Page 45 of Highlander of Steel
“I daenae think either are bonny enough for that gown,” she said, “but there arenae too many fresh flowers to be found in autumn. This is the best I could do.”
Ailis took the smaller bouquet and turned to face the looking glass, nervous to see herself in something so grand. She gasped upon seeing her reflection. Nothing had been done to change her hair or her face, yet it was like looking at a stranger. She couldn’t recognize the woman staring back at her, wild-eyed and clearly terrified.
“See, if it were me wedding to Fraser, when he’s finally free,” Paisley continued, “I’d have a whole bouquet of medicinal plants. Their color doesnae matter so much as their properties, which makes it easier.”
She chuckled, meaning it as a joke, but Ailis could find nothing funny in her reflection.
Suddenly, the ties at the back of her gown were too tight, a crushing weight bearing down on her chest. The dress was too bright, too luxurious, too unlike her. And she must have had some aversion to the flowers, for her throat began to constrict, her eyes watering, her stomach twisting into knots.
Deep down, however, she knew it had nothing to do with what she was wearing or what she was holding, and everything to do with what it all represented: the wedding, Fraser’s freedom, the attack in the woods, the fate of her niece, the fate oftwoclans…
It was all too much, slamming into her at once.
And Killian. Me captor and soon-to-be husband.
He made her feel things that she shouldn’t. He kept turning her mind upside down, her thoughts ricocheting between desire and distaste, yearning for his closeness and desperate to be as far away from him as possible, knowing she should hate him yet feeling quite the opposite.
It was more confusion than one woman could bear. More pressure than one woman could possibly endure.
“I need a moment,” Ailis croaked. “Please… I need a moment.”
She hiked up the velvet skirts of her exquisite gown, bouquet gripped so tight that petals began to fall, and ran.
17
Ailis ran with no thought for her safety or where she was going. She flew through the courtyard like a madwoman, skirts billowing behind her, but there was no one to witness the scene at such a late hour.
No one stopped her as she careened through the gate, the guards above too busy discussing the upcoming festivities to notice that the bride had fled.
She found the steps in the hill that Killian had led her down and descended as fast as her trembling legs would carry her, not sparing a thought for how dangerous it was in the dark. She could easily have fallen and broken her neck, but at that moment, she didn’t care about such things.
Running on, more than she had ever run before, she crashed through shadowed woodland, disturbing the night creatures that were just beginning their day.
A fox darted across her path, but she barely stopped at the sight of it. An owl hooted a warning that she ignored, a hedgehog balled itself into spiny defenses as she narrowly avoided kicking it, and a badger snuffled for its breakfast, unbothered by the sight of a frantic woman.
By moonlight, Ailis found the edge of the cliff. The same spot where she had thought Killian was going to push her.
I cannae do this. I cannae have all this weight on me shoulders. I daenae ken how to carry it.
She bent at the waist, gulping in the air.
The night was cold, her breath pluming, but her body was fever hot. Whether as a consequence of the run or her mounting fear of what was to come, she didn’t know, but she burned as if she had taken ill.
Sweat slicked her brow, beads of it trickling down the sides of her face and down the back of her neck. And the beautiful gown clung to her uncomfortably, sticking in all the wrong places.
The sea…
Through blurry eyes, she peered down at the winking expanse, somehow inviting beneath the silvery moonlight. She remembered the bone-deep cold of the water during her lesson with Killian and how it had chased away all other thoughts.Thatwas exactly what she needed, to shock herself into a sense of calm, however temporary.
With a shaky breath, she wrapped her skirts around her thighs and tied them until they resembled a pair of short trews, and headed down to the cove.
And when she reached the bottom, she kicked off her shoes, peeled away her stockings, and strode across the cold sand to the water. The initial shock of it was a lightning bolt through her entire body.
As she waded in deeper, determined to be entirely numb, she felt her mind being blissfully disconnected from everything else, blown out like a candle until there was only the cold and the dark to think about.
“What do ye mean, she’s nae in her chambers?” Killian set down his spoon, his appetite vanishing.
The maid bowed her head, fidgeting. “She… said she needed a moment, me Laird, but she didnae come back.” She cleared her throat. “Paisley is out lookin’ for her, and she’s enlisted some of the guards, but nay one can find her yet.”
