AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m telling you how you can help,” he said, his chin trembling with temper kept barely in check. “You marry that man Fraser, or our debts will see us both sent to the poorhouse. ”
The horrific truth was dawning. Her father was in debt and they hadn’t the money to pay. But he’d been wrong on one count: they’d be lucky if they were only sent to the poorhouse. Idle, able-bodied poor were as likely to be shipped off to the Indies or America.
She had no choice. They were destitute. It was marriage for her, or some worse fate for the two of them.
She became frantic. Her world was spinning out of control, and she was powerless to stop it. “Please, Da,” she pleaded. “Don’t you see? It’s Fraser who’s behind this. He’s the one who destroyed the farm. ”
“Well, then he did a tidy job of it, because now you have no choice. You just pray he’ll still take you. God willing, he’ll still keep you even though you’re no maiden. Now stop that caterwauling. It’s no’ like you, and I don’t like it. ” He grabbed her arm and began to drag her up the hill.
“Stop!” She jerked her arm away. “What of the farm? What are you doing?”
“Daft girl, what do you think I’m doing? I’m taking you to him. ”
It was all happening too fast. Fraser had held the last card, and he’d played it perfectly. She and her father had bills to pay, and no means to pay them. Aidan had no money either, and if he saddled himself with her, he’d be in line for the workhouse, too. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being held captive again.
She had no choice but to marry Fraser. Life as she knew it was ending.
She planted her feet, making her father stumble. “Can I at least say good-bye?”
“To that devil MacAlpin? And let the blackguard steal you away? I think not, girl. ” He tugged her onward. “You’re lucky I don’t let Fraser’s men deal with him. ”
Another fact dawned, and the shock of it impaled her. If Fraser had done all this simply to have her as a bride, what would he do to Aidan if he were to discover him?
Her heart choked her throat until it was difficult to breathe, impossible to swallow.
Aidan sought the man with the black pearl, a man connected to Fraser, and it was only a matter of time before he found both men. If Fraser realized she loved Aidan, he’d surely kill him. And with a fleet of dockside thugs on his payroll, she didn’t doubt his ability.
She thought of those butchered sheep. What tortures might Fraser devise if he discovered Aidan had been the one to deny him the pleasure of her maidenhead? Aidan, who’d already suffered torments enough for one lifetime.
She had to keep him safe. And the only way to do that was to go to Fraser. To marry him.
By sacrificing herself, her very life, she’d keep Aidan free. The image of his scarred wrists and back was seared into her memory—she’d never want to inflict such pain on him again.
Fraser heard voices at the door and felt his mouth curl into a smile. Albert and Elspeth Farquharson, he’d wager, and right on time.
The whole fire episode had been so unlike him—it’d taken him a full hour to wash the stink of smoke from his body—but he wasn’t one to suffer a plan going awry. He’d gotten it into his head that a bit of sheep pasturage in the guise of a wool farm would be just the thing to explain away his not entirely legal profits in the slave trade.
Besides, he hadn’t been about to sit idly by as the girl took it in her head to spurn him. Even less would he endure being jilted for some other fool—likely some sodding farmer, or whatever sort of man it was who struck the fancies of young girls.
Though using alcohol as an incendiary had been inspired, torching their farm to the ground had been an ordeal. Yet the moment Elspeth and her father entered his office, he knew at once it’d been worth it.
She was lovely, pale and fragile, with the bloom of exertion on her cheeks. Or perhaps it was anger he saw in her blush, and he thought he might just prefer that even more. He’d want this girl beneath him even if she hadn’t come with a strip of land he could claim for profit.
“Well, good day to the both of you. ” He stood and gestured for them to take a seat. “Please join me. ”
“Expecting us, were you?” She looked at him with a spark in her eyes. There was anger in her gaze, but something else too. Fear.
It sent a bolt of heat to his loins.
He knew the sheep had put the fear there—or rather, what he’d done to them. He could see the horror of his butchery in her eyes. The cursed beasts had as much wool between their ears as they had on their backs, and slaughtering the lot of them had been more chore than challenge. But it’d been the crowning touch, and just the thing to show Elspeth what came to pass when people crossed him.
“On the contrary. After our last conversation, I understood we were to break our engagement. ” He adjusted the chair as she sat, thinking there was but one thing to be broken, and it was she. He’d break her like a horse, and what a pleasure it would be. “But I see a new light dancing in your eyes. Have I reason to hope?”
She scowled at him, and it took all his control not to smirk. Underneath the shy exterior, this one was a firebrand.
A thousand times smarter than her dimwit father, and a pleasure to spar with. Her pretty lips thinned. “Hope? You’d better hope—”
“That is,” her father said, quickly cutting her off, “we’re of the hope that you took your last interview with Elspeth to be no more than it was: the silly games of a maiden. ”
