Page 67 of Married to the Ruthless Highlander
The man hurried to his Laird, bowing his head. “Aye, M’Laird.”
“Tell Ersie that I’ll be away from the castle for a while,” Doughall said, his gaze trained on his betrothed.
Freya had made it to the gates, and though Doughall waited for his guards to prevent her from leaving, the stream of bodies in and out made it easy for her to sneak through undetected. The early festivities were drawing people from the village, while others from the castle were going to visit friends and family. Freya could not have picked a better time to escape.
I’ll admonish every last one in the trainin’ yard, but that’ll have to wait.
“Leavin’ the castle?” Calston stared at him, wide-eyed. “But… what about the weddin’?”
Doughall leveled the man with a sharp look. “I wouldnae miss it.”
Grabbing his cloak from the battlement wall, he threw it around his shoulders, slung his bow over his head, and took off in pursuit of his fleeing bride.
He wished he could say that he had expected more courage from her, but if she had believed him to be a monster for all these years, capable of killing a man for no reason at all, then perhaps it was not so surprising that she had lost her nerve.
Keeping her hood low over her head, her chin to her chest, Freya skirted around the edge of the nearby village. No one paid her any attention at all, too involved in their merrymaking to notice a stranger in their midst.
However, there was a stretch of open grassland between the castle and the forest where she had no choice but to be exposed. The guards up on the castle walls would assuredly see her, but perhaps they would not care about an unknown, cloaked figure now that the threat of Lewis Brown was gone, especially as she was heading in the opposite direction.
Nevertheless, she quickened her pace, walking as fast as she could toward the distant shadows of the trees.
This must be beautiful in the summer…
Her fingertips grazed the long, bare stalks that unmistakably belonged to wildflowers. The entire span of grassland would bebursting with them when the season warmed. The thought of so much color and life chased away a sliver of her unease about the wedding.
Even if her marriage ended up being a lonely, dull thing, there would still be beauty in the world for her to admire and enjoy. She would just have to become more determined to find it.
With a spring in her step, she hurried to the forest, following the faintest semblance of a path through the ancient oaks, slender silver birches, and berry-laden rowan trees. It was not yet truly dark, dusky twilight offering a bluish light that easily pierced through the thinning canopy.
Crispy leaves crunched underfoot, the sound adding another layer of unexpected joy to Freya’s progress.
I should’ve done this sooner—sneakin’ away to do as I please, with nay one stoppin’ me.
It was not entirely lost on her that that was the reason she was in this situation in the first place, but this was a different kind of sovereignty.
At last, she glimpsed the loch, so beautiful in the ethereal glow of dusk. The clear sky overhead would soon be filled with starlight, and the gibbous moon would cast the full strength of its silver illumination on the water.
Freya could not wait, a naughty thrill coursing through her. Back at MacNiall Castle, she swam when she could, usually when the weather was fine and she had someone to escort her and watch from the shore, but she had never gone swimming at night before.
I wish Doughall was here.
“Nay, I dinnae,” she replied to her foolish thoughts, shedding her cloak and then her dress, before placing them on a larger rock nearby.
There, she hesitated. She could swim well enough in her undergarments, but the tranquility of the loch and the rustle of the lingering autumnal leaves whispered,Ye are alone. Why restrict yerself?
Biting her lip and glancing around, just to be entirely sure there was no one watching, she awkwardly unfastened the laces of her stays and let them drop. Next, she pushed her drawers down her legs and stood there for a moment, entirely naked, letting the chilly breeze wash over her.
It was exhilarating, caressing away the majority of her troubles. Surrounded by so much beauty, how could she possibly worry about tomorrow?
Taking off her spectacles and setting them on top of her clothes, she picked her way across the uneven shingles and braced herself for the biting cold of the water. The first touch of the shallows against her feet made her gasp, but she would not backdown, wading deeper and deeper until the water was chest-deep, the freezing temperature of the loch stealing her breath away.
“Put yer head under first. It’ll nae feel so cold once ye’ve done that.”
Laura had told her that years ago, and she had never forgotten it.
Sucking in a deep breath, she rallied her courage and dove underneath the water.
All was silent beneath the surface, her arms swinging in two arcs, her legs kicking to push her further through the water. Nothing else mattered, the world above fading into irrelevance, the cold and the lack of air forcing her to focus solely on the movement of her limbs and the glide of the water over her bare skin.
