Page 3 of When the Laird Claims
The door slammed shut, and Victoriaknewthat the two women must have locked it from the inside, still only concerned about saving their own skins. Meanwhile,shewas still left at Charles’ mercy.
“They are wearing Scottish kilts, my lord,” the footman wheezed, “and their leader… I have never seen a warrior like him before.”
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“Scots?” Arran roared. “How many?”
“It is… hard to tell, my lord,” the footman replied. “They seem to be… everywhere.”
By this point in their acquaintance, Victoria was more than accustomed to the vicious kaleidoscope of rageful looks that could shift across her betrothed’s face.
This particular kind, currently purpling his statuesque face, was one of indignation, usually reserved for when he felt that his pride or ego was being challenged. The Earl tended to think so highly of himself that when anyone dared to threaten his position or opinion in the slightest, he seemed to have some sort of internal collapse over the situation.
The Earl’s hand balled tightly into a fist at his side, and for a moment, Victoria braced herself for a strike, forgetting that shewas temporarily out of his reach on the floor. Next, she feared for the footman’s face, but instead, the Earl only spoke to the man.
“This is an outrage! Have my horse prepared at once.”
“Your horse, my lord?” the footman asked, though it was a valid question. Why would a man run when he should, by rights, stay and fight for his territory?
This might be my chance,was Victoria’s only thought on the matter.
She thought to herself that if she stayed very still and very quiet, perhaps she might have a slim possibility of not being noticed right away. Perhaps if that were the case, then the Earl might forget that she was presently unrestrained. Could he be that distracted?
She made no effort to get up off the floor; she did her very best to make no sound at all as the Earl berated the footman and barked questions at him that he stammered and struggled to answer. It seemed that the poor boy was starting to catch his breath at the very least.
The Earl was nearly out the door before he turned to the footman, waving at her crumpled body as if she were nothing more than an afterthought. “Restrain her to the bed until I return. I cannot have her running about and putting herself in danger again. You know how much trouble she likes to get herself into.”
Victoria’s heart dropped into her stomach. The slim possibility of hope that she might have had was gone now. Few of the staff in this miserable house had been kind to her.
None of them was willing to risk their employment for her sake, and she could not even find it in her heart to hate them for it. She knew that they all likely had families waiting for them at home, and they could not afford to risk not being able to put food on the table by disobeying their cruel master. She knew, but it still hurt her deeply all the same.
The footman started to advance on her, and she shook her head, fresh tears beading upon her eyelashes, a swift blink sending them trickling down her face.
“Please,” she croaked.
Her wrists hurt too much as it was; she could not bear to be shackled again. She attempted to lift a hand over her face as if that might somehow stop the young man from grabbing her and tying her back up.
Panic started to well within her as he produced the rope that would be her mental undoing. The Earl lingered in the doorway just long enough to see the rope being wrapped around her thrashing body as she struggled, weakly, to try to get away from this man, who had to be at least five years younger than herself.
“Please,” she begged again, her voice a ragged whisper. “Please do not do this, I beg you–”
“Shhh, my lady, please…” The footman whispered, his eyes growing wide with fear as he glanced over his shoulder. He was but a child. She did not wish to harm him, but she desperately wanted to get away.
It was not until his frantic shushing actually registered that she realized he had stopped attempting to tie the knot around her wrists.
“When I leave, run, my lady, run and never look back,” the footman whispered, and backed away from her with a pointed nod toward the door.
She did not have time to question his kindness; she certainly did not have time for explanations or to think twice about whether this was actually another trap or not. She could not afford to have such thoughts. If this were an actual chance, then she needed to act on it as quickly as she could.
There was only one thing that she needed to think about now: Melody.
Victoria’s younger sister and the greatest love of her life—the only person that mattered now. The Earl had brought Melody here for the wedding, pretending that it was an extended visit, but it was so much more than that. He had only brought her here after Victoria’s last escape attempt, and Victoria knew it for what it actually was: Melody was here as an insurance policy that she would not step out of line any further. It worked, but now it was time to get them both out of there.
The house was in an uproar as she ran out into the hallway. The dress that she wore was somewhat restrictive in its length, but she gathered the excess skirt fabric in her hands to the best of her ability and took off down the hall. She could only allow herself to focus on one thing and one thing only—reaching Melody’s bedroom.
Her sister must have been terrified with everything that was happening—so much noise and chaos—and Victoria doubted that they had bothered to warn Melody about anything at all. She could hear the frantic shouting and such of the servants panicking as they ran through the house. It was just the distraction that she needed in order to find herself barging into Melody’s bedroom… and having to swiftly dodge the heavy candlestick that was aimed directly at her head the moment that she did.
“Oh, Victoria! I am so sorry!” Melody gasped, her small stature shrinking away as Victoria kicked the bedroom door shut behind her and quickly wrapped her sister in her embrace.
