Page 2 of The Highlander's Auctioned Virgin
It might have been years. She might have settled into her role as the Laird’s wife, but it changed nothing. She was still trapped. A prisoner with nowhere to go.
And it wasn’t like she hadn’t tried. On multiple occasions, she had tried to fetch a horse and escape, but she always came back after either being caught or getting lost on the way.
She started taking off her dress, lifting the hem off her legs first, when she saw it in the pale moonlight—the jagged line that ran across her left shin. Her fingers caressed the scar.
One time, after she got caught trying to escape, Laird MacAdair left a lasting impression on her. She could still remember the way he had screamed at his men to lift her and place her on the table.
“If she moves, yer all dead, ” h e had said to them. S he could almost hear it. The guttural edge that laced his voice as he asked a maid to fetch a long stick. She still remembered how her heart pounded hard against her chest, as they all waited in anticipation. She could not move, could not try to free herself no matter how hard she tried.
She remembered the maids appearing with the sticks and while she tried to block out everything that happened after, she couldn't. It hit her hard, just like the lashes on her back. She remembered crying out, begging him to stop. She remembered him saying this was the only way she could learn and she remembered almost biting her tongue off from the pain she had felt.
Every time she got punished for something, she always looked at her scars with high spirits. It was something Thomas had taught her.
“Whatever he did to ye today,” he had told her one day after seeing her red, swollen cheek, “remember that it could always be worse.”
“It could always be worse,” she had repeated that day.
It had become a mantra for her. A way for her to get through the day without fixating too much on her predicament, becauseit could always be worse.
It also became a sort of code between her, Thomas, and Katherine. Apparently, Katherine had come up with it first. A way for them to tell each other to keep going. To not let the bastard wear them down.
At least she had one thing to be thankful for—she still hadn’t slept with her husband.
The first night he tried to sleep with her, her plan had worked. He had called Katherine, who had informed him that it was true. If she were forced to sleep with him, not only would she not conceive, but the consequences would be catastrophic for him.
So, every other night, Laird MacAdair would send a maid to her room to ask if he could come to her bed, and for the past three years, she had always said no. She was not ready to invite him.
Part of her wondered how much the Laird could take before deciding to fully throw caution to the wind and force her to sleep with him anyway. He might not break today or tomorrow, butone day, her ruse would no longer work, and she would have to face the consequences.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. One she was all too familiar with.
But nae today.
“Who is it?” she called.
“’Tis Jenny, M’Lady,” Jenny’s voice rang out clear and sharp on the other end of the door.
“Ach, nay. Tell him I still am nae ready for him. When I’m ready, I shall invite him meself.”
“’Tis nae about that, M’Lady. Ye need to come with me.”
Elinor moved away from the windowsill. “Why? Did something happen? Is anyone in danger?”
“Ye really need to come.”
Elinor swallowed and walked to the door, a part of her wondering if the dress she wore was decent enough.
She pulled the door open and was almost taken aback by the look of utter alarm on Jenny’s face.
Usually, when the maid came to ask, she was always so reserved and almost nonchalant. It felt different this time.
“Jenny, what is the issue?”
“’Tis the Laird, M’Lady. He’s nae moving.”
“What do ye mean, he’s nae moving?” Elinor asked, her eyebrows knitting in confusion and almost devastating anticipation.
“I went in to draw him a bath this evening and found him on the bed. I tried to wake him, but he wasnae…” Jenny trailed off, the words dying in her throat.
