Page 7 of Hold Fast

Una whirled around to face him, her black hair like a whip. She was nearly breathless with anger, sharp and glinting like a knife’s edge.

“Och, I did myduty, Da,” she said through clenched teeth. “I tolerated him every night for a year. There was nae bairn, but it was nae because I didnaedo my duty.”

The last words made her feel sick, the anger and hurt roiling around in her belly along with all of those unpleasant memories of laird Malcolm Cameron.

Fergus narrowed his eyes. “You and that healer you were always hanging about—”

“Agatha—”

“I dinnae give a damn what her name was. Nae doubt she taught ye how to be rid of such things as a bairn.”

She felt the tears threatening at the corner of her eyes at the mention of her mentor’s name. Agatha had been such a good friend to her. An old woman when Una had met her as a child, Agatha had died in her sleep a few months prior, and Malcolm had refused her request to attend the burial. What would Agatha say to her now?

“You should have begged him for more time.”

Collecting the ashes into a pail, she said, “I didnae want more time. A year was more than enough time with such a monster.”

Fergus snorted. “He was nae unkind to ye.” It wasn’t a question.

“That all depends on your definition of kindness, I suppose. But I wouldnae consider it kind to keep one’s betrothed as little more than a prisoner, to use and abuse her as he saw fit.”

“Ye belonged to him!” Fergus shouted, pounding a fist on the table.

When she first began training with Blair, he taught her how to breathe into her belly. He’d told her to imagine inhaling all of her anger and frustration and worry with it, mashing them all together with that breath, and then, when she exhaled, forcing them all out.

She took a deep breath now, filling her lungs with as much air as they could hold and imagining the white-hot rage that filled her coming together, warming her chest. She would release it slowly. She would be calm. She would not cry in front of her father.

Instead, she felt her face slide into the blank mask that had always so infuriated Malcolm. He hated when she went vacant in the eyes. Often, he had tried to provoke her into reacting by being more vicious than usual. But she had allowed her brain to go somewhere peaceful, somewhere he could not follow, no matter what he did to her body.

She didn’t leave the room, not really, but she did let her face go slack as she began collecting dirty dishes from the table and stacking them in a basket.

“Una, did you hear me?”

She hadn’t heard the question. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.

“You were his intended. You were nae a prisoner. You signed your mark to that paper. He didnae steal you. He didnae abuse you. I willnae have you speaking such falsehoods!” His voice had risen with every word until he was shouting at the end.

Sometimes Una wondered if she had inherited her father’s temper because she, too, could rise to anger like a flint strike on kindling. She was dangerously close to such a flint strike now. Had she not been taught to breathe, she would have already erupted. She likely would have shouted that she knew a thousand ways to save a man and at least half that many to take him out of this world.

“Did you hear me, Una?” Fergus said, standing now. “I willnae hear you speak false of the laird in my home!”

She should have known better than to expect any sort of sympathy from her father, a man who had been as hard as stone since her mother died. She stood opposite him at the table, her own hands braced on the top as she leaned forward until they were nearly nose to nose. His breath was foul, but she did not flinch.

In a flinty voice, she said, “You cannae govern me any longer.”

“If you mean to remain under my roof, you best believe I can, Una!”

Una straightened and crossed her arms over her chest.

“How fortunate for the both of us then that I willnae be under this roof after tonight. In fact, I doubt you will ever see me again.”

Fergus blinked at her like a startled owl. He opened and closed his mouth several times, always stopping just shy of responding.

“I’ll be leaving at first light,” she said, pulling the washbasin off the hook on the wall and setting it in front of the fireplace, noting the thick dusk that covered it.

“Where?”

“That is nae business of yours, Da.”