Page 42 of Trapped with the Vicious Highlander
Brodrick, still utterly confused, merely nodded and did as he was told. He retreated and found himself standing in the doorway once again, watching Ava slowly rise from the bed.
As she took one last look at Margaret, Brodrick felt his breath catch in his throat. The paleness of her face and the way it glowed in the silvery moonlight was a rather magnificent sight. He wished there was a way he could sear this moment into his memory forever.
But it was broken almost immediately as Ava began to walk towards him, careful to keep her footsteps as light as possible.
She placed her finger on her lips once again as she got to the doorway. Brodrick watched her slip out and shut the door behind her, before she let out a long breath.
“Margaret is a light sleeper,” she explained. “In the first week we found her, the slightest rustle of the leaves would wake her up. She would remain awake for hours and not go back to bed. Have you ever had to take care of a child whose sleep gets interrupted by a needle falling on the floor?”
Brodrick shook his head. “Nay, I admit that I didnae.”
“It is not satisfying. Not one bit.”
They slowly walked away from Margaret’s door and straight into a small passageway in a corner of the castle. The moonlight filtered through some of the equally spaced holes in the walls, creating a rather spectacular view of the passageways and corridors in particular.
Silence descended between them, but it did not sit well with Brodrick. He wanted to break it almost immediately. It was either grabbing her and kissing her right in the passageway or breaking the silence with words and asking her questions. As the heat spread through his body, he found himself blurting out the very first thing that came to his mind.
“So, yer ex-husband?—”
“I was never married,” Ava corrected, not turning to look at him.
“Right,” Brodrick said, in a tone that almost seemed reproving. “But ye did mention that the man ye were supposed to marry?—”
“Yes. He never showed up at the wedding. I waited in the chapel for an hour. I looked so dejected that even the priest who intended to marry us started to pity me. He asked me right then and there if I would marry his son. That was how badly he felt.”
“That must have been horrible,” Brodrick whispered.
“Have you ever been left standing at the altar, My Laird?”
“Nay.”
“Of course,” Ava said, finally turning to him. “Because who would dare leave a man like… you?” she muttered, gesturing to his body.
“I’ve had me fair share of disappointments, I’ll have ye ken. Before I got married to Margaret’s maither, I wasnae particularly the most sought-after man in the town.”
“Was it because of your weight?”
“Huh?”
“I said,” Ava reiterated, looking up at him, “was it because of your weight?”
Brodrick swallowed before he shook his head slowly.
“The man I was supposed to marry… he was a viscount.”
“A viscount?”
“My father is an earl. The Earl of Sutton,” Ava continued, ignoring the fact that it was taking Brodrick a little bit of time to process her words. “My mother was a Scottish lady.”
“What?”
“If you can believe it, yes. She was the wildest and the freest woman I have ever met. She was the one who taught me that I didn’t need a man to accomplish everything I wanted in life. She made me believe that a man should only be an appendage to my life and not a dictator.”
Brodrick narrowed his eyes at her, and she seemed to have suddenly grown aware of her rather vulgar choice of words.
“I apolog?—”
“Yer maither. She’s dead, is she nae?” Brodrick asked, cutting her off.
