Page 54 of The Highlander's Auctioned Virgin
Ciaran shook his head and followed right behind her.
The road back to the castle felt longer for some reason. Denser winds blew across the courtyard, and he knew if he spent more time out there, he would likely freeze to death. So he followed her, their footsteps echoing in the dark night.
Elinor stepped into the castle first, and he walked in right after, tailing her and inadvertently counting her footsteps even though he did not mean to.
She led him up two flights of stairs. The air was better above. It always had been; Ciaran should have known that.
Elinor should not need to come out of the castle for fresh air. She could get as much as she wanted by her window or on the little terrace a few stairs ahead. Whatever was bothering her had driven her to leave the confines of the castle.
“Ye have all the air ye want up here. Why bother coming down in the first place? ‘Tis such a long journey, too.”
“Well…” Elinor rounded a sharp bend in the passageway, and Ciaran did the same. “Sometimes I like to remind meself that I am free now. That I can go anywhere I want instead of being holed up in me room all day like before.”
“Before,” Ciaran repeated, testing out the word. “Does this have anything to do with what Jackson told me? The shock from yer previous marriage and how I may overwhelm ye?”
They stopped before a door.
Elinor turned to him. “Perhaps.”
She pushed the door open. It gave way with a low creak, and she stepped inside. Ciaran followed, the smell of damp walls suddenly replaced by the smell of papers and books that had not been opened in quite a while.
The room seemed to stretch out for almost a mile. He couldn’t see the dark end of it, but he could see the dusty books on shelves that lined the walls. Three candles flickered from separate corners of the room, and one stood a little close to the desk that Elinor made her way to.
Parchment and scrolls were scattered across the desk, and the sight of them alone made his nostrils flare. Elinor settled behind the desk and braced her knuckles on the stack of parchment.
“This study used to be reserved for me previous husband. Nay one could walk in here. Nae even the maids could come in to clean it,” she explained.
Ciaran watched her rifle through the papers before pulling out another big scroll of parchment. He knew what it was—a map of the Highlands.
“He was an avid keeper of maps,” Elinor continued.
She spread out the paper on the desk, but Ciaran continued studying her. She had this sadness on her face that seemed to grow every time she talked about her husband. At first, he had thought it was a coincidence, but after witnessing it over and over, he now knew for certain that it wasn’t.
“I reckoned since none of us can sleep, we can begin discussing the relocation of yer people.”
She grabbed a short stick that had been sharpened well enough for pointing and threw it at him. He caught it with ease, and she pulled out another one.
“What about this area?” she asked, pointing to a path by one of the largest rivers in the Highlands. “Last I heard, it was still unoccupied. It has water and the best shield for sunlight, should ye want it.”
Ciaran eyed the map for a moment. “It would have been the perfect spot if nae for the river.” He dragged his stick alongthe river. “See how the water flows to a larger river. That will pose a problem in the future once the clan begins to grow. This is merely a short-term solution, and that is what I have been operating on for the past few months. I need something more permanent, if ye daenae mind.”
He dragged his stick from the river to a spot that seemed to be a stretch of land with no borders.
“What about this?” he asked. “The land looks solid enough, and the river doesnae look too far, at least if the scale is accurate. There’s also a castle just a few miles ahead of us. That would make for a good community, would it nae?”
Elinor laughed. “That isnae just any castle. That is MacDaniel Castle. I hear that Laird MacDaniel is as dangerous as they come. He hates anything that remotely looks like a challenge to his power. Settling in this piece of land would look like a threat. He probably would issue a warning if it were any other clan, but the Hound’s clan? He would send his men in the middle of the night. Ye may survive an attack, but will yer people?”
Ciaran sighed. “So that is out of the question as well.”
“Believe me, I ken a few things about men in power. Murdock was one, and I witnessed how violent he got when he felt that his power was being challenged.”
Ciaran tore his eyes away from the map and looked at her. “What happened? In yer marriage with him, I mean.”
Elinor laughed, but he could see it again, even though she was trying to hide it—the sadness that hung over her like a dark cloud.
“I daenae ken if I would call it a marriage. It was more like a kidnapping. Murdock snatched me from me home a little over three years ago. Brought me here just for the sole purpose of producing an heir. And he wanted the most fertile lass, of course. Everyone had heard of our ‘blessing.’ I tried to escape once and he almost killed me. So I decided to stay put. It was better to stay alive and wait out the days than die while trying to escape at every given opportunity.”
Ciaran shuffled his feet. He could feel heat simmering in his blood.
