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

Chapter 4

4

“Where the hell have you been?”

Her father’s words made her jump; he was a man who controlled his emotions with great care most of the time, so for him to scream at her with such fervency, she knew she was in mortal trouble. She had done all she could to screw her courage to the sticking place before she had marched inside, but now she was confronted by him, she felt like a little girl again. She stood almost a head taller than him now, but still, when he stomped towards her, she could have sworn she was barely taller than her mother’s apron strings.

“Father, I… I can explain…”

“Yes, and you’d better, and quickly!” he exclaimed as he stormed past Arran and grabbed her arm. She let out a yelp of pain, trying to twist her way out of his grip, but it was too tight. She could already see his fingertips pressing into her flesh, sure they would leave bruises, as they did when she was an errant child, and he had reason to take her in hand.

But, before she could begin to muster an explanation, a voice cut in between them.

“I think ye’d better let go of her, sir.”

Arran stepped forward, his eyes dark as they pinned on to her father. She drew in a sharp breath.

“Please, you don’t have to—” she tried to protest, but he ignored her. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he wasn’t going to back down on this.

“Stay out of this,” her father snarled, and he yanked her towards him, causing her to stumble while Arran caught her with ease, his arm around her waist, the other on her arm, steadying her so she could find her feet once more.

“And what do you think you’re doing, laying hands on my daughter like that?”

“I’m trying to help her,” he replied calmly. “Now, you tell me what you’re doing, sir.”

Silence hung there in the air between them. Her father was staring at the man beside her with utter incredulity. She herself didn’t understand why he was making such an effort to defend her. He had seemed to be glad to be rid of her when they had arrived here.

Her father puffed his chest up, and shoved his face close to Arran’s, not letting go of her for an instant.

“I think you’ll find that this is between my daughter and me,” he snarled to him. His face was deepening in color, a sure sign that his anger was getting the better of him.

Arran grabbed her father’s hand, and moved it away from hers. She let out a gasp of breath she hardly realized she had been holding. Beyond her father, she could see her sisters cowering around a table, their mother beside them, and the foul beast she was due to marry glaring over at her with disgust in his eyes.

“I think ye’ll find,” Arran countered, eyes flashing with anger. “That I am the landowner here. And anything that happens on my land is my business. Including whatever it is you intend to do to yer daughter.”

Why was he doing this? She couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but having someone on her side, someone who seemed willing to argue for her, felt like a gift in that moment. She shifted slightly, standing behind him, shielding herself from the wrath of her father as best she could.

“A landowner?” her father snorted, gesturing to him with amusement. “Who looks like that? You’re a wildling, boy. Now, step away from my daughter, or I’ll?—"

“Or ye’ll what?”

Those words hung in the air between them for a long moment. A smile curled up the corners of Arran’s lips, though it did not reach his eyes. It was a threat, pure and simple, and though her father might have been foolish about some of the ways of the Scots, he knew a warning when he heard it.

Suddenly, a man appeared at her father’s side. She recognized him at once as one of his advisors, a squirrelly, small man with a patchy beard who did his best to help her father navigate the social mores of being in Scotland.

“Perhaps it would be a good idea to apologize to Laird Aitken,” the advisor suggested. Arran crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back on his heels as he waited for the apology to manifest. Amelia glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Laird Aitken? Though she would scarcely have taken him for a Laird at first glance, it seemed to suit him. There was something about him which demanded respect, even if she wasn’t quite sure what it was.

“Apologize?” her father exclaimed. “After he arrived back here with my daughter, wearing another man’s cloak?—”

“Aye, I think you’d do well to listen to your advisor here,” Arran replied, voice measured.

“Not until he apologizes to me for the state of my daughter!”

Amelia felt her heart sink at the sound of those words. The way he spoke them, it was as though she was little more than property to him; he wasn’t worried about her, wasn’t fearful that something terrible had happened to her or that she had been hurt in her time away from the inn. No, all he cared about was whether or not he would be able to demand a high price for her and pay off the debts he owed this man she was due to marry. She bit back a lump in her throat, not wanting to allow him to see how much his words had stung her.

“You owe me compensation for the state of her,” he continued, jabbing his finger into Arran’s chest. Arran didn’t move, not even to brush him off, though she could sense that he was angered by the tone her father had taken with him.

“Aye, do I, now?” he remarked, amusement in his tone. The sound of it sent dread creeping up Amelia’s spine. She got the feeling that what he found amusing might differ from the rest of the people in this room, and she felt little urge to find out if she was right.

