Page 80 of A Virgin for the Icy Highlander
“It’s him,” Hunter rasped. That was all he had needed to hear. “Aye, it’s him. He’s the one who took me daughter and me bride.”
A quiet curse tore from Oscar’s throat. “But why would she want to go with such a man, eh? Does that make a bit of sense to ye? ‘Cause it doesnae make a bit of sense to me. Maybe that mad lass was right—maybe I do need a tonic for me brain, ‘cause it’s been whisked into a scramble by all of this.”
“Ye’re certain she went willingly?” Hunter had to be sure, though the prospect burned through him like hot tar, sticking in his throat, simmering in the cracks she’d thawed in him.
Oscar paused, then nodded. “Aye, Hunter. I dinnae understand it, but aye. She climbed up on the horse by herself and everythin’.” His face scrunched up. “I mean, shedidlook back at Ellie like… och, I dinnae ken. It was all so dark, and I had Ellie in me arms, and that cat was tryin’ to scratch me face. I cannae ken anythin’ for certain.”
It didn’t matter that Hunter himself had told Grace to leave. That was before, and things had changed. He wanted his friend to tell him that he didn’t believe any of it, that Gracehadjust been sacrificing herself to save Ellie, because then he could do something about it. Then, he would have had unspoken permission to ride after her and take her back.
There’s nay danger now, nae from Trevor anyway.
He longed to tell her as much, in the hopes it might change her mind. How could she just be… gone? In his arms one moment, on her way to London the next? Crying out his name in the afternoon, then promising to marry someone else that night?
He loosened the reins of his anger, letting it sharpen his senses and allowing it to form an idea in his mind.
“Aye, well, I think I ought to pay a visit to this Earl,” Hunter growled, glancing at the spread of maps on the table. “If me bride doesnae want me anymore, she’ll have the opportunity to tell me to me face. And while she’s doin’ that, she’ll get to hear how high her new betrothed can scream when I crack his bones for darin’ to steal me daughter away.”
If Grace truly couldn’t bear the thought of marrying into a clan with a dangerous history and was scared by the idea of a day when a real threat came from another clan, then so be it. But if there was one thing Hunter wouldn’t tolerate, that hewouldkill for, it was someone trying to keep what was his away from him.
“Pardon?” Oscar murmured as he rubbed his tired eyes.
“This Earl started a war today,” Hunter replied coolly. “I mean to end it far more swiftly than the last.”
Oscar groaned. “Ye cannae go fightin’ against the English, Hunter. Besides, he had a pistol. He’ll shoot ye before ye get close.”
“Ye let me worry about that,” Hunter replied.
His head snapped up as the hall doors opened.
Grace?
He cursed his foolishness. Of course, it wasn’t her. She’d be over the border by now, out of his country, out of his arms, and out of his sight.
Instead, Trevor stood there, looking a little sheepish. It would take him a while to get comfortable, being in the castle of his former enemy. He had spent the majority of the past few hours in the Great Hall with Hunter and Ailis, though he had excusedhimself to fetch something to eat just before Oscar had come in, missing the good news of Ellie’s return.
“I heard Ellie was found,” Trevor said, an anxious smile on his face.
His attention shifting to his sleeping daughter, Hunter jumped up. “Aye, she’s in the healer’s chambers.” He walked toward the man. “We should go and see her together. With any luck, she’ll be awake by now. If nae, we’ll just keep waitin’ until she is.”
And once I ken she’s well and there’s nay lastin’ harm, I will break the man who dared to steal what is mine.
31
One long, awful week as a prisoner in her childhood home had taught Grace the most important lesson she had ever learned, more valuable than anything she had learned in her three years at Horndean: she never wanted to spend another moment there, ever again.
She never wanted to be near her brother and father again. She never wanted to be in London again. She never wanted to be parted from Hunter or her friends again. And if she ever heard the name John Fitzwilliam, Earl of Huston, again, it would be too soon.
The trouble was, she was marrying him today.
“Well?” she asked tearily, looking at her sister in the mirror, wishing it were Maddie and Lilian sitting there on the edge of the bed.
But her friends were still in Scotland, counting the days until the finishing ceremony that she wouldn’t get to attend. She had written to them and Miss Sutton, telling them not to worry about her, that she was precisely where she wanted to be. She had lied through her teeth and lost her sanity with every word.
There had been no time to receive any letters in return. Either that, or her father was keeping correspondence from her. It didn’t really matter; her friends wouldn’t be there to help her through the day, and that was the painful truth.
“You look beautiful,” her sister, Marianne, said. “Sad, but beautiful.”
Grace swallowed thickly. “Then I suppose I look the same as you did on your wedding day.”
