Page 2 of The Highlander’s Defiant Bride

“Given your circumstances,” Sorcha replied with sympathy, “you do too.”

“It is not as bad as you might have heard.”

Sorcha’s smile slipped as her gaze darted about the chamber that had once been filled with a divan, four chairs, several tables, sculptures, paintings, and tapestries.

“Who needs furnishings?” Destiny grasped Sorcha’s hand and led her to the open space near the window. She kicked off her shoes and sat on the carpet she had not been able to part with. Sorcha followed suit, and as they had in the past, they curled their legs beneath them in easy camaraderie and talked about the past—shooting arrows at trees, running though the moorland in their bare feet, and swimming in the lochs in nothing but their chemises. They had enjoyed their freedom with relatively little supervision by either their parents or Sorcha’s siblings.

After an hour had passed, the conversation took a more sombre tone. “Do you think either one of us will ever find bigger lives than those we have now?”

“You mean marriage?” Sorcha asked, her smile fading.

“Not necessarily. I am content here with Father. But I would like to travel, to see more than the hills and valleys of Caithness, should our finances ever allow.”

Sympathy reflected in Sorcha’s eyes. “Where would you go?”

Destiny shrugged. “Perhaps Edinburgh?”

Sorcha laughed. “Forgive me, but with a name like yours, Destiny, you should set your sights much higher than that. How about Constantinople, Paris, Cairo, even London?”

Destiny smiled, fuelled by her friend’s aspirations. “They all sound wonderful.” But with a quick glance at the empty chamber in which they sat, her smile vanished. “’Tis a dream, and most likely to stay as such, given our present circumstances.”

Sorcha took Destiny’s cold hands in her own warmer ones. “How about this? Let us change our clothes and go outside and shoot arrows at trees again, like we used to. That is bound to cheer you up.”

Destiny’s eyes widened. “How long can you stay?”

“My brother will not return for me for the next two days.” She looked at Destiny with a hopeful gaze. “I hope it was all right that I made the assumption I was welcome.”

“Of course you are welcome. Always.” Destiny’s heart lightened. “Let us go change.”

As they rose, the door of the drawing room opened, and the maid entered and bobbed another awkward courtesy. “Forgive me, milady. Yer father just returned, and he wants tae see ye in his study.”

A spurt of dread knotted Destiny’s hands at her sides. Whenever her father requested her presence, it was never about anything good. He had obviously noticed their lack of furnishings. Would he be pleased or irate? Or had something else happened while her father had been away?

“I will return shortly,” she said to Sorcha as she put her shoes back on, then headed up the stairs leading to her father’s study. There was no time to change her dusty skirts. When her father wanted to see her, he meant at that very moment. The man was never good at waiting for anything, which was probably why they were in the financial trouble they were in as of late.

At the doorway of his study, Destiny paused, swallowing back a moment’s fear. What could he possibly tell her that she had not already imagined in the darkness of night as she waited for sleep to claim her? Or, had their fortunes somehow reversed?

Her father bent over his ledger, his shoulders hunched, the firelight carving harsh lines into a figure that once seemed invincible. The door creaked beneath her hand, and for a moment she thought he might look up and smile, the way he had when she was younger.

He did not.

The scratching of his quill continued, relentless, as if the numbers before him mattered more than the daughter standing framed by the hall’s pale light. She had the absurd thought that she looked like an accusation cast in flesh and bone, and it made her hesitate.

“Sit down, daughter,” he said at last, without lifting his gaze.

His voice had the brittle ring of authority he used when he wanted to remind the world, and himself, that he, Alexander Gunn, was still chieftain here. Destiny obeyed at once, smoothing her skirts as she lowered herself into the chair opposite his desk. She folded her hands in her lap, careful, as she had learned to be. She caught the briefest flicker of something in the pale-blue depths of his eyes when he finally glanced at her. It was fatigue, perhaps, or regret, but it vanished before she could be certain.

“You sound so serious, Father,” she ventured softly. “What is it? What is wrong? If it is the furnishings—” She hesitated, then added, “Look inside the wooden box to your right.”

His frown was immediate, sharp with irritation. He dragged the box towards him and lifted the lid. Destiny watched his breath still as silver caught the light, neat stacks of coins gleaming like something holy.

“I told you not to meddle in my accounts,” he said, his voice roughening.

Her heart stumbled. “I had to,” she said quickly before he could close the box again. “You would not let me help, and it was clear we were in trouble. I sold what we could spare. Only what we no longer needed.”

She heard the tremor in her voice and hated it. She waited for anger, for relief, perhaps even gratitude.

The lid snapped shut.