Page 3 of Claimed By a Ruthless Scot
She forced herself not to step back.
“I have nae agreed tae anything,” she said, and though her voice trembled, the words were clear.
Neither man appeared troubled by them.
MacKenzie gave a low, humorless laugh. “That may still be remedied.”
Her father rose at last, to bring the discussion to its conclusion.
“Elaina, ye may leave us.”
Leave, while they finished arranging her life.
The insult of it nearly stole her breath. Yet she understood in that instant that to remain would be no victory. She was not being consulted. She was being dismissed because her usefulness, for the moment, had been achieved.
She turned because she would not let either of them see what it cost her. But as she reached the door, MacKenzie spoke again.
“I trust,” he said, “that once she is me wife, she will learn her place quickly enough.”
Elaina stopped. She did not turn. Her hand closed hard around the latch, and for one wild instant, she imagined throwing open the door and running without coat, without plan, without anything but the desperate need to put walls and distance between herself and that voice.
Instead, she stood very still.
And behind her, after only the briefest pause, she heard her father. “She will dae as she is told.”
That was the moment it ceased to be dread and became certainty. He meant to give her to him. Not perhaps this very hour, not perhaps without terms and formalities and all the outward courtesies by which men disguised their cruelties, but he meant to do it.
Elaina opened the door. No one called her back.
She stepped into the corridor with all the steadiness she could command. She walked because she would not run, not while servants might see and not while she had not yet formed the thought fully enough to survive it. But deep within her, beneath the shock and revulsion and gathering fear, a single truth had already begun to harden into resolve.
If her father meant to hand her to Laird MacKenzie, then she would have to save herself.
CHAPTER ONE
Late August, 1603
Elaina pulled her hood down and walked into the tavern, fully aware that capture or worse might be moments away.
The door shut behind her with a sound far too loud for her liking, and she paused, feeling her heart thudding violently as if every man within might turn at once and know her for what she was: a runaway.
They cannae find me yet.
Still, the thought would not be banished. Her fiancé, Lachlan MacKenzie, was not a man who accepted refusal, and her father was not a man who forgave disobedience. If word of her disappearance had reached them already, then every mile she put between herself and those men might prove useless.
She moved forward at last, with her head lowered and her boots quiet against the worn floor. The tavern smelled of smoke, damp wool, and ale. Laughter rose from one corner, and a low argument from another. It was the sort of place one might pass through unnoticed.
“I am nae going back,” she murmured beneath her breath, gripping the edge of her cloak as though it alone anchored her resolve. “I will nae marry him. I would sooner die.”
The words steadied her, even as her stomach betrayed her with a sharp, traitorous ache.
Hunger, she had learned, was its own kind of danger. One could not think clearly while starving, nor flee effectively while faint. Worse still, hunger made noise, and noise drew attention.
A little food. Then I leave.
She selected a small table near the wall, which was close enough to observe and more importantly, close enough to reach an exit. Then, she sat down with her back half-turned, so no one might easily read her face. Before doing anything else, she lifted her gaze and began to study the room.
She counted men, noted weapons and marked the doors. There were two exits: the main door behind her, and another toward the back, half-obscured by hanging cloth. The barmaid moved with weary efficiency. Most patrons were too occupied with their cups to spare her a glance.
