Page 59 of The Highlander's Captured Bride
Placing a chair at the back window, she braced her arms on the window sill, and laid her head on her crossed arms. Breeze, laden with the scent of the river and wildflowers flittered across her face. As her eyes drooped with the serenity around her, she whispered, “I wish this all would be over so we can be happy without all this fear.”
* * *
Riding into Turren, Ethan felt the small tug of anxiety pull at him. He had not wanted to leave Violet alone but they needed food for the next few days. He was not going to let his betrothed to want for anything when he could provide it. He felt the urge to turn back and go back to the cabin tugging at him so he hurried to the market.
Not bothering to haggle about the prices, he agreed to whatever was asked and filled his sack with roasted meat and fish, loaves of baked bread, cheese, and refilled the skins of milk. It felt tedious watching the man painstakingly fill the skins. His left foot was tapping and his molars were grinding at the back of his mouth. But he still waited until the skins were bulging with milk. He passed the coin over before the goods were handed over him.
Rushing back to the tethered horse, he hiked upon the horse’s back and was strapping it in, when the hairs on the back of his head rose and cold worry snaked through him. Looking around, he did not see anything out of place or anyone facing his way, but he could not shake the feeling that something was wrong.
“Shouldnae have left her alone,” he cursed himself under his breath.
Spurring the horse into a run, he took the forest road faster back towards home than he had taken it that morning. He was traveling at nearly break-neck speed but the distance felt longer and it was not until he broke through the wood and he headed to the cabin that his anxiety lessened.
But the moment he rounded the bend towards it—his fear tripled in strength. A strange horse was there, lingering at the front steps, casually munching on grass. Panicked, Ethan launched off the horse and leaped the few steps to kick the door in, fearing what he might find. Violet broken body coated with blood on the stone floor—
He jerked to a stop as he saw her sitting on a chair with a man wearing his father’s colors there, one he knew as Adair Rogan, standing rigidly and looking grim-faced. Violet was holding a letter in her hand.
“Ethan!” she darted up. “Ye came back—”
Grabbing and pushing her behind him, Ethan asked the man, “What is yer business here, Mister Rogan?”
“I’ve come on behalf of yer Uncle, Master MacFerson,” the man said, looking at him then over his shoulder to Violet. “Yer faither’s been missing for the past two days, and Mister O’Cain as well. He’s requesting ye come home immediately, perchance something would happen to ye as well.”
Now, the worry that has rested on his chest, began to gnaw hotly at his gut. Swallowing tightly, he looked at Violet who was pale-face and grim. “I dinnae ken we have a choice. We should go.”
Answering him with a curt nod, she went to get her sack and his. Ethan saw the Rogan’s eyes flick to the one bed with a curious look on his face but mercifully, he did not say a word. While Violet arranged their things, he went to get her horse ready. Cold dread was settling inside him and chilling into a block of ice the hot fear he had felt on the way back to the cabin. The grim reality that his father—and Violet’s—could be dead was looming above him like a brewing thunderstorm.
Quickly he had her horse saddled and led it to the front where Violet and Rogan were already assembled. Without a word—and he did not think he could speak if he tried as his tongue felt cleaved to the roof of his mouth— he helped her onto the pacing horse and mounted his.
“Lead the way, Mister Rogan,” Violet called over.
* * *
Arriving at the MacFerson castle did not give her the relief she had expected to have on coming back. All along, she had hoped her father and the Laird would have found the man, sent him to execution and send for them to come back to him in peace. Now, all she felt was dread.
Arenae days that hold bad news supposed to be gloomy, foreboding and bleak?
Instead, the sun was bright, its rays cheery and warm, but having no strength to pierce through the cold blanket of trepidation she felt tied around her.
Ethan’s tight-jawed and thin-lipped expression still had not shifted from the moment they had ridden out from the cabin. She knew what he was feeling as the same emotion was resting on her chest.
How is it that nay one has seen our faithers?
The castle was the same familiar dark brick but she knew that inside it, no one was the same. How could they be with their Laird missing for two days? As she was helped off the horse, she saw Mister MacFerson come striding out of the broad doors, his browed knitted into a tight line.
“Nephew,” he said, tone gruff and laden with anxiety, “I dinnae want this to be why ye were called back home.” he swallowed while resting his hands on Ethan’s shoulders, “I never in my faintest imagination would have kent this was how it was going to end.”
“It nae at its end yet,” Ethan said. “Nay until we find me—our—faither’s, only then will it end.”
Feeling as if she had drifted into the background, Violet was surprised when the Laird’s brother spoke to her, “Welcome back, Miss O’Cain, but I wish it would be on happier circumstances.”
“Thank ye, Mister MacFerson,” she bowed her head.
“I’ll have someone show ye to yer room, as I must speak to Ethan,” the older man nodded. “Kenning me brother is missing, we have placed more guards all around the castle. We’ll call ye for dinner, if ye choose to nae eat in yer room, that is.”
Shooting an apprehensive look at them, she replied, “I understand.”
Before she moved off, she reached out and held Ethan’s hand, giving it a good reassuring squeeze. Mister MacFerson’s eyes were on them, but she could not care any less. Soon, the whole castle would know of their engagement, but first, they had to see through finding their fathers.
