melody.
If she didn’t dance she ran the risk of infuriating Ewen, of offering great affront, to add to the stack she had already offered. Unwise when the fact of the matter was, she had no idea whatsoever of what was being said in that alcove.
Lord Ewen’s arm said she should take it. A few slow steps with her betrothed. And not just her betrothed. If she was to convince the Wolf, should he be busily telling Archibald she had a son or that Edinburgh would be as surprised as she was to learn she had ever set foot in it, he should be her beloved. It wasn’t as if Ewen was even being unreasonable. He stood a good step away from her, his head politely inclined. Why, he could, as lord of this particular gathering, drag her onto the floor.
Edging the chair back, she rose to her feet. “But of course, my lord.”
For goodness sake, if she could not take his arm, how could she climb into bed with him, as she knew she was going to have to do in a few days time?
Before she could summon an answer to that question, he splayed his clammy fingers against the base of her spine.
Cold gathered, a cold that spread like a masking fog, up her spine, then down again. A horrible bridling panic she could not govern. She wanted to turn on her heel and run.
For God’s sake, it was a few sweeping steps of the floor. She had put certain things behind her, so it distressed her more than she could say, to find specters clung to Ewen McDunnagh. To his hair. To his clothes. That even as she took a step forward, a glide, a turn, she was in that cell. And it was dank and slimy, those walls she’d clung to, looking for protection when there was none.
Her breath shortened. To keep her lips curved was a torture. How was it she had plunged back into that nightmare, where deep in her heart, her soul, in places that nothing ever touched, what rose, what engulfed, was so swamping, her flesh crawled.
Five days? There was still another two. But she couldn’t stay here.
She was fleeing now. This very night.
* * *
Knowing she might be caught sneaking a horse, and anyway that damned nag would probably give the game away, Kara determined to jump from the window ledge and skirt the exterior castle wall while clinging to it so as not to slip into the black water lapping inches from her toes. It could be done.
It was just that she wasn’t sure how well it could be done, when that crack, the one her ankle gave as she hit the ground, said more than her boot had split. But she couldn’t very well go back. It would mean going through the actual gates. Climbing back up to the window ledge wasn’t an option either.
So long as she could stand and walk sufficiently to hobble away from the castle, nothing else mattered.
The moon was up. The stars shone. No one in his right mind would be out in the glen on a night like this. Easing a breath, she bent down to pick up the sack of provisions she’d filched from the kitchen. So long as she could manage two miles an hour, by the time anyone noticed she’d gone, she’d be safe.
If ever an evening was calculated to tighten nets about her, this was it. In every respect. Her father must just make do with what she had. Naturally she would have to pretend it was more than she did.
The determined scrunch of her footsteps was all that broke the silence, for what might have been the first hour or so. Despite that crack to her ankle, snow-light was easier to walk in than pitch blackness. It hardly mattered that the silence deepened, as the snow began to fall, slowly at first, then gradually blanketing her vision. She plodded on.
She’d thought she could marry Ewen McDunnagh. But it wasn’t just that. She hadn’t missed the way the Wolf’s eyes followed her during that dance. He may not have taken the hall doors off their sockets at the end of it, but she wasn’t going to pretend, something wasn’t right. He didn’t seethe for nothing. Or refrain from acknowledging or speaking to her as he had
If she didn’t dance she ran the risk of infuriating Ewen, of offering great affront, to add to the stack she had already offered. Unwise when the fact of the matter was, she had no idea whatsoever of what was being said in that alcove.
Lord Ewen’s arm said she should take it. A few slow steps with her betrothed. And not just her betrothed. If she was to convince the Wolf, should he be busily telling Archibald she had a son or that Edinburgh would be as surprised as she was to learn she had ever set foot in it, he should be her beloved. It wasn’t as if Ewen was even being unreasonable. He stood a good step away from her, his head politely inclined. Why, he could, as lord of this particular gathering, drag her onto the floor.
Edging the chair back, she rose to her feet. “But of course, my lord.”
For goodness sake, if she could not take his arm, how could she climb into bed with him, as she knew she was going to have to do in a few days time?
Before she could summon an answer to that question, he splayed his clammy fingers against the base of her spine.
Cold gathered, a cold that spread like a masking fog, up her spine, then down again. A horrible bridling panic she could not govern. She wanted to turn on her heel and run.
For God’s sake, it was a few sweeping steps of the floor. She had put certain things behind her, so it distressed her more than she could say, to find specters clung to Ewen McDunnagh. To his hair. To his clothes. That even as she took a step forward, a glide, a turn, she was in that cell. And it was dank and slimy, those walls she’d clung to, looking for protection when there was none.
Her breath shortened. To keep her lips curved was a torture. How was it she had plunged back into that nightmare, where deep in her heart, her soul, in places that nothing ever touched, what rose, what engulfed, was so swamping, her flesh crawled.
Five days? There was still another two. But she couldn’t stay here.
She was fleeing now. This very night.
* * *
Knowing she might be caught sneaking a horse, and anyway that damned nag would probably give the game away, Kara determined to jump from the window ledge and skirt the exterior castle wall while clinging to it so as not to slip into the black water lapping inches from her toes. It could be done.
It was just that she wasn’t sure how well it could be done, when that crack, the one her ankle gave as she hit the ground, said more than her boot had split. But she couldn’t very well go back. It would mean going through the actual gates. Climbing back up to the window ledge wasn’t an option either.
So long as she could stand and walk sufficiently to hobble away from the castle, nothing else mattered.
The moon was up. The stars shone. No one in his right mind would be out in the glen on a night like this. Easing a breath, she bent down to pick up the sack of provisions she’d filched from the kitchen. So long as she could manage two miles an hour, by the time anyone noticed she’d gone, she’d be safe.
If ever an evening was calculated to tighten nets about her, this was it. In every respect. Her father must just make do with what she had. Naturally she would have to pretend it was more than she did.
The determined scrunch of her footsteps was all that broke the silence, for what might have been the first hour or so. Despite that crack to her ankle, snow-light was easier to walk in than pitch blackness. It hardly mattered that the silence deepened, as the snow began to fall, slowly at first, then gradually blanketing her vision. She plodded on.
She’d thought she could marry Ewen McDunnagh. But it wasn’t just that. She hadn’t missed the way the Wolf’s eyes followed her during that dance. He may not have taken the hall doors off their sockets at the end of it, but she wasn’t going to pretend, something wasn’t right. He didn’t seethe for nothing. Or refrain from acknowledging or speaking to her as he had
Similar Books
