A Very Highland Holiday - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,157
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 belongings.
This was all she could take with her.
Where she would go, she’d not yet decided. Tonight, when it was dark, she would hide the satchel in the barn so that it was there when she was ready to leave. She prayed the feast tomorrow evening would give her some answers.
Until then, she’d need to come up with a plan—any plan, as long as she was gone before midnight struck on Christmas.
Chapter Two
“Thanks for the borrow, sir. Though ye dinna know it yet, ye’ve done a great service to your fellow Scot.” Thane gave a salute to the unconscious man at his feet, speaking as he divested the costumed Father Christmas from his garments and pulled them on himself.
He’d not had any idea of how he was going to sneak into Campbell castle until he’d happened upon the festively dressed man, and then he’d known exactly. Once inside, with Sarah held captive, he could divest himself of the costume and be about his business of abduction.
The old red velvet cloak smelled of must and horses, and other unmentionable things. Probably hadn’t seen a wash since the Christmas before, but he tried not to think about that. Served these traitorous bastards right. They might have fought with the Scots on the field of battle, but Thane had to wonder if deep in their hearts, they were English loving all along.
Father Christmas was distinctly un-Scottish.
He tugged on the makeshift beard and curly, woolen hair that had once been white but now was yellowed with age. Good lord, but it smelled like sour, not so well-preserved, ale.