Page 61 of Her Highlander's Darkest Temptation
“Because she needed protection an’ she found her way here.” Donall glared at the elder. “I took on a responsibility o’ honor, an’ I willnae fail it.”
“Me laird…”
“Lydia Wycliffe has sanctuary here. That’s all I wanted tae say.” Donall leveled a glare at the assembled Council, then turned and left the chamber, leaving the angry muttering behind him. He wanted to seek Lydia out, but he already knew that she was assisting Evelyn with making remedies for the villagers.
Instead, he went to do some light physical exercise. He’d been working cautiously to regain the strength and coordination that his injury had dulled, and now it felt more important than ever, now that he had something he needed and wanted to protect, even if he struggled to admit it to himself.
He worked through sword drills until his muscles were pleasantly aching and his chest was burning. Afterward, he bathed and applied the salve Evelyn had given him to his wound, then dressed in clean garments and retired to his study to work on the business that still remained after his brief incapacitation.
After supper, he retired to his room, but restlessness and the reminders of several nights of unbroken slumber drove him from his chambers once again. Donall considered, then made his way to the library, in hopes that Lydia might be there.
The library was empty when he arrived, and Donall stifled a stab of disappointment. For a moment, he considered leaving, but then he made his way to the shelves and retrieved a book of poetry from among the collected works. Poetry was not his favorite subject, but perhaps reading it would pass the time, and allow him some rest - or at least serve as a distraction until Lydia arrived or the sun came up, whichever might happen first.
His mind soon fell into the rhythm of the words, the cadence of the sentences filling his thoughts like a sort of music. Gradually, he began to relax into the chair until he slipped into slumber.
Lydia had intended to leave when she saw Donall sitting in the chair. She hadn’t wanted to disturb him. Then she’d heard him moan, a low sound that might have been a word slipping from his lips as he shifted in his seat, his face taut with unhappy dreams. Seeing that, Lydia knew she could not leave him suffering from his nightmares.
She shook him lightly, calling his name, and Donall opened his eyes with a gasp, like a man surfacing from under water. He blinked at her once, then twice, and finally seemed to recognize her. “Lydia?”
“Aye.” Lydia hesitated a moment, then settled carefully in the chair across from him. “I apologize if I disturbed you…”
“Ye didnae… or rather ‘twas better good ye woke me.” Donall scrubbed a hand over his face, his gaze fastened on the fire. His eyes were haunted, and Lydia wondered if his refusal to look at her was a simple habit, or if he was ashamed that she’d seen him so vulnerable, yet again.
She considered the matter carefully, then began to speak, her voice soft and low. “When I was sixteen, that was the first time my uncle tried to marry me off to someone for an alliance, for the prospects the marriage would offer him. He said he would have tried earlier, but a beautiful woman was a much greater prize than a pretty child.”
Her stomach still turned, recalling that drunken confession from her uncle, about how he’d have sold her as a brood mare if she’d been plainer, but he’d known even when she was young that she would grow into a lovely woman - ‘a jewel ripe to be sold to the highest bidder’ as he had said.
“But ye didnae marry then.”
“Nay. The laird he intended to bargain me to was a gambler, and lost his fortune and his allies in a stroke of bad luck. My uncle broke the contract as soon as he heard. He did not wish to sell his prize for a pittance to a man who was little more than a beggar.” Lydia swallowed. At the time, all she had cared for was the fact that she had managed to escape a terrible fate.
“An’ he didnae try again until now?”
“He did. Elswith and I managed to dissuade two suitors with well-placed rumors in the ears of their servants. There were others, who represented themselves falsely or who failed to meet what my uncle considered their obligations. There was one from whom Elswith engaged market beggars to steal his coin and the contract when he came to pay the bride price, and uncle threw him out on his ear for not being able to defend his belongings from a pack of street curs, or so he said.”
Donall’s lip curled. “He sounds like a grand compassionate man, yer uncle.”
Lydia shivered, feeling cold despite the hearth in the fire. “With every broken contract, I counted myself fortunate. Yet, I alwaysknew that someday, my uncle would choose a man I could not dissuade, a man who would not fail to meet my uncle’s demands. And I knew, in my heart, that it would be a man as bad or worse than my uncle who claimed me.”
“An’ what did ye dae?”
Lydia let a bitter smile twist her lips as self-disgust flowed over her like a mudslide, thick and suffocating. “I dreamed of defying him - of refusing all contracts and claiming my father’s estate as my own. I dreamed of appealing to the king to stand on my own. But in the end… all I could do was run away and hope not to be caught.”
It still burned shamefully in her gut - how she had failed to secure her own inheritance. In the end, she had been too afraid, too certain of her uncle’s favor with the royal court, to dare to oppose him. After all, she was young, and a female. She had little schooling or skill in the dance of politics and favors, and even less to bargain with. Who would have listened to her, or cared at all for her plight?
No one, she was certain of that.
“I ran.” She repeated the words. “I ran away, clung to the first person I could find for shelter, and lied to hide myself. And for that, I am ashamed. Ashamed I could not defend myself, or stand up for what was mine, or for the freedom I desired.”
The words fell into a pool of silence. Then, to her surprise, Donall spoke. “Sometimes runnin’ is the best option. ‘Tis one I wish I’d had, an’ more than once in me life.”
Lydia blinked. “I do not… you are strong…”
“Nae strong enough tae stand up tae me faither, bastard that he was. Nae strong enough tae defend me sister… or tae let her go when I kent she was happy with someone other than me. Nae strong enough tae keep me pride when I was in the king’s gaol, or tae choose anything other than the life I kent when I was released.” Donall turned his head, and Lydia’s breath stuttered in her throat as she beheld the turmoil in the depths of his evergreen eyes. “So many times… I wish I could have run. Run from me faither, from me anger, from the gaolers who…” He shook his head and banished the words. “I’d have given anything tae be able tae run, but there was naewhere tae run tae.”
What would it have been like, to be condemned to a life of hardship, without even the ability to escape? Lydia’s heart ached at the thought of it, even as her stomach churned with the knowledge of how close she had come to sharing such a fate.
If Elswith had not helped me, or if I had been captured that day on the road… I might have become the bride of a monster, and who knows if I would have lived a fortnight past being given over to him?
