d know it keenly. But this was a new puzzle to solve, and it would take time and care.

“What are ye doin’?” Anna shouted. “I’m sinkin’, M’Laird! Hurry up!”

A muscle twitched in Gordon’s jaw, as he lashed one end of the rope to a tree and tied the other end around his waist. “If I hurry, I’ll end up stuck with ye. If ye want to live, hold yer tongue.”

She blinked as if he’d insulted her, but she said nothing more as he continued to test the ground with the toe of his boot. There were sturdy islands of hard-packed peat all across the bog, and a few shallow pockets of watery dirt that wouldn’t try to suck him down; he made a mental note of the route as he picked his way across to Anna, so he wouldn’t falter on the way back.

His horse snorted in agitation, watching the scene closely, ears flicking.

Reaching a helpful tangle of tree roots, a short distance from Anna, Gordon crouched down. “How did ye get in so deep?”

She must’ve known she was in trouble long before she got to this point in the bog.

“I… misjudged a step,” Anna replied curtly.

He narrowed his good eye. “What were ye doin’?”

“I dropped somethin’ important,” she said, unable to meet his gaze. “Now, are ye goin’ to get me out of here or nae?”

Wrapping his hand around one of the gnarled tree roots, he leaned out as far as he could go, extending his other hand to her. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t need to.

Staring at his outstretched hand for a moment, she stuffed the unknown piece of paper into the neckline of her dress, drawing his eye to the panicked heaving of her bosom, and promptly took hold of his hand with both of hers.

But the bog wasn’t so willing to relinquish her, the liquid mud slurping and bubbling around her waist, eager to devour her. Gordon’s arm strained, sinews and muscles burning, veins popping through the browned skin of his forearms as he poured the entirety of his strength into saving Anna from the belly of that bog.

“It willnae let me go,” she gasped, her eyes glittering with fear.

Clenching his jaw and gritting his teeth, praying the tangle of roots wouldn’t snap in his grip, he heaved backward with all of his might. The bog fought him every step of the way, stronger than any human opponent, but he wasn’t about to let the vile thing have his bride.

She’s mine… The lass is mine!

All of a sudden, the bog released her with a satisfying pop . Gordon barely kept his balance as the power of his pull sent her flying into him, his other hand releasing the roots to embrace her, holding her tight to his chest. He didn’t care that she was covering him in mud; he’d been covered in worse. And the surprising sweetness of feeling her arms wrap around him in gasping relief was enough that he didn’t even notice the scent of the bog, now clinging to them both.

“Hold on,” he told her, hoisting her up.

Without hesitation, she locked her legs around his waist, holding on as if she never meant to let go, as he rose to his feet and picked his way back across the unsteady islands to solid ground.

The moment they were at the fir trees, however, she slid down as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. Trembling from the cold, she swallowed hard, bowing her head a little as she whispered a “thank ye.”

“Get on,” he instructed.

She frowned. “Pardon?”

Shaking his head, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up onto his stallion’s saddle. “Cannae have ye goin’ back to the castle like this.”

More for meself than for ye.

He took his stallion’s reins and let the horse move a step. The motion rocked Anna, as Gordon had known it would, and she lunged to grip the pommel, clutching tight.

“Nay warnin’?” she gasped, bright-eyed and scowling.

He resisted the urge to smile, uncertain of whether his mouth was still capable of making that shape.

“Where are ye takin’ me, if nae the castle?” she asked, recovering.

“The loch,” he replied simply.

Believing he now knew the way, scenting the loch through the woodland, he led the horse safely around the perimeter of the bog and through a cluster of rowans and crooked elms. Anna didn’t try to protest—she didn’t say much at all—as he sought out that peaceful body of water, coming to the loch’s edge a few minutes later, his keen nose rarely failing him when it came to water.

“And what, exactly, am I expected to do here?” Anna asked uncertainly.

“Wash the bog off ye,” he replied, drawing a léine out of his saddlebag. “Ye can wear this ‘til yer dress is dry.”

He put the garment on a dry boulder and moved to sit on a different rock, turning his back to the loch. “I have nay intention of watchin’.”

Evidently, she didn’t believe him. Not at first, anyway.

