Page 7 of The Defiance of a Scottish Heart
“Nay, Dermot,” Rut shouted. “And he’s not a lad anymore!”
The argument spiraled, voices rising, tempers flaring. Sheona stood rooted to the spot, her heart hammering so hard she thought everyone must be able to hear it. Her vision narrowed to Taskill’s profile—the strong line of his jaw, the fair hair catching the autumn sun, the careful distance he maintained from everyone and everything.
Especially her.
She’d loved him once. Loved him with the uncomplicated devotion of a girl who didn’t know better. Who thought friendship meant forever, and that the boy who made her laugh until her sides ached would always be there.
She’d been a fool.
“Stop giving orders on my land, Dermot,” Lennox said, his voice cold with authority. “Your behavior is more than insulting.”
Her father finally grumbled something about King Robert and turned his horse—the wrong direction, naturally. Even in his fury, he was lost.
Lennox mounted to escort him home, and gradually, the courtyard began to return to normal. Guards went back to training. Servants resumed their tasks.
But Sheona couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe past the humiliation choking her.
Everyone had heard. Everyone knew. Her father had tried to barter her like a broodmare, and Taskill had rejected her without even doing her the courtesy of meeting her eyes.
“Sheona.” Eva’s hand touched her arm gently. “Are you all right?”
No. She wasn’t all right. She was shattered, mortified, furious.
But she couldn’t say that. Couldn’t fall apart in the middle of the MacVey courtyard with half the clan watching.
“I’m fine.” The lie tasted like ash. “I need... I need to go.”
She turned and fled before Eva could stop her, before the tears burning behind her eyes could fall. Her feet carried her around the perimeter of the courtyard out to the stables. The Rankin guard, Miles, helped her mount and followed her out. She couldn’t get home fast enough.
As soon as they made it to her home, she hopped of her horse, handed the reins to a stable lad and hurried away. She had to find a place where she could let go. Let the awful hurt out that stabbed her so much that she had to fight the tears begging to flood her face.
She ran inside the keep, up the stairs to the end of the passageway to her favorite place. The parapets. Empty, usually. The one place she could breathe.
She shoved through the door and stumbled out into the wind, gulping air like a drowning woman breaking the surface.
He doesn’t want you. He never did.
The thought was a knife between her ribs, twisting.
She’d known it, of course. Had known it for five years. But hearing it spoken aloud, announced to everyone—that was different. That made it real in a way it hadn’t been before.
“What’s he done now, MacVey?” Sloan’s voice drifted up from below. He must have been near the gates.
“I did naught wrong!” Her father’s voice, belligerent. “Just went calling for what was promised to my daughter long ago. Lennox won’t hold to his father’s word. We may have to declare war on him, Sloan. It’s only right.”
Daughter. War. Promised.
The words barely registered through the roaring in her ears. She tore back down the stairs and out to the courtyard.
“Da! Please stop!” She hadn’t meant to shout, but the words tore out of her anyway.
Her father turned, his expression shifting from fury to dismissal in an instant. “This is not your affair, Sheona. Go back inside.”
That gesture. That careless wave of his hand, as if she were a serving girl to be dismissed. As if her own future weren’t the very thing being discussed.
Rage, white-hot and clarifying, burned through the humiliation.
“Is it about me?” She moved down the steps, her voice shaking with barely contained emotion. “Because if it’s about me, then it is my affair, Da.”
