Page 44 of Highlander's Wild Lass
It was all too much.
Then, the men from the whisky shop crowded her vision, yelling that she was a stupid woman. No business sense. They gathered closer to her, blocking out all light, and suffocating her.
Who would take care of them if she failed?
She groped up the wall and stood. Celestia opened the door to find a rainstorm had started and night had fallen. She stepped out of the house, shutting the door behind her.
She was nearly blinded from rain and from tears when she hit the main road, but the lights from Castle Ferguson were clear ahead.
She grabbed hold of her skirt and ran.
Her lungs burned and her feet were slick with mud as she ran through puddle after puddle. Pieces of her hair stuck to her face, and she felt as breathless as her father, chest burning.
She reached the gates, closed for the night. She grabbed onto them and shook. “Let me in!”
She could see a dim light in the covered guardhouse. She shook the gate as violently as she could, metal rattling against the tall stone walls.
“Let me in!”
A clap of thunder rumbled.
“What’s all this now?” A guard stumbled sleepily from the guardhouse. The thunder must have mercifully woken him up.
“I need to get into the castle,” she said, feeling her feet sinking into the muddy gravel.
“Do ye ken what time it is, lass?” he asked, using his hand to shield his eyes from the rain.
“I daenae care what time it is,” she said, thinking as quickly as her shaken mind allowed. He wouldn’t give her permission to enter if he thought she was just some girl from the village.
“I’m a maid,” she said finally. “Ye can call Mrs. Duncan, if ye find the need to.”
He looked her over. “A bit old to be a maid, are ye nae?”
Another clap of thunder.
“Please,” she pleaded, giving the gate another rattle. “I’m soaked through. I’ll surely catch a chill.”
“Alright, fine,” he said, pulling the gate open only wide enough for Celestia to fit through. “Remember—”
Celestia took off, running under the portcullis that had yet to be shut for the evening. She heard the guard shouting about a curfew, but she paid no mind.
She wracked her brain for the layout of the castle from when she was a girl. The last time she was in the family quarters was nearly ten years ago.
Through the front door, up the flight of main stairs to the rooms. But where were the chief’s chambers? Celestia had never seen the inside of them, but she knew they had to be nearby.
She remembered her father, and vaguely Anthony, telling her that part of the chief’s chambers resided in the tallest tower of the castle. It gave them the best view, to take in the beauty of their land and to see their enemies coming from afar.
Eventually, she came to a spiraling set of stairs just off the main hallway of the family rooms, which were all eerily vacant compared to when they used to be filled with Anthony, his parents, and sister.
She reached an elaborately carved wooden door at the top of the stairs, and the light of a fire glowed beneath it. This had to be it.
She knew she would lose her nerve entirely if she had to continue searching for them. Celestia tested the handle, finding it unlocked, and pushed in. Before her sat Anthony behind his desk. His head shot up and he just stared at her, mouth agape.
She must have been a sight, skirts full of mud, soaked to the bone and dripping everywhere.
“Celestia, what the hell are ye doin’ here?” he asked. The fire illuminated and cast shadows on his face, making him look all the more superior to her and all the more breathtaking.
She ignored his question and said what she had been wanting to say since she saw her father blue in the face and helpless. “I’ll marry ye.”
