Page 54 of When the Laird Claims
“The rumors will do their job; your idea was a good one,” Arran answered with a soft smile. “Are ye in that much of a hurry to get out of here?”
“I–” Victoria lifted her gaze to look at him better, her eyes softening as she struggled to come up with a proper answer to his question.
It felt like everything, including his very breath, depended on her answer to that question. Time had been suspended for far too long, and all he was aware of was the way that she was breathing.
“I… I miss my sister dearly; she is everything to me,” she said. “I would never be permitted to stay here with you, and I could never ruin her life for the sake of my own. Rumors will abound, and I must be with them—my family—when they do, for it is the only way that Melody will stand a chance.”
Arran nodded. “Yer plan wastoogood.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those rumors of me stealin’ ye and tryin’ to marry ye against yer will have traveled far, lass, or the Earl wouldnae have heard of them. Yer society wouldnae trust it if ye suddenly stayed with the man who did that to ye,” he explained, the realizationdawning as he spoke. It was a double-edged sword that would cut them either way. “Besides, I’ll have me own sister to protect from scrutiny.”
Victoria’s eyes sparkled with sadness as she, too, seemed to understand what her plan had done. Arran did not want her to suffer because Charles had to die. It had beenhisdecision to ensure that the man ended up dead, and he did not want any suspicion to fall upon her from her society. If she stayed, it would. If she stayed, her father and sister would be chased out for mere association, and he did not think that either would consent to live in Scotland.
“How much time do you think that we have left?” Victoria asked softly.
He wasn’t sure how to answer that question, or if he even really wanted to answer that question with a guess. Arran offered half a smile. It was so tempting to offer to make the very best of what little time that they had left, but if he was being truly honest with himself, he was afraid.
But as the song changed, he couldn’t help but pull her closer. She was breathtakingly beautiful tonight. The vulnerability in her eyes as she glanced up at him, allowing herself to be pulled closer toward him, was almost too much.
The doors slammed open in the front of the room, clattering against the wooden frame violently. It was a stark contrast to the almost casual but purposeful way that his man-at-arms started to stride into the room. Despite the music not missing a beat,Arran could hear every footfall as his oldest friend grew ever closer to him. He knew what Neil was going to say to him before he even finished speaking.
“How many?” Arran asked preemptively.
“At least a dozen men approaching from the east,” Neil answered. “Small ones.” He added almost as an afterthought, with a soft smile.
Victoria pressed herself even closer to Arran. “A dozen men? Where has he found the men to follow him?” She gulped loudly. “They must be mercenaries… or servants with no choice.”
“Is the Earl there?” Arran asked, for twelve men was nothing to him and his soldiers; he was not worried.
“Unclear, there was such a small party of them–” Neil started to continue, so that the pair of men might be able to make a better plan of attack regarding the Earl’s ultimate demise.
But instead, something rocked lower in the castle. Not strong enough to be a cannon, but something else that Arran couldn’t quite put his finger on right away. Arran’s eyes narrowed as he leaned closer to the sound, waiting as his hand drifted to the dirk at his waist. He knew that every man and woman in the entire hall would be armed and ready at a moment’s notice.
Kristin…His gaze flitted to his sister, finding her with Ruby in her arms, panic-stricken, as she carried the child to the very rearof the room. There was a passageway there; she could flee if it came to it.
Footsteps rushed down the hallway from the open doors that they had left behind. Voices drifted down the corridor, and Arran could feel the tension between his shoulders growing. Not from fear, not in the slightest, but from irritation. The sheer audacity of the Earl invading another man’s home. Then again, he had done it before, not merely invading the keep but invading the peace of Arran’s family.
Arran had not forgotten that the Earl knew his way around the keep from the last time that he was here, where the Laird had been gracious enough to open his arms to the rat.
Victoria pulled back to his side, her small hands wrapped around his forearm in nearly a vice grip. Arran’s attention dropped down to her hands, the scars that she would have around her wrists for the rest of her life. The more things the Earl was to blame for, the more things that he wanted to end that beast’s life for.
However the Earl thought this was going to go for him, Arran was more than ready.
“Do not let him take me,” Victoria nearly whispered, her voice barely a sound at all as another strangebangsent a vibration through the keep.
It was impossible to hear anything more above the chaos of people running outside, yet hefeltlike the Earl was here, and getting closer.
Arran pulled Victoria into him, angling his body in front of her so that she was partially barricaded from the door. “Never, I promise ye that.”
Victoria nodded, biting down on her bottom lip, but she didn’t let him go, not for a moment. She kept her head bowed to his chest, trembling in his arms as if she, too, could sense the devil that had scarred her, like someone who had made an infernal deal knowing that their time had come.
“I willnae let him take ye,” Arran insisted, wishing he could get her to stop shaking. “I’d give me own life first.”
“Do not say that,” she pleaded, raising her head as she grasped desperate handfuls of his shirt.
“He is just one man, lass,” Arran promised. “Ye’ll never have to worry about him again.”
