Page 7 of The Highlander’s Savage Vow

Something crumpled inside her then. He could see it happen—the last of her hope, her expectation that this marriage might be bearable, might even be happy. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, but he'd already seen the damage.

"I see," she said quietly. "Then I suppose I should thank ye fer savin' me life, Laird MacDuff, and trouble ye nay further with... expectations."

The formal distance in her voice should have felt like victory. Instead, it felt like he'd just lost another piece of his humanity, carved away and discarded.

"That will be best. We have a long way tae go, and I willnae slow the column fer anyone."

He turned away before he could linger on the hurt expression on her face. "Fergus!" he barked at another of his men. "Escort Lady MacNeill tae the rear. She rides with the supply wagon."

"But sir, wouldnae she be safer—" Willelm began.

"Did I ask fer yer opinion?" Ruaridh's voice cut like a blade.

"Nay, sir."

"Then dae as ye are told."

He watched as Fergus helped Iona toward the wagon, watched her shoulders set in lines of rigid dignity. She didn't look back. Not once.

But as he turned to survey the battlefield, organizing his men for the journey home, a memory surfaced unbidden. Iona defending him against older boys who'd called him names. Her fierce little face, her absolute loyalty, the way she'd taken a black eye for him without complaint.

"I dinnae care what they say about ye, Ruaridh MacDuff. Ye’re me friend, and I'll fight anyone who says different."

He shoved the memory away, buried it deep where it couldn't hurt him. That girl was gone too, replaced by a woman who brought death and politics and complications he couldn't afford.

Strangers. That's what's left of us now, and it's what's safer fer everyone.

And from the set of Iona's shoulders as she sat in the supply wagon, he suspected she felt exactly the same way.