Page 13 of Trapped with the Vicious Highlander
If she was truly leaving the cottage tomorrow with Margaret, if Brodrick was truly a man of his word and would make her travel with him, then she needed advice. She needed guidance, and she knew who would give her precisely that.
* * *
Ava knocked on the door and waited.
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, and she had managed to get herself a moment’s respite, no matter how uneasy it had been. Now, she was back before the door of one of her closest friends, Elizabeth.
The door opened, and Elizabeth appeared, her long brown hair catching the warm light of the setting sun.
“My apologies. I have been trying to tighten my corset,” she greeted, opening the door wider. “Might ye come in and take a look for me, Ava?”
Ava nodded. “Of course.”
She walked in, shutting the door quietly behind her.
“My back must have snagged on the door,” Elizabeth muttered.
She walked to the mirror and stood before it, her hand tampering with her corset strings.
“I have sent one of the girls to fetch Sarah for me. But since ye’re here, ye might as well help me.”
Ava walked closer to Elizabeth and began to tighten the laces of her corset. She was so lost in thought that she couldn’t tell when the girdle grew tight enough. Elizabeth had to tap her arm slightly.
“Any tighter, and I’d be spillin’ my guts all over the floor. Are ye doing all right, Ava?”
Before Ava could respond, Elizabeth gestured towards the chairs in her room.
They both made their way to the wooden chairs, and Elizabeth rested her forearms on the table, a worried and curious look in her rather piercing green eyes.
“Henrietta informed me about the violent but apologetic Highlander who visited ye this afternoon. Is that why ye’ve been in a mood?”
As Ava opened her mouth to speak, a soft thud pierced the air. The noise had come right from under Elizabeth’s large bed.
She was no stranger to the fact that her friend found animals in the wild every other day and brought them in to care for them and feed them.
Elizabeth waved her hand as if to dispel her worries. “I wouldn’t worry about that if I were ye. It is simply a rabbit I found in the woods.”
Ava’s eyes widened, and her chest tightened with fear. “Elizabeth?!”
Elizabeth scoffed, a playful smile resting on her face. “’Tis just a rabbit, Ava. Don’t tell me ye’re afraid of them.”
“When they can run that fast, yes, I am,” Ava said, the alarm on her face only coaxing laughter from her friend.
Elizabeth had always been sweet to animals. She greatly hated hunting, particularly when it was done for sport. Ava was one of the people she was sweet to. She was greatly opinionated and had always dreamed of becoming an inventor someday. What she was going to invent, Ava didn’t know.
“Don’t worry. It won’t attack ye.”
A knock on the door halted the conversation.
“That must be Sarah,” Elizabeth whispered. She rose from the chair and headed to the door.
Ava remained seated, her heart beating rather fast in her chest. The last thing she needed to add to her worry was some rabbit scurrying out of the bed and past her. She just wouldn’t be able to bear it.
“Ava?” Sarah’s voice was clear and pristine.
Ava turned to give the older woman a sweet smile.
Sarah, who was a little over ten years older than Ava, had been her maid for a time they could no longer remember.
