The Laird’s Runaway Bride (Charmed by the Sassenachs #1)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

As the sun set beyond the trees, the only sound Amelia could hear was her footsteps echoing around her. In the silent forest, she was the only thing making any sound; no creatures watching her, no men pursuing her. Not yet, at least.

She hitched her skirts up as she ran, her breath tearing from her lungs with every breath. She could scarcely believe she was doing it, fleeing from the Keep, putting as much distance as was possible between herself and the old man whom her father wanted to wed her to.

The mere thought of him sent her feet rushing even faster, leaping over exposed roots and large rocks as she made her way deeper into Birnam Wood. The cold air was already starting to make her skin ache, and branches snatched at her hair with every step, but it was better than turning and going back to what she had fled from.

A sound cut through the quiet around her; trickling water, a burn snaking through the forest. She paused for a moment, dropping to her knees, and cupped her hands to create a makeshift vessel, dipping them into the water, she drew the icy-cold liquid to her mouth, and drank deep. She knew not how long it would be before she would be able to stop again, and she gulped down as much as she was able to at once.

Pausing for a moment, she closed her eyes. She could almost feel the weight of her choice pressing down upon her, the enormity of the decision she had made demanding her attention. When she had fled from the Keep, she had felt as though she had little choice but to run, as fast as her legs would carry her. It was either that, or leave herself under the lecherous eye of the old Laird, Donald.

She shuddered at the thought, the water curdling in her stomach as she remembered the way he had looked at her across the banquet table on the day her father had announced their betrothal. She’d known little of her father’s plans for her, when he had brought her to the family estate in Dunsinane; she’d grown up in the idyllic fields of middle England, which seemed almost like a fairy tale now. When she and her sisters had travelled to Scotland with her father, they had seen it as another adventure, but now, she could see it was anything but.

It was a nightmare.

She rose to her feet again, glancing around as though the very trees around her might contain spies for her father or the Laird, and then took off. She did not know where she was running to, or what she planned to do when she got there. Would her father have already sent guards ahead, to fill out the surrounding towns and make certain that she’d not get far? He had seemed determined to marry her off to Donald, to create an alliance between their families that would allow both to extend the grip of their power on this land, to pay up the debts her father had incurred.

Her dress balled in her hands, she tried to peer through the dark forest surrounding her, but the trees were closing in from every side. She’d never been to Scotland before, and the land was new to her—the smell of the air, the sound of the talk, the way the locals seemed to eye her with open disdain. She was little more than some English girl to them, and none of them seemed to take much interest in her beyond what her father had already insisted she do.

She tripped, sprawling down on to the ground below. She managed to throw her hands out before she met with the damp earth, but she grazed both her knees on a large, jagged rock that protruded from the ground below. Muttering a curse to herself, she checked her new wounds, but they didn’t seem too deep. The dress had taken most of the harm for her, torn to shreds around her knees. What remained of the delicate blue embroidery that lined the hem was nearly destroyed, and the cream fabric had been stained in her flight.

She should have known something was odd when her father had insisted on getting her fitted for this dress before she had come to Scotland. He had always been tight with his money, and he only spent it when he thought there would be some way to make it back—little did she know, at the time, that he intended to sell her off to see a return on his investment. The thought of it made her sick, the thick weight of what he was doing to her striking her full-force once again.

More than that, though, she feared what her darling sisters, Mary and Lily, would be going through once her father discovered she was gone. She had clutched them both close to her before she had fled the Keep, whispering to Lily what her plan was so at least they would know nothing bad had become of her.

“You can’t leave us,” Lily pleaded with her, but she shook her head, clasping her sister’s face in her hands, gazing at it as though she were doing all she could to commit it to memory. Like her, Lily had long blonde hair, but her eyes were a pale green, aching with vulnerability in that moment.

“I’ll come back for you,” she swore to her, and she pressed a kiss on to her hair before she took off, past the guards, and into the forest.

Blood leaked from the fresh wounds on her knees, and she muttered a curse to herself as she tore off a strip of fabric from the bottom of her skirt to dress them. She should have come here more prepared, but she knew she didn’t have the time. Every moment that passed was another that brought her closer to being in the bed chamber of that awful man…

She shuddered at the thought, the cold suddenly a better option to her in that moment. It wasn’t just that she found him physically repulsive, though she did. It was that he was the kind of man willing to allow a young woman to be used as a pawn to pay off the debts of her father. And that was the kind of man, she knew, she would never want to spend more than a moment with, if she could avoid it.

She straightened up once more, a sharp shock of pain echoing up her leg where the graze had dug deeper than she expected. But it did little to slow her. No, every moment she wasted was a moment she was drawn closer to losing her freedom for good—and taking to the forest was a far better choice for her than giving up.

Even if it meant condemning her sisters to take her place? The thought nagged at her mind, like the branches that tore at her hair. A rush of dread coursed through her. No, she would do all she was capable of to rescue them, just as soon as she knew how to protect all three of them from the foul fate their father had prepared them for, she would return.

But for now, all she could do was run.