Page 4 of How to Heal a Highland Heart
Two
“My lady, are these the gowns ye desire?”
Patience Kincaide looked up from the trunk she’d been delving through. Jane, her new lady’s maid for the last sennight—appointed to Patience by her late husband’s sister—stood partially in the doorway. With one foot in the bedchamber and one foot out, Jane looked ready to flee should the need arise. Patience’s stomach sank. Apparently, Jane had finally heard the rumors that Patience was a witch, and from the looks of her, she believed the unfounded nonsense, just like everyone else.
Jane looked positively petrified, as if Patience might cast a deadly spell upon her. Patience had half a mind to pretend to do just that to spite the woman, but that would not help anything. Instead, she swallowed past a lump of aching loneliness. She was a fool. She should have known, though Jane was new to working in the castle herself, it would not take long for her to be brought into the fold of the others, a group Patience had never belonged to. Yet Patience had not known or she had simply ignored her reality. She had hoped, since Jane had not long ago wed into the Kincaide clan, and had not formed any close friendships with the other Kincaide women, that she and Jane would bond, and then the rumors would not matter to the woman.
Patience slid her teeth back and forth, trying to ignore the emptiness filling her chest. Somehow, it was even more hurtful that Jane, who had come to the castle from the isolated job of tending the sheep with her reclusive husband, was now aligned against Patience. They had been fellow outsiders here at Crag Donnon Castle, even if Patience had been the only one to see it and recognize it.
Wariness darkened the young woman’s eyes as she waited for Patience to respond. In Jane’s right hand she clutched a red silk gown, tattered not from age but from the violence with which her first husband, Ivan, had ripped it from Patience’s body. Jane gripped a black gown in her other hand. It, however, was pristine. A different viciousness had dwelled in her second husband, Silas. He had used words and games to cruelly control her, but mercifully, he’d finally gotten the death he deserved, but the damage he’d inflicted was seared upon her soul and marked upon her skin.
What if she had fled her father and Silas instead of submitting to the wedding? No, that had not been an option. Still… Where would she be now? Would she be so pathetic? Would she be alive? Would she be so alone? She inhaled a sharp breath. She hated when her mind played the “if only” game, yet she could not help herself as memories flooded her. Her father’s face, twisting with rage, infuriated beyond words, because she had dared to say again that she did not want to wed Silas. The slap, right before he’d shoved Patience at her second evil husband-to-be. That hit had been very loud and very clear.Do or die.
That was always his threat:Do or die.Some days she wished to God she would just choose to die. But she couldn’t. Her father had threatened to punish her younger brother, Duff, if she did not do as he bade, and she didn’t doubt that he meant it. In her mind, she could see the nasty scar that made a jagged path down her brother’s right cheek, which he’d received from their father for siding with her when she’d first refused to wed a second time.
Duff had vowed to her in secrecy after her second wedding, before Silas had taken her from her home, that if it came to a third wedding he would stop Father. Was he out there now trying to do that somehow? She wanted to hope, yet hope had been no friend of hers.
“My lady?”
Patience blinked. Did Duff even know a third forced marriage for her was on the horizon?
Dunnae hope. Dunnae do it.A pressure built to near unbearable in her chest. Blasted, foolish hope—it kept her alive while breaking her heart.
God, oh dear, merciful, possibly deaf God. Please let Duff appear before the newest man comes to wed me.
This husband might be her last. The Savage Slayer—that was what her father, the laird of the Bullard clan, had said her new betrothed was called. Father had not written of when she’d be collected, nor had he made any mention in his missive of when he would see her. It seemed she was to be wed to a stranger, surrounded by nothing but strangers, feeling very much like she always had, utterly alone. Suddenly, she felt the need to sit, or crumble, into a ball on the floor and cry.
“Lady Kincaide?” Jane asked. “The gowns?”
Pushing her pity and hope away, Patience asked, “Where did ye find them?” She shoved a pile of discarded ones out of the way so she could stand without slipping.
“Oddest thing,” Jane said. “They were stuffed under the bed in Laird Kincaide’s chamber.”
Ah, yes. Patience had forgotten to retrieve them from Silas’s room after the last time he had played one of his games. That one had been called “Strip the Whore Bride.” And he had. Of her pride. He’d made her don each gown and he would slowly take it off while telling her all her faults. She knew every flaw her body and character possessed, according to her late husband, from her dull wit and duller dark hair, to her odd second toes that were longer than her first.
Reflexively, she curled her toes in her slippers. “Burn them.”
Jane gasped, and looked as if Patience had just recited a dangerous spell. “But my lady—”
Something in Patience snapped, and she stalked toward Jane, accidentally bumping a table balancing a full wine goblet. Patience detested wine. Jane had brought it to her daily, but Patience never drank it. Jane’s gesture of kindness in bringing Patience the wine was the first anyone in this castle had ever shown her, so she did not refuse the woman’s kindness. Instead, she simply let it sit, assuming Jane might eventually take note and no longer bring it. The goblet clattered to the floor, the red liquid flowing onto the dark wood.
“I’ll go fetch something to clean the mess,” Jane said, giving Patience a fearful look that she’d seen all too often in the eyes of other Kincaides. It was entirely too bad that she was not truly a witch. Or perhaps it was good, because in this moment, had she possessed powers, Jane would be croaking at her.
“Dunnae bother,” Patience said, skittering around the wine to retrieve the gowns from Jane. Her life was a much bigger mess than that wine.
Jane stumbled backward, crossing herself. “My lady, please—”
“Oh, do hush,” Patience said, taking the gowns.
Patience had no control over any part of her life, but shecouldcontrol what happened to these horrid gowns. She would burn them.
Her eyes met Jane’s. Curiosity and a hefty dose of fear gleamed in the woman’s gaze. And was that a sliver of pity? Had Jane also heard the names they called Patience? Likely. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t hurt her any longer.
She stiffened her spine. “Please put away the remaining things.”
When Jane did not move, Patience tensed, expecting that the woman had decided she did not have to do Patience’s bidding any longer. No one else did; Silas had seen to that.
Jane looked down at the pile of linens and silks. “Aye, my lady.”
