Page 100 of Captured By the Cruel Highlander
When it came to choosing what she would wear for the day, she chose one of her old dresses. It seemed drab in comparison to the gowns that Adam had bought for her. She looked longingly at the trunk beside the window—she had not had the heart to ask her maids to unpack it.
She would not wear them again—she could not.
As her maids put the finishing touches to her dress and secured her hair in beautiful braids about her head, she looked at her reflection in confusion. To her, she looked incomparablydifferent from the girl who had left the castle for her wedding all that time ago.
She rose, trying to forget the woman she had been amongst the MacNialls, trying to remember who her father and brother would be expecting to see. Her skin and body felt foreign to her, as though she existed outside of herself.
“Laird Wilkinson is having breakfast in the hall, M’Lady. Will ye go down?” one of the maids asked.
Emily nodded eagerly.
She had arrived late the night before, and after a tearful reunion with her brother and father, they had all gone to bed with little discussion of what was to come.
She was not surprised when she opened her bedroom door and found her brother lurking in the corridor, waiting for her.
She grinned at him. “Were ye guardin’ me door against more men who have come to whisk me away?” she asked, amused.
Bruce scoffed, surprising her by enveloping her in a tight hug before stepping back. “I wanted to see ye before ye came down. I wanted to check ye are alright.”
She frowned. “Why would I nae be alright?”
Bruce stared at her in astonishment. “Because ye have been kept by that brute for two weeks. We couldnae even come to help ye because of the state of things here. I couldnae bear not kennin’ what had happened to ye.”
“Thatbrutesent his men to protect ye from Stewart,” Emily insisted.
“Aye, and too late it was, too. If he’d done that sooner, Faither might still have all the fingers on his left hand.”
Emily paused, the guilt rushing through her again as she thought of the stump on her father’s hand.
“That was me fault,” she admitted slowly. “I shouldnae have gone with Adam in the first place. If I had married James, none of this would have happened.”
“Emily, stop talkin’ like that!” Bruce said sternly and stopped in the middle of the corridor. “None of this is yer fault. One man forced ye to marry him against yer will, the other kidnapped ye! What could ye have done?Ishould have stopped MacNiall. I should have killed him where he stood.”
Emily tried to school her features at that awful prospect but was evidently not successful. Bruce watched her carefully, his brows rising as she felt the heat of a blush creep up her cheeks.
“Dinnae tell me ye care for the man now?” he asked disbelievingly. “He kidnapped ye!”
“I ken that. But he isnae as bad as ye think. He took me with him so he could save his sister, but he could also have kept me locked away in a dungeon until the weddin’. Instead, he looked after me. He protected me, Bruce.”
“Protected ye from a dangerhecreated.”
“Stewart would’ve come after me either way. From what I’ve learned of the blaggard, he wouldnae have been content till he’d destroyed everythin’ I love, especially the two of ye. Adam put a stop to that.”
Bruce sighed heavily, rubbing a hand over his forehead. He gave her a sidelong glance and frowned. “Was MacNiall truly kind to ye?”
“He was. He isnae the person ye believe him to be. I was very well looked after at the castle. He has a younger sister who was very kind to me—even his maither was welcomin’.”
They headed down to breakfast, the sound of their footsteps echoing off the stone walls.
“And he let ye go.” Bruce sounded pleased with that. “At least that’s somethin’.”
“Hewantedme to go,” Emily replied angrily. “Adam never wanted a wife, and our marriage was…” She blushed furiously at the idea of telling her brother that her marriage was not consummated. “The marriage wasnae real.”
“But I thought ye said in yer letter that ye were truly married in the end?”
“Well, nae in any sense that matters,” she finished lamely, hoping Bruce would drop the subject.
Thankfully, they reached the bottom of the steps and entered the long dining hall. Emily felt a rush of affection as she saw her father’s familiar figure step through the door at the other end of the room.
