Taken by Angeline Fortin (great books of all time TXT) 📗

about herself had never come easily but Rhys had a real talent for pulling it out of her.  Sometimes Scarlett wasn’t sure he would be satisfied until she had bared her soul completely.

His questions – he truly did ask all the good ones – became more probing as he pried tirelessly into her life until she’d provided him an odd concoction of fiction, half-truths and fairy tales.

She was certain he knew that she was holding back but he didn’t seem to care.  He seemed to simply enjoy her company as Scarlett did his.

But this morning, he’d tried to pull perhaps one secret too many.  Looking for answers to questions she didn’t want to talk about, things she wouldn’t talk about and things she couldn’t talk about.

Her life.

Dunskirk.

Laird.

Where she hadn’t yet felt the need to escape Laird or Crichton, it was those questions that finally compelled her to run.  At least for a while.

“What are you still doing here, bastard?”

Passing beneath an open window of keep as she tried to find her way out of the castle, there was no way Scarlett could miss the disdainful query.  She recognized Lady Ishbel’s malevolent tone well enough.  Her spiteful epithet could have been directed at only a few people.  Sure enough, it was Laird who answered.  “I am here at yer bidding, my lady.  Did ye no’ summon me to this room?”

A low feminine hiss followed by, “You know my meaning.  I demand you leave Crichton at once.  You’re not welcome here.”

“Upon my father’s invitation, I am,” Laird said flatly.  “And I will await him here to address the coming war and the fate of my captive.”

“Captive?  Bah!  You bring your harlot into my home under such a ridiculous pretense?  Do you think I don’t know everything that occurs in this castle?  I won’t have it,” Lady Ishbel spat out so viciously that Scarlett cringed even though she wasn’t in the line of fire.  A harlot was she?

“Ye willnae insult the lass.”  Laird’s voice was as ominous as Scarlett had ever heard it.  A thrill shot through her as he came to her defense.  “She is a lady born, madam.”

“Bah!  My error was in assuming the same.  She is no lady,” Lady Ishbel insisted, maliciously. “Do you think the servants would not comment on your presence in her chamber yester morn?”

“Did they comment upon mine as well, Mother?” Rhys’s voice joined the pair.  Unexpectedly, given the long silence that followed.  He continued, “’Tis naught worth gossiping over this day nor any other.  I would chastise yer servants for spreading such rumors and leave Laird be.”

“Leave him be?” Lady Ishbel spat out, clearly unwilling to let the matter rest.

“She is a lady true, madam,” Laird continued more calmly yet there was resolve in his tone, “and due all the courtesy of her station.  She will hae it, am I understood?”

“You dare to command me?”

“I do and upon my honor, ye will regret crossing me in this.”

There was a quiet moment.  Scarlett could just imagine Lady Ishbel seeing that particular look in Laird’s eyes and cowing before it.  Even the devil would hesitate before gainsaying him when he had that look.

“I shall be glad to see you gone,” Lady Ishbel hissed.  “By God’s grace, you will find a place in hell and never return.”

Scarlett gasped at the woman’s viciousness and even Rhys protested.  “Mother, enough!  Laird has ne’er had more than a respectful word for ye.  Would that ye could treat him in kind and let us all be at peace.”

“I will never treat this bastard kindly.  I want him out of my home!”

“When I hae words wi’ mine father and mine uncle, I will depart Crichton and no’ before,” Laird said tightly.

“Your uncle?” Lady Ishbel snarled.  “You dare claim connection to the king?  You vile bastard, you…  Argh!”  The epithets ended in the slam of a door and the lady’s screech of frustration, telling Scarlett more clearly than words that Laird and Rhys had left Lady Ishbel to spew her venom in solitude.

Even with the woman’s spiteful glances upon their arrival and her insulting assumptions, Scarlett never imagined that Lady Ishbel felt such animosity toward her husband’s son.  As if Laird were the one to blame.

Turning away, she found her way to the open portcullis and out of the castle, heading toward the small village she had spotted upon her arrival to Crichton.

It was just so wrong.  Sympathy for Laird washed over her.  Had he had to deal with such open malice his entire life?  Still he treated Lady Ishbel with nothing but respect in public.  Even in private, he had been civil.  Until Lady Ishbel had cast aspersions on Scarlett, that is.

Underneath that stoic, warrior-like exterior was a good man.  A patient one.  More patient than some deserved.  She could do worse in a captor.

You could do worse in a man, her inner devil teased.

With a sigh, Scarlett shook the thought off and focused on the village ahead.  It wasn’t large, just a few dozen small stone cottages roofed in sod.  The short grass growing there undulated hypnotically in the light breeze, soothing her troubled thoughts.  The smoke billowing from the chimneys smelled like burning dung.  Peat, she supposed, but mingled in with it was the scent of savory food, meat that twisted Scarlett’s empty stomach with envy this time reminding her that she’d eaten little at dinner.

She did not feel such a sentiment for the inhabitants of the village.  Alas, no one wanted to go to the renaissance fair as a peasant.  Men, women and children moved in and out of the buildings, laboring over their work or bearing large bundles on their backs.  They were clothed in simple tunics and dresses made with rough fabrics in muted colors.  Most wore long caps on their heads.

For the first time, history intrigued her.  Probably because it was living and breathing right in front of her.  It was a captivating picture.  She was seeing something historians from her time might envision