Page 8 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
“Scotland?”
“Aye. And since ye already accepted, I’ll go speak with yer faither.”
“But—”
The Laird paused, watching her expectantly.
“Or I can leave him to pick for ye.”
Lydia’s mouth hung open in disbelief. She was stranded between the unknown and disaster and couldn’t think of a way to save herself.
The Laird nodded and headed into the house without another word.
Did he really say I would be his bride?
At first, the idea was horrifying, but then her eyes moved to the drawing room and the dozens of identical men on display before her. Every one of them was of her father’s choosing, molded in his image.
A man twice my age or twice my height? It is barely any choice at all.
The sound of a door slamming pulled her from her thoughts as, across the lawn, she saw her mother emerging from the house. Tommy, Lydia’s half-brother, was running beside her, his eyes lighting up as he saw her.
He ran forward, his arms outstretched, and she opened her own, embracing him fiercely as he laughed.
Lydia looked up at her mother, whose expression was much as it had been for the last few days—sour and unhappy. Lydia brushed the hair out of Tommy’s eyes and bent down to kiss the tousled locks.
“Are you all right?” her mother, Sophia, asked softly, meeting Lydia’s gaze and glancing back at the house.
“I am fine,” she said, staring at where the Laird had stood only a moment ago. “It seems father’s wish is granted. I am to be married.”
“To that monster?” Tommy asked, staring up at her, wide-eyed and fearful.
Despite the gravity of what had just been agreed, her brother’s graphic description startled a laugh from her lips.
Her mother glanced down at Tommy in admonishment.
“You must be more polite, Tommy. That is no way to speak about a guest of this house.”
Sophia stepped closer to Lydia, her fingers interlaced before her, and twisted incessantly.
“Who is he?” she asked.
“I do not know,” Lydia said nervously. “Laird Murray, or so he tells me. He says he is taking me to Scotland.”
Her mother’s brow furrowed as she scraped her lower lip with her teeth. “I don’t like it. I am not familiar with that… person.”
“Think about it, Mother,” Lydia said excitedly as another idea occurred to her. “Scotland.You and Tommy could come with me. We could be happy there, away from Father, and you could live your own life. You could read books openly, without having to hide them beneath the covers at night.”
Her father hated the idea of educated women. He had forbidden Lydia from learning to read as a child, telling her a woman didn’t have to be burdened with such things.
Her mother had taught Lydia herself by the light of a candle late into the night, determined that her daughter would have the best start.
“We cannot leave, Lydia,” her mother murmured, her eyes unfocused as she stared at a point ahead of her that Lydia could not see. “Tommy is your father’s heir. Can you imagine what he would do if I took him from him?”
Lydia sighed. She knew her mother was right, but she hated the reality that she lived in. Every new day she spent with her father made her anger toward him increase.
She knew very little of how her parents had found themselves together, but what her motherhadtold her only served to showcase the Duke’s manipulative nature.
Her mother sometimes spoke of the “different” man she had met when they were courting. That when they were not yet married, the Duke was someone else entirely.
