Page 16 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
But the action was quite deliberate. Lydia had no interest in bidding farewell to the Duke—she would not miss him and was not sorry he would be gone from her life.
Climbing into the carriage, she waited for Hannah to join her, and then Alexander snapped the door shut behind them.
Only moments later, they pulled away, her mother’s face fading from view, as a wrenching pain sliced through her chest.
Tommy pulled his hand free, ignoring her father’s protests, and ran down the steps, sprinting after them. He kept pace with the carriage, his little legs moving as rapidly as they could as he waved and waved, Lydia hanging from the window and calling down to him that she loved him.
She waved until he was out of sight.
I had no idea Scotland was so far away!
The journey was long and tiring, even with many stops to break it up and change the horses along the route.
Each new inn was a little less grand than the one before, the food and accommodation becoming simpler as they headed north, but Lydia loved it.
She was accustomed to being with her father whenever she traveled, and the Duke always complained about everything.
The inns were never to his lofty standards, the food terrible everywhere they stayed, even when it was very fine indeed.
But as they moved north, everything became better and better.
She was treated exceptionally well by every servant she came across, and it seemed to be in no small part due to her future husband.
The man-at-arms spoke very little to Lydia herself, but she had a feeling he had been instructed to make sure she was as comfortable as possible. Even Hannah commented on it.
I am being treated like a queen. Is that what I should expect when I reach the castle? I can hardly hope for such a life.
Lydia was asleep when they approached the Highlands, and Hannah shook her awake excitedly.
“Look, M’Lady. Justlookat it.”
Lydia blinked open her eyes as Hannah pulled the velvet curtain of the carriage back. Lydia’s breath hitched in her throat.
“Oh, my goodness.”
They were driving through a wide valley, the Scottish hills all around them, beautiful, majestic, and awe-inspiring.
The sun was visible along the ridge, with blooming heather in fluttering clumps of purple over the ground, the path traveling through the greenest pastures she had ever seen.
“I can hear sheep!” Hannah said, her usually dull eyes lighting up as she leaned against the window.
Lydia smiled at her; her maid was used to the blocks and cold stone of London. This truly was a beautiful place.
“I think we will like the castle,” Lydia said. “If I can wake up to this view.”
And it was not long before she saw it.
In her mind’s eye, Lydia had imagined the castle on the edge of a cliff. Roughhewn, with rocks tumbling down into the waves beneath.
But instead, it was in the midst of several large tracts of land on the edge of a huge forest that stretched from the edge of a lake all the way back into the hills behind.
The castle itself was made from pale stone, the roof light brown, with high walls around the outside. Intimidating and grand.
“He said it was big,” Lydia said to Hannah as her maid stared in awe at the enormous place.
“Nearly there, M’Lady,” came Alexander’s voice, and Lydia’s stomach turned over as she saw a man on horseback coming to greet them.
The horse was bigger than any she had ever seen, black as pitch and wild looking, its mane shimmering in the sunlight as it cantered toward them.