He continued to stare back into the woodland, observing the creatures that roamed cautiously in the morning mist: a different roster of life, quite apart from the night beasts that wandered in the dark.

A few minutes later, he heard Anna get down from the saddle, and listened to every step she took across the pebbled shore. A slight tingle ran up the back of his neck as he imagined her peeling away her dirtied clothes, parting with them like a selkie shedding her sealskin, walking naked into the chilly waters of the loch.

He closed his eyes and pictured that infuriating writing on her skin, wondering how quickly the water would wash it away.

She probably washed it off last night, he told himself, shaking his head. He shouldn’t be fantasizing. He should be keeping a more vigilant guard, in case any of the coming Lairds decided to cut through these very woods, spotting her in such a vulnerable moment.

The thought made him bristle; he didn’t want any other man setting eyes on his bride, even if that meant he couldn’t look either.

“Why were ye in the woods so early in the mornin’?” Anna’s voice came to him across the loch, accompanied by the stirring sound of light splashing, stoking his imagination again: her bare form cutting through that crystal clear water, the wavelets lapping her smooth skin, taunting him as they kissed where he couldn’t.

“I was ridin’,” he replied. “Why were ye ?”

“I… was walkin’,” she said, clearing her throat. “I do it often.”

Is that an invitation to join her? He hated uncertainty, and doubly hated that he wasn’t very gifted at this courtship business.

“It wasnae a game, then?” he said instead.

She scoffed. “A game? Are ye quite serious? Ye think I would throw meself in a bog for a trick, nae kennin’ if there was anyone around to aid me?”

“Ye ask if I’m serious, when ye were the one stuck in a bog over a bit of paper,” he reminded her flatly, recalling that apparently precious square that she’d tucked into her neckline.

She seemed to have no retort for that, the conversation ebbing into silence, interrupted only by those tortuous, splashing sounds.

So, it came as something of a surprise when she said, quietly, a short while later, “It was important to me.”

“Important enough to risk yer life for?” he asked, hearing the cold note in his voice, wishing he knew how to thaw it.

“Probably nae.”

Curiosity got the better of him. “What is it? A letter?”

“Nay,” she answered, more vigorous splashing suggesting she was cleaning her dress with a stone. “It’s just… me sketch. I was goin’ to add somethin’ to it… and the wind… it whipped it out of me hand and into the bog.”

She sounded embarrassed, as though she’d confessed something she hadn’t meant to. The impulse to turn around nearly overwhelmed Gordon, but he managed to keep his gaze fixed on the gnarl of a tree trunk ahead, giving himself a test of his own: a challenge to not give into the temptation of seeing her naked in the loch.

“Is it any good?” he asked.

He wouldn’t have guessed that she was an artist. Considering the words she’d written on her skin, he’d assumed she was a poet or a writer, or just a woman who enjoyed causing a stir.

“Nay, it isnae any good at all,” she hurried to reply, the splashing changing tone, becoming the traipse of someone emerging from the water. The shift of the pebbles underfoot confirmed it, and though it was physically hurting his neck not to turn around, he allowed her, her privacy.

Once he heard the whisper of his spare léine being pulled down over her body did he finally twist around on the rock to look at her. The sodden, cleaned dress lay across the boulder and, before she could dive to retrieve it, his eyes fell upon the piece of paper that had almost cost her dearly.

It had been pinned down with a stone, but the small pebble didn’t conceal any of the drawing. He wished it had. Indeed, he wished he could hurl a huge rock on top of the awful thing, smashing it out of existence altogether.

For on that crumpled piece of paper, he saw himself as she must have seen him, deep down, in the heart of herself: a hulking monster with a patch across one eye and horns protruding from his head, a trail of something that might have been blood trickling from his mouth, dripping down onto the limp and broken bride in his arms.

With a slack mouth and vacant eyes, her body dappled with bruises and missing bites of flesh, he realized it was a dead bride that he held in that picture. A woman dead by his hand. And all around the monstrous iteration of him, black-eyed children swarmed with fangs and cruel smiles, twisted and unnatural. Like their hellish father.

He looked up at Anna, his voice a snarl as he said, “Is that what ye really think of me?”