Page 13 of When the Laird Claims
She struggled with the laces and buttons on the back of her gown and knew that a few of them were just going to have to simply break to be removed because she certainly was not going to ask Arran for assistance. Never mind the fact that she had absolutely no desire to see that gown again. She placed his shirt carefully over the small drying bars close to the fire and left her dress crumpled on the floor.
She pulled all the pins from her hair slowly, sighing in relief when the pressure was removed from her head before turning to the tub. The water was tepid at best, but it was exactly what she needed after such a harrowing day. She sighed as she let the water submerge her, easing more tension than she had even been aware that she had been carrying. Too much so, perhaps, as it allowed her mind to wander.
She dropped the lavender in the bath and used the small bar of soap to scrub her hair and skin as best she could. It had almost no scent. She knew that she had been very privileged growing upin the way that she had—indeed, they probably could have done with fewer luxuries—but she had never been forced to confront it before. She did not think of herself as very snooty, certainly not as much as some of her peers, but it was humbling nonetheless.
If Arran had not come and abducted her, she did not doubt that she would still be in a bathtub right about now, but she would not be the least bit relaxed. She would have all of those maids around her, scrubbing her until she was bright pink, massaging fragrant oils into her skin, the scents all chosen to Charles’ preferences. They would have been readying her for the Earl to claim her, to consummate the marriage that she had been forced into. She would have been defiled and ruined, and all hope of finding another husband or even just the freedom to seek a future on her own would have been robbed from her.
Victoria covered her mouth with both of her hands to stop the sound of her dry sob from echoing any further into the room.
If she had not been stolen away by Arran, she would have been locked in a marriage to that monster for the rest of her life.
Everything that had happened over the course of the day seemed to slam into her all at once, and no amount of muffling herself could stop the guttural sobs that wracked her chest. A deep, cathartic crying session that unwound the knots in her chest and all the fear that she had been pretending did not exist.
Victoria did not even hear the door open, nor any of the knocks preceding it.
6
Arran felt as if he were approaching a wounded wild animal.
“Victoria?” he asked, but she seemed too absorbed in her crying to fully realize that he was there.
Och, lass, I didnae get to ye soon enough, it seems…Her soft sobs struck him like a blow to the chest, wondering what might have befallen her if he had attacked the Earl’s manor a day later. In the strangest way, it felt like failure to him, that he had not been able to stop another woman suffering at the Earl’s hands, even if she was free now.
He held up his palms to her in a gesture of surrender, but he knew that it likely looked rather strange to have a half-dressed Scotsman approaching her bath uninvited. He truly didn’t wish to distress her any further, but he worried that backing out of the room might have the same effect.
“Are ye all right?” he asked in a louder voice, just in case she had not heard him.
When Victoria finally looked up at him, he expected to see outrage, or horror, or any number of things. Nothing could have prepared him for the deep sorrow that reddened those pretty blue eyes, her brow crinkled, her lips swollen with the salt of her tears, her expression so lost in despair that it knocked the wind out of him.
Is she cryin’ because of me?He worried he might have been mistaken about the source of her misery.
His eyes widened, feeling very much out of his depth. The women that he was comfortable with did not cry much, not around him, anyway.
His mother was far too composed a woman to bother with fretting and weeping and prided herself on her ability to take all things in stride. Maybe she had not always been that way, but he was certain it was how she had been able to survive her marriage. If she had cried over every tiny transgression and insult and argument, she could have filled a loch with her tears. Lord knew that his father wasn’t an easy man to deal with.
Kristin, on the other hand, liked to weaponize her tears. Until the baby, he had not thought that she had ever actually experienced sadness, and when she did cry, it was more often than not just to get him into trouble. So this? This was wholly foreign to him, witnessing such immense sorrow.Feelingit radiating from her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Victoria shook her head, either incapable of speaking or not wanting to.
She looked so different with her hair undone, hanging in long, dark brown waves around her neck and shoulders before disappearing into the water, blurring out his view of anything beneath it. Not that he was looking. In truth, it was taking a great amount of effortnotto look, for it would have been wrong to admire such a beautiful woman in all of her bare glory while she was in such a sorrowful state.
Glancing down, he realized he had stepped on her wedding dress, which lay crumpled on the floor. It would be too late now to fetch something more appropriate from the closest town, but perhaps he ought to have checked with the innkeeper’s wife to see if she had something suitable. The two women were not at all the same size, but it would be better than her putting that dress back on, a reminder of the Earl of Ashbrook and the wedding she had narrowly avoided.
He sank to one knee beside the tub, eyeing Victoria carefully. “Can I get ye somethin’ to drink? Somethin’ strong, perhaps?”
It would take the edge off at least. He wouldn’t do her the disservice of assuming he knew how she felt. Until now, he thought that only his family would have reason to hate that bastard, but, clearly, he was wrong. Indeed, there was no telling how many women’s lives the Earl had ruined.
“I was dreading this stupid day,” Victoria finally said through her tears. She attempted to wipe them bitterly with the back of her wrist, but it did not seem to make much difference.
“I never wanted to marry him,” she continued. “Everyone said how lucky I was, how any woman would kill to be in my position, but… I did not wish to marry at all! I wanted to be happy with my books, and my home, and my sister…”
A fresh wave of sorrow seemed to rack her at the mention of her sister.
He reached toward her hesitantly, placing a palm on her back and rubbing softly just below the nape of her neck, beneath the drape of her damp hair. There was an awkwardness to it; he could not deny that, but he felt compelled to at leastattemptto comfort her for reasons that he could not explain. He certainly did not need to do so to accomplish his objective. In a good outcome, they would be business partners in eliminating their mutual enemy.
And yet…
