The Highlander Who Stole Christmas - Eliza Knight Page 0,2

for her, and she’d been glad for it. Now that she was five and twenty, she thought for certain she’d be too long in the tooth for anyone to want her. Apparently not.

Sarah reached forward, preparing to bang on the door to tell them exactly what she thought of their disgusting plan, but what they said next stilled her.

“Northumberland’s son will be there, as well.”

“English bastards,” cursed her brother Edward.

“Aye. We’ll rob him blind if he’s willing to take her.”

Selling her to a bloody Sassenach made her stomach curdle, and she dropped her hand, pressing it to her gut, willing herself not to vomit. Northumberland…The same man who’d killed their brother and cousins on the field of battle.

Oh, dear God, she could not be wed to a Sassenach! Especially one who’d led a red-coated regiment against her own kin. What had got into her brothers?

Greed.

Sarah pinched her forearm, hoping this was a dream, but the pain radiating from the spot between her thumb and forefinger was very real.

They rattled off a few other names—all men she knew to be violent, and several more that were in league with the government, having gone against Bonnie Prince Charlie. Was that it then? After having fought for the prince at Culloden, her brothers were now prepared to sell their souls, and hers, to the highest bidder?

This wouldn’t do. It couldn’t.

Again, she raised her hand to rap on the door, to barge inside and tell them that they were crazy, but something stopped her. What if they denied her argument? What if they were so desperate for coin that they locked her up until the deed was done, the papers signed, and she was no longer a Campbell, but the wife of an Englishman?

Sarah backed away from the door, fear snaking its way down her spine. Her entire body started to tremble, and she bit her knuckles to keep from screaming.

There was so little she had control over. So little, indeed.

Except for one thing. Edward and Ellyson didn’t need to know she was aware of their plans. If they weren’t privy to her knowledge, and they continued with the charade of a festive Christmas celebration, they would have no idea that she was planning to escape, for that was what she must do.

Get as far away as possible.

Sarah would not wed any of the dozen or so men her brothers had invited into their home to steal her away. Never. And she wasn’t against marriage—but she was against being sold to butchers.

She needed to escape, and perhaps the night of the feast was the perfect time. Her brothers would be so distracted sorting through the proposals, counting the coins that would soon line their coffers, they wouldn’t notice she’d gone missing.

Blinded by tears, Sarah rushed back to her chamber and quietly shut the door. She leaned against the cool wood, sucking in a breath on a sob.

So much had changed in the last eight months. So much had changed in the last eight minutes.

This time last year, they’d been celebrating the holiday season with their clan. Singing, dancing. There had been so much hope for a better future with Jon as their new leader. Edward and Ellyson had been eager to join their comrades in the Jacobite rebellion, to bring honor to the clan. Their eldest brother Jon had been wooing his new wife, Thea.

Standing in the center of the great hall last Christmas, Sarah never would have guessed that she’d be where she was now. Jon and Thea dead. Her, escaping the family she’d once loved so fiercely.

Och, not once, but still. She loved them even now when they were tearing her apart on the inside.

Pushing away from the door, Sarah marched toward her wardrobe and wrenched it open. She pulled her leather traveling satchel out from behind the hanging gowns and stuffed her winter cloak inside, along with a gown, a pair of riding boots and a spare chemise. Then she opened the tiny box her father had carved for her and stared inside at the ring that had once belonged to her mother—the Campbell crest surrounded by rubies. It was her prized possession. If her brothers realized that she had it, they would steal it for certain.

But the ring had been given to her in private by her and Jon’s mother just before she’d passed when she’d been barely five years old, and she doubted they were even aware of its existence. She put that into the satchel with her other