Page 54 of Taming the Scot
And he simply couldn’t let her go.
Bronwen knew well how to stick to the edges of view in the streets, having raced through them before a hundred times. Escaping via the garden gate had been simple. Ignoring the sound of Euan calling her name as he searched the shadowed garden behind her had been harder but necessary.
Hiding from Euan, and anyone else he might send after her, was going to be easier than when she’d escaped from Prince’s henchmen because those aristocratic men didn’t know how to run the thoroughfares like those of lesser classes such as herself. Especially with the sun having finally set, casting the alleyways into deep, cavernous shadows.
Angry, bitter tears stung her eyes as she kept close to the walls and darkened passages. Disappointment tugged at her gut. Mostly at herself for giving him the impression that there could be a future together. She’d gotten too carried away in the moments. Enjoyed too much the forbidden fruit of his affection.
She should have left days ago. Weeks ago. In fact, she should have never come back to Edinburgh. The only thing on her mind right now needed to be her escape route. But of course, everything else was reeling inside her until she wasn’t watching where she was going, darting blindly through the closes.
How could Euan have asked her? How could he have expected her to say “aye?”
To marry him…to be his bride. To be lady to his castle, mother to his children. To be a part of his family. His large and frustratingly wonderful family.
The tears came then in a torrent, and she stopped for a minute, ducking in the doorway in one of the alleys so she could catch her breath and wipe the tears from her eyes that blinded her. Every teardrop she swiped with his handkerchief, which she still clutched, had her recalling when he’d undone his cravat and handed it her garden. How this time he’d had one on hand to give her. How easily he’d cared for her and how she’d thrown it away.
And with good reason.
Her parents’ debts were not a burden she could ever place on him. Nor the stigma of what marrying a woman like her would mean for his sisters. She was rubbish, and she knew it. To bring her into his fold as anything more than the hired help would mean terrible marriages for his sisters and going broke to pay off Prince. And the harm they would inflict. Oh my God, she couldn’t even imagine the danger that would befall them if Prince and his henchmen found out.
What if those ruffians and their boss decided that taking Bronwen and forcing her to do unimaginable things wasn’t enough? What if they wanted Euan’s sisters too?
She couldn’t risk it.
Even if she wanted to be with him so much that it hurt.
Even if every part of her heart screamed for her to turn around, to find him, to toss herself into his arms and say she’d made a mistake. That she wholeheartedly loved him and that she wanted to spend the rest of her days with him. That they could make-believe in the Highlands that no one cared about her past, her bloodline or the shame she’d bring his family when the rest of society found out who she was.
They could pretend that his sisters would forgive her for lying and causing a scandal that would ruin all their marriage prospects.
But that was all fanciful nonsense.
Nay, it was better this way. Better to simply tear herself away from them, allowing them to move on. A clean break now. They could find true happiness without the burden of all the rotten apples she brought with her. Euan could concentrate on what he should have been doing all this time rather than falling in love with her and…God, making her care so much about him, too.
Bronwen dabbed away the last of her tears as a plan formulated in her mind. She’d simply make her way to Leith, beg her cousin for one last act of charity, and then be on her way. Perhaps to London. City life, she knew. It couldn’t be all that different in London than it was in Edinburgh. She had some skills she could put to use there. Singing in a public house, serving ale. She could do well there. Maybe even find a shop to work in as a clerk. She knew her maths and how to keep books.
Best of all, Prince’s thugs wouldn’t think to look for her there.
“What have we got here?” The ominous voice coming out of the darkness, accompanied by a second pair of clomping boots, sent shivers of fear and dread skittering up Bronwen’s spine.
Nay…how?
Two large men stepped in front of her, blocking her exit—the same men she’d been running from the day she’d first visited Emilia at the docks weeks ago. Prince’s henchmen. The T carved into their beards was unmistakable as were the scar and tattoo. How had they found her? They smelled of sour whisky and unwashed bodies. One look about, and she realized she’d somehow gotten very close to Tanner’s Close. Och, but why hadn’t she paid more attention to where she was going rather than the thoughts and feelings tumbling around inside her?
Heaven help me. With her mind a jumble, her feet had taken her on familiar footpaths until she ended up here, right where she’d never wanted to go again? Right into their waiting paws…
“Leave me alone,” she said, straightening and using the same authoritative voice she’d employed with Euan when she first stepped into his house. She tucked his handkerchief into her bodice, wishing she were still wearing her boots inside of these flimsy slippers. She’d stopped carrying her knife when she’d changed clothes, never thinking she’d be in this situation.
What an idiot she’d been. She’d barely escaped from them last time. How would she handle it now?
“Och, lass, but we’ve left ye alone for weeks. Or rather, ye’ve made sure of it. Where have ye been?” The larger of the two cracked his knuckles and then his neck as if he were preparing for a fight that she was certain was coming.
Bronwen ran her tongue over her chipped tooth. Well, she might not have a knife, but she wasn’t going down without inflicting a little bit of pain of her own on these two.
“’Tis none of your business.” She raised her chin and made a move to step around them, but they blocked her path, arms out.
“On the contrary, everything ye do is our business,” said the smaller one. “And it’s a good thing we had wee Angus hanging out at the docks, looking for ye. Took us a while, but then, there ye were. Walking down the gangplank and back into our hands.”
Bile rose in Bronwen’s throat. They’d known she’d returned from the moment she got off the ship. She should never have agreed to come. All of the trepidation she’d had about doing so had been true. And now, her nightmare was coming alive before her eyes. But it had been so hard to say no to Euan, to his sisters. To the life that she wished to live in for a little while longer.
