Page 44 of Highlander's Runaway Seductress
“If only he would let me speak to him,” Amelie sighed, while feeling a pang of envy go through her while looking at the loving couple. “I want him to understand.”
The loud neigh of a horse had Amelie’s head snapping to the doorway of the inn. Two men, both thick in their chest and bodies, clad in leather and dark green vests came in, their expressions somehow fierce and stoic at the same time.
When one of them landed his eyes on Amelie, she nearly jumped out of her seat. And when he strode to her, with one hand resting on his sheathed sword, she began to tremble.
“Are ye a Miss Amelie?” His dark blue eyes seemed to jab into her while he gruffly asked.
“A-Aye,” she stuttered, with her eyes flicking from him to the soldier who stood at the door. “Why are ye askin’?”
“Laird Dolberry has requested ye come with us. We’re takin’ ye to the castle,” he said strictly.
Snapping her head over to a similarly shocked Ben, Amelie turned back to the soldier. “The Laird has sent for me?”
“Aye.”
Trembling, Amelie stood. “Let me get me things from me room—”
“Those can be sent for later on, Miss,” the soldier stopped her, then looked to Ben, “and only ye can come with us.”
Swallowing over the nervous tremble in her stomach, Amelie nodded, “Ben, would ye—”
“Daenae worry lass,” he nodded. “I’ll tell Damien when he wakes. Go with them. Ye’ll be fine.”
Still wracked with nervousness, Amelie followed the men out of the inn and into a small carriage that lingered at the end of the short footpath. The door had a seal burned into the wood and she assumed that it was the Laird’s crest of arms. One of the soldiers helped her into it and when the door closed, Amelie gripped her skirts with white knuckles.
Never would she have imagined that she would be called for by the Laird so quickly. At best she thought she would have waited a few days to even be considered by him. She shrank away from the window as people stared at the vehicle while it moved through the streets.
Of course, they would stare—this is the Laird’s carriage.
When the carriage trotted across the lowered bridge, Amelie felt her heart lodge itself in her throat. Her breathing was short too, with static breaths when the carriage climbed the hill. The track she had seen from inside the town, that she had assumed to be dirt, was cobblestone. The carriage passed through the second gate and trotted into a large courtyard.
Amelie pressed a hand to her chest and tried to suck in deep breaths to calm her racing heart. When the door was pulled open, and when she was helped out, her eyes ran over the large curtain walls, the battlements, and the enormous set of castle doors ahead of her.
“Please,” the guard nodded to the door and she began to walk to it with wooden feet.
The massive oak door was pulled open and she entered a great hall where an enormous iron chandelier hung over head, and a large tapestry of a grim battle scene stopped her in her tracks. A knight sitting on a rearing horse had his sword lifted high, bodies were strewn below the conqueror and discarded weapons lay broken.
“This way, Miss,” a woman said from the grand stairs at the end of the hall. “I’m here to show ye to yer rooms.”
A bit confused, Amelie turned to the guards. “I thought Laird Dolberry wanted to see me.”
“I cannae say, lass,” the man’s mouth twisted. “He only instructed us to bring ye to him. What comes after that, is only for me Laird to say. Please go with Hana.”
Deeply discomfited, Amelie went to the lady and followed her up the stairwell. Hana opened a room door and when Amelie went in her throat closed tight. If the room back at the inn had been lovely, this chamber was fit for a queen.
The room was oddly made, a nook was at a corner of it, big enough to hold a bed twice as large as the one back at the inn. The wall of the nook held a marble fireplace and the rest of the room had furniture of the likes she had never seen before.
A large glass mirror rimmed with brass—or was it made of aged gold— stood aside a large standing cupboard. A padded chair was behind a desk and to the other side was a large daybed. A thick carpet covered half the floor and to set of trunks that were stacked in the back.
Turning, Amelie could barely speak her next words. “T-Thank ye. Tell his Lairdship me thanks as well.”
“I will relay your message, Miss,” Hana said. “A meal will be sent up soon.”
Before Hana left, Amelie asked, “Do ye ken when I’ll be able to see the Laird?”
Slowly shaking her head, Hana replied. “I cannae tell ye, Miss. That’s up to him.”
When the door closed, Amelie dared to explore the room, standing first before a mirror that showed her reflection without the amber tint of copper or the distortion of water. Her eyes were a strange shade of green and gold, while her hair had light brown streaks than she had seen before.
