Page 73 of Lost with a Scot
Anna stood with her brother and had the strangest feeling that they weren’t alone. As if the ghosts of the past were there with them, watching... waiting. Alexei rose, and they started to walk once more away from the single throne at the end of the room, and she felt the loss of her parents so deeply in that moment she couldn’t breathe. She glanced over her shoulder at the empty golden chair and fought off fresh tears as her soul wept for the past. Then she turned to face the future.
* * *
“Well, you’ll live,”Ashton pronounced as he examined Aiden’s wound. “You Scots have the devil’s own luck.”
Aiden lay on a table in a cottage that belonged to one of the merchants in the village. Beside Ashton, a doctor was opening a black medical bag and nodding in agreement. “Lord Lennox is right,” the man said in heavily accented English. “The blade missed your organs, by some sheer bit of luck. It happens from time to time when the puncture is in the right spot. Your muscles are thick down there, and the silk shirt you were wearing did help slow the blade a bit. The Mongols used to wear silk to battle for that very purpose—”
“Doctor...” Ashton gently interrupted the beginning of the doctor’s historical lecture.
“Right, my apologies. As I was saying, it was harder for the blade to reach anything vital.”
“That’s a relief.” Aiden laid his head back down on the table.
“You’ll still need stitching,” the doctor warned. “And you must watch out for infection.”
“Stitch away, Doctor. Just give me some whiskey first.”
Ashton laughed. “Find the man a drink,” he called out to the crowd of Ashton’s friends standing around.
“Right here.” Charles pulled a silver flask out of his coat and handed it to Aiden, who took a long draw before he sighed and lay back down on the table. Brock and Brodie were on either side of his shoulders, looking on with concern as the doctor started to stitch up the wound. Despite the pain, Aiden only made a few small sounds of discomfort. This was nothing compared to the things his father had done once a upon a time...
“Ashton...” Aiden grunted, trying to ignore the sting of the needle. “How did Godric end up in the executioner’s uniform? I didn’t think he and the others would reach us so fast.”
“After we left London, Lord Morrey said he’d follow us with backup forces. He told Godric and the others from our group to leave that same night we did. Godric and his half of his men arrived only half a day after we did, and they met up with Alexei’s second in command, a fellow named William. William had been marshaling the prince’s rebel army and was planning to storm the castle to stop the execution. Cedric and I managed to work our way through the palace posing as servants and gained their trust to help when the battle broke out. We learned you and Charles were in the dungeon, so we met with the others and hatched a plan to stop the execution and fight Yuri’s men. After you rode off to save Anna, William’s forces revealed themselves in the courtyard and fought the guards still left here in the palace. With the help of the servants, we were able to funnel the guards into a part of the castle and trap them, and then they faced a surrender-or-die situation. Naturally, they surrendered,” Ashton said with no small amount of pride.
“And Yuri?” Aiden asked. The last thing he’d seen was the villagers and Alexei closing in on the man.
“Alexei chased his uncle into the great hall, and they dueled with swords. Yuri perished in the fight.”
Some of the tension left Aiden’s body. The threat to Anna was gone at last.
“Morrey’s forces will be here any day, and once they are, we’ll make sure they can round up the remainder of Yuri’s men in the countryside and establish order. Villages need rebuilding, and the men and women of Ruritania need food and work. Morrey’s men will help them rebuild what Yuri destroyed,” Ashton added.
“We’ll all go home soon, brother.” Brock gave Aiden’s shoulder a squeeze.
Not all of us,Aiden thought.That was what Aiden was afraid of. It meant either staying here with Anna, being parted from the land he loved and his family, or Anna having to choose her country over love. No matter what, not all of them would be going home.
But in truth, it was no choice. If Anna chose to stay married to him, he would live here with her. No matter how much he would miss his home, his animals, his friends, and his siblings, he would always put her needs before his own. Love was a sacrifice... but it was also a precious gift, and he would do whatever he had to in order to be worthy of it.
“It’s a pity we never got to have a decent battle,” Charles grumbled. “We handled Yuri’s men so quickly it was rather dull, wasn’t it?”
Ashton rolled his eyes.
“I think storming a castle with rebels makes for a decent story,” Godric said. “Besides, it’s not really an adventure if Charles’s head doesn’t almost get chopped off.”
Charles scowled at Godric and shuddered dramatically. “That isn’t the least bit amusing. I like my head where it is, thank you very much.”
Aiden closed his eyes, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he listened to his brothers jump into the conversation with good-natured insults about where Charles’s head should be. He would miss them all fiercely, but Anna was his future, and if she would have him, that meant letting go of the past. But that was all assuming she chose him and not Erich. He would honor whatever choice she made, even if it broke his heart.
CHAPTER19
Four weeks later
Anna stood a few steps behind Alexei in the great hall as he knelt before a priest and received the royal crown of Ruritania. A cheer erupted from the crowd gathered to witness the coronation. Anna watched the late-autumn sunlight streaming through the stained-glass windows, painting the stone walls with a rainbow of colors and she snuck a glance at Aiden in the crowd who watched her with soft eyes that made her skin warm with a blush. She forced herself to focus back on her brother’s coronation.
“Rise, King Alexei III of Ruritania,” the priest announced. Alexei stood and turned to face the crowd, and his red cloak lined with white fur swirled behind him. He surveyed the room. Beneath it, he wore the royal Ruritanian military dress of white and blue, with their family’s gold lion emblem on his chest. He looked magnificent, and so much like their father that Anna’s heart ached.
Four weeks had passed since the death of the Pretender, as the locals now called Yuri. They seemed determined to deny the man any place in their history. In that time, Alexei had met daily with nobles and commoners representing every major village to discuss the country’s future.
