Page 79 of The Highlander's Auctioned Wife
She couldn’t find an answer the ordinary way, so she drew her feelings, letting her mind go blank as her thin stick of charcoal scratched and shaded and danced across the page.
By the time she was done, the dappled light coming through the branches had shifted slightly, letting her know that she’d been drawing for a fair while.
Hesitantly, she blew away some charcoal dust and wiped her darkened fingertips on her skirt, taking a look at her handiwork for the first time.
“Oh…” she gasped, forgetting that she was supposed to be quiet as a mouse. “Oh… oh, nay… that’s… oh…”
The drawing was an echo of the first one she had ever created of Gordon: he was a horned, fork-tailed, fanged, one-eyed devil, but rather than a snarl, there was a smirk upon his lips.
And the bride in his arms wasn’t lying limp and injured and helpless, but had her arms around the monster’s neck; her face was a picture of happiness, her mouth open and eyes creased in a merry laugh, while she appeared to be kicking her legs out happily. The monster gazed at her lovingly, his eyepatch removed, making it appear as if he was winking, for his one good eye seemed to twinkle with mirth and affection.
All at once, a sob seized her, raw and painful in her throat. Her arms curled around the portfolio, hugging the picture to her chest, as much to protect it from her tears as to feel closer to her beloved monster.
“Anna?” a familiar, male voice said, startling her. “Anna, what’s wrong?”
CHAPTER 38
Anna hurriedto wipe the tears from her cheeks, blinking up at the man standing off to her left. She hadn’t even heard him approach, too engrossed in her drawing and too confident in her hiding place to believe that anyone might actually find her.
She couldn’t speak, dismay holding her throat in a vise, for this man wasnotthe one she longed to see. Still, Laird Glendenning certainly wasn’t the worst Laird who could have found her, considering that most of the others who had come to the auction were little more than rabid dogs.
“I dinnae mean to intrude,” Laird Glendenning said, coming to perch on the thick root. “I was wanderin’ and I… thought I heard somethin’. I dinnae realize it was ye.”
Anna nodded, hugging the portfolio tighter to her chest.
“Is that yer journal?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“Have ye been writin’ about how much ye hate all of this?” He smiled, sighing deeply. “I hate it too, in truth.”
Anna frowned, finding her voice a little. “Ye do?”
“Aye, I do. I hate that I have to go through this whole rigmarole, when it’s clear as day that we’re supposed to be together,” he replied, her heart sinking at his words. “Destiny kept ye from marryin’ the Devil, and now destiny has brought us back together. Yer faither and maither have alluded to the fact that I’m their first choice, but there’s ‘procedure’ to consider, so nay one gets upset and starts a war.”
He leaned forward to try and take her hand, but Anna wouldn’t remove her grip from her portfolio, her eyes hardening as she stared up at him. Ardal might have been her parents’ first choice, but he certainly wasn’t hers.
Had she been given the freedom to actually make a decision for herself, she’d have chosen none of them. Ever. She’d be a spinster, enjoying the peace… missing Gordon and the closest thing she’d ever had to finding love.
All an illusion. Dinnae forget that. It wasnae real.
Ardal continued to smile as though he’d already won the auction. “Truly, Lady Anna, I am… beyond delighted to get another chance to start a family with ye. I promise, this will beover soon. We’ll be done with this charade and ye’ll be in me carriage, headin’ home with me to yer new life as me wife, and maither to me bairns. I cannae wait.”
“Seems ye’ve lost yer knack for chasin’ off vermin, lass,” a deep voice rumbled, like the thunder before a welcome summer storm. “I wonder if it’s because ye left a particular dress behind.”
Anna’s heart skipped several beats, as she turned slowly, and a figure—tall and broad as a bear, with the intimidation to match—stepped out from behind the tree.
Yet, he wasn’t the rough, unkempt Devil she’d first met. Gordon’s long, dark hair was held back with a strip of leather, his jaw freshly shaven, his léine clean and white, his collar exposing a perfect triangle of sun-warmed skin.
His eyepatch was missing, and his tempting mouth quirked into the hint of a smile. In all the daydreams and nightly dreams she’d had of him, he had never looked better than this.
What is he doin’ here?Her mind kicked her back to her senses, her suspicious gaze meeting his.
“I hope ye’re nae referrin’ tomeas vermin?” Laird Glendenning said haughtily, rising from the tree root. When Gordon paid him no attention, he continued in a whiny voice, “Lady Anna has nay reason to chase me off. I’m to be her husband, after all.”
Gordon still didn’t so much as glance at Laird Glendenning, his lupine eye never leaving Anna’s face. There was something sad in his gaze, that ghost of a smile fading from his lips.
“He’s right… sort of,” Anna replied defiantly, getting to her feet. “I daenae have any reason to chase him away.”
