Page 23 of In Love With the Wrong Highland Sister
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After soaking in a hot bath until the water was cold, Laria went downstairs to see what else there was to eat. Riding always made her hungry, and now she was ravenous. She decided not to send for food but to visit the kitchen, which she liked to do from time to time to visit the staff, all of whom she liked immensely.
However, as she was about to descend the stairs, she heard her father calling her name.
“Laria!” he called. “I need to speak to you. Please come to my study.”
She turned around and was surprised to see an agitated look on his face. “Father, what is wrong?” she asked anxiously.
“Come!” he called. When she was within reach of him, he grabbed her arm and propelled her into his study, then sat her down on a chair opposite him.
Laria fidgeted in her seat for a moment. She had never seen the laird act this way before, and she was seriously worried. “You are frightening me, Father,” she said, frowning. “What is going on?”
The laird looked at her for a moment, then reached across the desk to take her hands in his. When he looked up, there was a look in his eyes that Laria could only have described as terrified. “Laria,” he said gently, “I have drawn up a marriage contract for you.”
Her heart skipped a beat, and she stared at him for an instant. “With whom?” she asked, her voice trembling. She had a feeling she knew the answer already.
“With James Elliott,” her father answered. “Both your mother and I have noticed the way you are with each other. Sometimes you look at each other intensely, and sometimes you ignore each other as if to stop everyone from seeing too much. The incident with the salt cellar, for instance. Do you think no one noticed that?”
“And you think a few glances as well as avoiding each other’s glances is enough to determine that we will have a happy marriage?” she demanded. “Father, is it not bad enough that I lost the love of my life in such a horrible way, but you will force another man on me? One whom you know I dislike so much? How could you be so cruel?”
“We have signed the document now, Laria.” The laird’s voice was unusually firm. “And I did give it some thought, believe it or not. I know the Elliott family quite well, and James is a good man. I have seen it by the way he treats others. Laird McCann tried to force his daughter on him by trickery, but he was still kind to her. If he is cruel to you, I am perfectly capable of bringing you back, but I do not think I will have to.”
Laria glared at her father for a long time with unadulterated fury. “And you never even thought to seek my consent? How dare you?” she hissed. “My own father. You are a…a monster. I hate you!” She thumped both her fists on the desk at once, causing the laird to jump. “I willneverforgive you!” Then she turned on her heel and flounced out of the room, crashing through the door and banging it behind her.
The laird put his head in his hands and sat, distraught, for a long time with Laria’s words ringing in his ears. She hated him. He was a monster. He had always prided himself on being a good father. How had matters come to this, and how could he bear it?
At that moment, Lady Margaret swept in, her eyes bright with anger. “I just saw Laria running down the corridor as though the hounds of hell were after her!” she yelled. “What have you done? What have you said?”
“I drew up a marriage contract for her with James,” the laird answered miserably. “He is a good man, Maggie. He can make her happy.”
For a moment, his wife stood staring at him, stupefied. Then she demanded: “And did you ask her first? Did you consult with me before you did it? Did you stop to think for one moment what this might mean? This is not the marriage we planned. It does not even seem to be what Laria wanted. You are a stupid, stupid man, Hector MacLean! Sometimes I wonder what you have between your ears!”
Then, just as Laria had done, she swept out of the door and closed it behind her with a bang.
Then Laird MacLean did something he had only done three times in his life before. He picked up a half-full whisky bottle and emptied it down his throat over the space of two hours until he fell into a drunken stupor.
* * *
Laria was so angry that she could hardly think properly. How dare her father sign her life away to a man she hardly knew? She needed something on which to vent her anger, so she went to her old friend, the punch bag, which was now sadly the worse for wear since James had been using it too.
She began to strike the bag with all the considerable force of her arms, imagining that it was James’s face. She did not even realize that she was shouting and screaming until a large familiar shadow appeared over her shoulder and cast itself onto the punch bag.
It was James Elliott, no less. She knew even before she looked. Laria, with a speed that she did not know she possessed, spun around and hooked him under the chin with her right hand. However, James was too tall for her to achieve a solid blow, and a moment later, she found her wrists gripped by his powerful, calloused hand.
He stepped closer to her and let her go, but Laria was far too furious to stop, and after a few moments, it became clear that she was wasting her energy. Hammering on his chest with her fists would have absolutely no effect on him, so she backed away a little and looked up into the shining blue eyes, then was outraged to see that they were twinkling with amusement. This aggravated her even further.
“I hear that you and my father have drawn up a marriage contract for me!” she ground out. “What makes you think that I would marry you? I would not take you as a gift! And what do you think is so funny?”
“You are,” he replied. “You are so wild, and that is what I love about you.”
The wordlovecaught her up short for a moment until she decided it was merely one of his strange jests. Even if he did love her, the feeling was certainly not mutual.
“Ha! I would not marry you if you were the last man on Earth!” she spat. “How many different ways do I have to say it?”
“We are not yet married,” he pointed out. “There is still time for you to find out that I am not as bad as you think I am.”
“And if I do not?” she challenged him. She stood with her hands on her hips, her feet planted wide apart, with a thunderous glare on her face. She was wearing one of her dowdiest old dresses, but she still looked lovelier than any woman he had ever seen before. With the sunlight behind her, every curve of her body was outlined in loving detail.
