She needed to find another place of refuge. Somewhere she wouldn’t be expected to go.
Thoughts of her younger sister came to mind, but she pushed them away. Her relationship with Kenna had always been strained. Her father and stepmother had been a constant wedge between them, saying things to make sure Kenna felt like she had less worth because, to their standards, she wasn’t as pretty as Marian.
After their mother died, Marian had been raised for one purpose only, and that was to be wed to an English nobleman. Every moment of her youth had been spent primping and practicing for her debut at London court. Her Scottish tongue had been twisted until she was able to form her words with the correct English flair.
She’d done everything that was expected of her. Forgone the fun her younger sister and brother seemed to have running wild in the Highlands with nothing but mischief on their minds.
Yet, despite being the well-trained, obedient daughter, she’d been tricked into this nightmare of a life with a man who’d despised her very existence.
A man she’d killed.
The thought fired her into action.
If she wanted to live she needed to flee London, and the only place she knew was Scotland. She’d head for the border and figure out the rest if she made it that far.
Now that she was free of the horror her marriage had been, she wanted to find a safe place to live where no man would ever have control over her again.
…
Cameron MacKinlay heaved another large rock into the cart, making the horse snort and shy. Letting out a breath, he frowned at the blisters across his palms and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Damn, Lachlan.” Cam shook his head and picked up the shovel to loosen the next rock so it could be loaded.
Despite the cursing, it was his own fault he was loading rocks. If he’d not refused to follow his laird’s orders, he would be back at Dunardry Castle sitting down at the midday meal. Instead, he had hard bannocks and ale to look forward to.
Still, he’d rather face hard labor and poor fare than be forced into marriage merely to satisfy a clan alliance. Aye, it was done all the time in the Highlands. In fact, Lachlan himself had married his wife, Kenna, because of such a thing. But Cam didn’t want to marry.
War chiefs did not always come home to their families after battle. He knew it well enough. When he was nine, his own father—the war chief of Clan MacKinlay at the time—had not come home.
His father had been a good man, but duty called for him to take risks. He’d been a war chief first and foremost, a husband and father second. As his position demanded.
Now Cam was in that same position, and he didn’t want to see the worry in a woman’s eyes, as he had his mother’s. He didn’t want to abandon a family if death claimed him.
When he became the war chief of Clan MacKinlay at the age of nineteen, he’d made that solemn vow. Having a family would make him weak, causing him to delay when forced to take risks, and the entire clan could be put in danger because of it.
Lachlan knew how Cam felt, yet he had still ordered Cam to marry the McCurdy lass. It was true, such an alliance with the McCurdy clan would mean access to the sea and what lay beyond for his clan. But he just couldn’t do it.
He’d rather face his punishment in the fields collecting rocks.
Besides, even if he were of a mind to marry, he’d not risk such an alliance unless he was very certain it would result in his clan having access to the sea. Marrying into the McCurdy clan was no guarantee of that. The word of a McCurdy was not something Cam would ever put his life on.
He’d much rather take what they wanted from the other clan by force. Dougal McCurdy couldn’t be trusted. Cam felt the relationship between the clans was far too strained to build a reliable alliance. Lach didn’t agree. Thus the impasse.
So, instead of being at the castle training his warriors for a takeover that would grant the MacKinlays access to the port and all trading that came with it, Cam was out here in this desolate field gathering rocks.
As he bent to lift the next stone he caught movement in the trees. A woman bolted out of the forest and ran straight for him, as if he’d wished for a lass and the fairies had delivered her right out of the glen.
“Help me, please,” she rasped, her breathing labored from running. He could barely hear her over the sound of loud barking. Three hounds sprinted from the woods with two horsemen directly behind.
Taking in the woman’s tattered gown and shoeless feet, he would expect her to be a wench from a nearby village, but her speech sounded rich and cultured.
English.
When she reached Cam she didn’t stop. She grabbed hold of him and shimmied up his body as if he were a tree. Her bosom heaved right in his face.
A better man might not have noticed, but Cam was not a better man.
“Help,” she repeated. “Sister. Kenna,” she managed to get out between gasps of air.
Cam hadn’t gotten a good look at her, but she surely didn’t look like Lady Kenna. Kenna’s hair was fiery red and curly, where this lass was golden-haired…under the dirt.
“Hey there,” one of the men on horseback called as they drew up in front of Cam where he held the trembling girl. The hounds continued to bay as they circled him. “Turn the girl over to us and we’ll leave you to your work.”
The man was also English. Some kind of guard, Cam guessed by his dress.
“I’ll do no such thing,” Cam said stiffly. He didn’t like being ordered about by a scrawny Englishman on
