Page 86 of The Iron Earl

“Now is not the time, Simmons,” Lachlan’s grandfather spat out, waving his cane in the air.

Simmons turned to Lachlan. “Lach, you said very specifically to find you and interrupt whatever you were doing instantly and immediately once there was word.”

Lachlan froze. “You have word?”

“We do.” Simmons nodded. “Verified. It is as you suspected.”

“It is? You are positive?”

Simmons continued his nod, his eyes grave.

Lachlan’s fist pummeled into his thigh. “Blast it all to Hades.”

“What? What is verified?” Lachlan’s grandfather jerked forward in his chair, working to gain his feet. “Simmons, you tell me this instant what Lach is about.”

“Not a word to him on this.” Lachlan pinned Simmons with a look threatening the man’s future here at Vinehill.

Simmons inclined his head.

Lachlan turned back to his grandfather. “You can sit. For all the damn mess you just made, you can sit, Grandfather.”

Without another word, Lachlan spun from the two men and stormed out of the room.

He had to find Evalyn.

~~~

She had to make this easy on Lachlan. Stop this before it escalated into the unimaginable. Stop this before she was turned back over to her stepfather.

Before this turned brutal.

Words from his own mouth.

Evalyn’s fingers wrapped along the top rail of the half-wall of the stall, holding her balance steady as she watched the stable boy strapping the sidesaddle to the gentle horse he’d chosen for her.

She hadn’t even made it to their bedroom before she turned left instead of right, her feet bringing her outside and down to the stables without even a plan in place.

Not that even now, minutes later, she had the slightest inkling of a plan. She knew she was panicking. Knew that the terror in her gut at seeing her stepfather had set her feet in this direction. Set her onto a path of escape.

But she couldn’t turn her toes back toward the castle. Couldn’t believe that there could be any future for her at Vinehill. And if she wasn’t safe at Vinehill, then she needed to disappear. Disappear into the obscurity of a remote village far from most people, never to be thought of again.

Disappear, just as she had originally intended.

The saddle secure, the stable boy stroked the white speckled mare’s nose and then looked to her. “Roseheart has been lookin’ fer a ride fer days now. Shall I help ye mount ‘er, m’lady?”

“No, it is fine. I will use the block. Please go back to the hay you were moving, I didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”

“Ain’t no interruption, m’lady. It be my job.” He strapped the horse’s reins to the hook on the half-wall and tilted his head to Evalyn as he moved past her.

Her look didn’t leave the mare as she listened to the boy walk down the main aisle of the stable, his boots rustling in the dirt as he exited out the front to the hay pile where he’d left his pitchfork.

This stable was now empty, except for her, thank goodness.

As much as the shaking in her limbs and the churning in her gut hadn’t subsided, Evalyn couldn’t step toward the horse.

She knew it was time to escape. Escape before her stepfather took possession of her again. Lachlan had said he would stop that and for as much as she wanted to believe him, he’d never faced her stepfather.

He didn’t know the depth of cruelty in the man. She did.

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