Page 74 of Highlander's Sinless Nymph
“When I left here, I meant to make for anywhere that was not here,” Charlotte explained, suddenly in quite the hurry to unburden the truth to this man. “I wanted to get away from here, so that my father no longer had a reason to attack you or your people.”
“How noble,” the Laird said.
Charlotte did not pause to take affront at his scathing tone.
“I was apprehended by my father’s outriders––the outriders of my father’s army. I managed to escape in the storm that blew in, and I somehow found my way here.”
The Laird nodded slowly.
“And how far from here is that devil, yer faither?” the Laird asked.
“I am not sure of miles or anything like that, I’m afraid, your Lairdship,” Charlotte replied. “What with the storm and all the rest of it… But he will be here on the morrow, I do not doubt it.”
“And all the quicker once he awakes to find that ye have disappeared once again,” Edward’s father replied.
“I––well, yes…” Charlotte said.
There was another one of those heavy, brooding pauses.
“Why?” the Laird asked, suddenly, making Charlotte start.
Charlotte frowned. “Why…what?” she asked.
“Why did you come back here, Miss Bolton?” Tormod asked. “You left––stirred my son up somethin’ fierce it did when he realized ye were missin’––and now up you pop again. Why?”
Charlotte’s mouth hung open as she considered what should have been a fairly straightforward question.
“Miss Bolton,” the Laird prompted. “I’m afraid that, if ye are tellin’ the truth––a bigif––then we do nae have all night.”
Charlotte swallowed.
Why not be frank with him? The truth has gotten you this far, even being used against your father––and that might have been fatal.
She took a slow breath and looked into the shadowy recess in which Tormod’s eyes hid and glittered occasionally.
“Your son,” she said.
The Laird leaned back in his chair. “What about Edward?” he asked.
Charlotte brushed a strand of her ever misbehaving hair out of her eyes.
“I am in love with him,” she said, in an even and unemotional voice.
The Laird snorted at this declaration.
Not the sort of comforting thing a woman wishes to hear when she speaks of being in love with a man’s son.
“Love,” the Laird scoffed.
His voice, strangely, was not as scornful or cynical as Charlotte might have expected. Rather, it was the voice of one that has heard such nonsense before and is tired of it.
“Love, indeed! Well then, Miss Bolton, I’m sure that it will strike you hard to hear that your journey in the name of love might have been in vain––my son is no longer here.”
It was Charlotte’s turn to lean forward in her seat now. “Edward is not here?” she asked, her face dropping.
“No, my son is gone,” the Laird said, and there was an undeniably hard edge to his voice. A quaver in his tone that suggested that the dam that held back his checked anger was on the brink of bursting.
“Gone where?” Charlotte barely dared to ask.
