Page 17 of The Beast's Bride
Anxiety curled in the pit of Rhona’s belly. Once Caitrin returned to Duntulm, she would be alone again with Baltair MacDonald.
“Please send word when ye reach Duntulm,” Rhona urged, her voice low. “Let me know that ye have arrived safely, and that ye are well.”
Caitrin favored her with a soft smile before nodding. “I’ll write ye a letter, after we arrive.”
Rhona swallowed an avalanche of things she longed to say. She wanted to urge Caitrin to be honest with her. She wanted to reveal Baltair’s true nature publicly, right now. Here, with her father and his retainers looking on.
Malcolm had come out with Una to see his daughter off. Surely, he’d show pity if he saw Caitrin distressed, in fear for her safety. He couldn’t be so hard-hearted?
But Rhona knew the truth of it in the depths of her heart. Baltair was Caitrin’s lawful husband; she was no longer a MacLeod. She belonged body and soul to another man.
Rhona released her sister’s hand and let her own fall to her side. She then curled her fingers into a fist, her nails cutting into her palms. Panic assailed her as she imagined herself in Caitrin’s place, forced to obey a man like Baltair MacDonald.
I don’t want that. I’ll not be owned by a man.
“Travel well, sister.” Adaira had appeared at Rhona’s shoulder. She reached out and clasped Caitrin’s hands with hers. “Come back to see us soon.”
“I will,” Caitrin assured her. “As soon as I’m strong enough and Eoghan has grown a little, I’ll visit.”
This comment earned Caitrin a warning glance from her husband. Holding Baltair’s gaze, Caitrin’s features tightened. She then looked down to where her son nestled in her arms. “I'll come as soon as I'm able,” she promised softly.
With a sinking heart, Rhona wondered when she’d actually see her sister again.
“Come, wife.” Baltair’s voice lashed across the courtyard. “Enough prattling with yer sisters. We've got a full day's journey ahead of us.”
Linking her arm through her younger sister’s, Rhona guided Adaira back to the foot of the steps, where their father, step-mother, and a few retainers waited. There, they watched Baltair kick his stallion into a brisk trot, leading the way out through the Sea-gate and down the narrow causeway that wound down to the shore.
As the cart bearing Caitrin disappeared from view, Adaira gave Rhona’s arm a gentle squeeze.
Rhona reached for her sister’s hand and wordlessly squeezed back. She didn’t trust herself to speak right now, didn’t trust herself not to say things her father would punish her for. He and Una were within earshot.
Heaving a deep breath, Rhona sought to control her urge to rage. Instead, she stared at the point where Caitrin had disappeared.
Caged.She felt trapped by the stone walls of this keep, by the wishes of her overbearing father.
She could now count the days till the games on both hands. Day by day, the cage was growing smaller, the walls closing in.
She couldn’t go through with this—could not passively wait for her fate. She wouldn’t end up like Caitrin.
Chapter Eight
A Ready Excuse
RHONA KNEW SHE had to act quickly. With the games looming, she had to flee Dunvegan and the Isle of Skye, if she was to have any chance of escaping an unwanted marriage.
She pondered her decision for a full day after Caitrin’s departure. Alone in the gardens behind the keep, she circled the beds of roses and the long avenues of lavender and rosemary, oblivious to her surroundings as she planned.
Her mother wasn’t from this isle. Martha MacLeod had hailed from the mainland, from Argyle. Rhona’s mother had spoken often of her home, of Gylen Castle, where her brother, Rhona’s uncle, still lived now. She’d loved Gylen and had wanted to return there, one last time. Cruelly, death had come for her too swiftly.
Rhona would go there.
Her uncle still ruled Gylen, and she had a number of cousins there too. Some of them had visited over the years, and she remembered them as warm, kind folk. Rhona would find a way across the water and head south into Argyle, where she’d throw herself at their sympathies. She could instead find herself a nunnery on the mainland and take the veil, but that plan didn’t appeal much. Rhona knew she didn’t have the right temperament to become a nun. She was too impatient, too willful. However, if her uncle didn’t welcome her, she’d have to resort to that.
The idea didn’t thrill her, but at least it would beherchoice.
The destination decided, Rhona then set about plotting how she would reach it. She would go out on a ride or a hunt and at the first opportunity slip away. Then she would ride south, to the southern village of Kyleakin, the point nearest the mainland. She had coin, a small bag of silver pennies that she had squirreled away over the years. Her father and kin had given her pennies on birthdays or at Yuletide, and whereas Caitrin and Adaira spent theirs on pretty shawls and kirtles at market, Rhona had saved hers.
It was almost as if she’d known this day would come.