“And what exactly do you think I owe ye?”

He glared down at her father, and Amelia found that she was holding her breath again. When he had seen her in the woods, her heart had sunk. She had thought that her attempt to find freedom was over, but maybe, just maybe…

“I think you owe me my daughter’s honor!” he exclaimed. “She was… she was due to be married to another man, and here you turn up, with her in a mess, her clothes hanging off her?—”

“Due to be married, aye?”

Arran cut him off casually, as though pondering the fact. He glanced over at her, and, as their eyes locked, she could tell he understood, at least on some level, that was what she had been running from.

“Yes, she was, until you found her and did God knows what to her.”

She wanted to protest, but the words withered on her tongue. This man had done nothing to her, nothing but help her—more than her own father had done, at least recently.

“You think I’ve laid a hand on that lass?”

Her father stared back at him, a grim expression on his face.

“I know what men like you do to women you find alone. Look at her. It’s obvious she’s been?—"

“Then I’ll marry her.”

Everything stopped for a moment. A stillness hung in the air as they tried to make sense of what Arran had just said. He didn’t break her father’s gaze for a moment. She waited for him to laugh, to slap his leg and howl with amusement at the mere thought of what was being proposed, but he didn’t.

“What on earth are you talking about?” her father blustered. “That’s not what I—that’s not how I?—"

“My Lord, Lady Millbrook is betrothed to another,” the advisor muttered in his ear.

“I know that!” he exploded. “But this man… For this man to take her honor, and then?—"

“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to dae?” Arran replied. “When a lady is sullied in such a way?”

Amelia knew that he was right. There was only one way to handle what her father believed had happened between them. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to suggest such a thing, but now that the possibility was being laid out in front of her, she could see that it might just have worked. If she could find a way to convince them that she was sullied and ruined by this brute of a man, there was no way that she would be valuable enough to marry off to her would-be husband. Granted, she didn’t know how to deal with Arran if her father agreed to this, but surely any fate was better than the one he had chosen for her.

“Laird Aitken is known across the land to be a brute!” The advisor cut in, his voice strained with panic. “No outsider who has ever set foot in his Keep has left alive!”

Amelia shivered, and looked at Arran again. His face was impassive, impossible to read. She could still see a few flecks of blood spattered across his knuckles. She could easily believe that he didn’t let anyone step out of his Keep, if he felt as though they had wronged him. He carried himself with the certainty of a man who knew that all debts that were owed to him would be repaid, one way or another.

“This is all your fault, girl!” her father exclaimed, stepping towards her again, though this time, he seemed to know better than to push further than he had before. Though he might not have been willing to admit it, there was clearly some part of him that was fearful of Arran, what he might do if he were given the chance.

“If you hadn’t been so reckless, so foolish,” he continued, venom dripping from every word. “Then you’d never have gotten us into this mess in the first place, you stupid, stupid girl!”

Arran shifted his weight so that he was blocking her father from reaching her. All at once, she was grateful for him. Though she was sure he had performed such cruelties that she could hardly imagine, in that instant, he was the only one on her side, and God only knew how much she needed that.

“Please, father, listen to me,” she begged him. “I… I could not marry that man, you can’t just sell me off as though I’m nothing better than cattle.”

“You’re my daughter,” he snarled back at her. And, though she knew it to be true, when she looked into his eyes, she found it hard to believe that the man looking back at her was truly her father. He was truly the man who had raised her and cared for her and shown her so much love when she had been a young girl. Had he even done all of that? Perhaps she was misremembering. Because surely, a man capable of what he was doing now could never have cared for her or loved her in the way that a father should.

“Aye, and I’m offering to make her my wife,” Arran replied. The words sounded almost surreal coming out of his mouth, making her head spin. After all the chaos of the last few days, the exhaustion was starting to get the better of her, and she didn’t know if she had it in her to fight. Could she leave with this man, this man who seemed so dangerous? This man whom she had seen in the woods, next to the body of a stag? And she was far from the strength of a stag…

“You’ll pay?” her father asked, his voice careful. Arran nodded sharply.

“Aye, I’ll pay.”

Her heart sank. So, that was all she was to him. Another bounty he could conquer, another hunt he could win. She swallowed hard to dim the lump in her throat, glancing over towards her sisters, both of whom were watching her with eyes wide and lips parted.

For them. Do this for them. Protect them from whatever your father would have to do if you denied him…

But could she really dedicate her life to some kind of monster in the process?