Highlander Taken. Juliette Miller

all over again the very next night.”

      This was met with momentary silence.

      “She begged him to do it again?” Ann asked, as though she was unsure if she’d heard it correctly.

      “Aye,” said Agnes. “But he wouldn’t. She was so eager she even asked him to propose to her. But he refused, and he made his leave the next day.”

      More silence, as we absorbed this disquieting information.

      “What did he do to her?” asked Maisie, wildly intrigued as we all were. Me, perhaps most of all, as the carriage continued on its way, swallowing distance and divides, taking me ever closer to my fate.

      “Claire’s cousin wouldn’t tell Lottie everything,” Agnes said, “but she did say this—he bound her to the bed.”

      “Bound her?” I asked, my voice doing nothing to disguise my distress. “Why?”

      “To constrain her. She was entirely at his mercy.”

      “Good Lord,” whispered Ann.

      “So he’s as domineering in the bedchambers as he is in the sparring ring,” said Maisie. “I guessed as much.”

      Ann, who was sitting to my right, gave me a sudden hug, holding my head against her shoulder. “Stella, ’tis worse than we feared. He’s as cruel as the worst rumors indicate. We cannot let you go through with this. Between the seven of us, we might overpower the driver and Father’s officer. Or you could pretend to be ill. We could ask to stop at the next tavern and escape somehow. I’ll come with you. I’ll stay with you. You can’t marry Kade Mackenzie. He sounds utterly horrific. Marriage to such a beast is too much to ask of you, alliance or no alliance.”

      “Agnes,” said Maisie, interrupting Ann’s fevered monologue, “are you sure Lottie said she asked him to propose to her? Even after he constrained her like that?”

      Ann allowed me to sit up a little, but her arms remained strung loosely around me as we both waited for Agnes’s answer.

      “Aye,” Agnes said. “Even though she was terrified of him, she said his lovemaking was akin to a spiritual experience. And then he left and wouldn’t return and she ended up marrying a Buchanan soldier. But now she’s thoroughly unhappy. Her new husband doesn’t satisfy her. Claire’s cousin—and you must never breathe a word of this to anyone—she even sent a letter to Kade, asking him to return to their keep for a visit, husband or no husband. But he never replied.”

      I wasn’t sure how to take this mixed bag of information. A spiritual experience? What did that even mean? Was it that bad? Or that good? Clearly it must have been good if she had wanted him to stay and marry her, and still she wrote to him despite being wed to another. Yet it didn’t make sense.

      She was entirely at his mercy.

      I felt as though I might pass out. Extricating myself gently from Ann’s grasp, I pulled the heavy cloth curtain back from the window of the carriage, letting a current of fresh air waft around me, breathing the coolness deeply into my lungs.

      “Stella,” said Agnes, placing her hand over mine, patting lightly. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but I thought, if it was me, I’d want to know what to expect. So I could prepare myself as best I could.”

      “’Tis fine, Agnes,” I said, not feeling at all fine. About any of it.

      “Well, it’s not exactly bad news, then, is it?” said Clementine. “If she wanted him to do...whatever it was he did, and the very next night, then surely it was—”

      “But what exactly did she mean by ‘spiritual experience’?” interrupted Maisie. “I mean, when Wilkie and I...” She faltered at the memory. We were all well aware of Maisie’s tryst with Wilkie, having heard about many of the details repeatedly and in some depth. “Well, I would describe it in similar terms. I felt changed by it, and not just physically. Perhaps they shared something. You should be careful, Stella. And mindful. ’Tis good that you mentioned it, Agnes. Kade might stray with Claire Buchanan’s cousin. You might have to go with him to any gatherings at the Buchanan manor. Just in case.”

      That seemed the very least of my worries. In fact, I wished Kade had taken this Buchanan lass’s offer to marry her, so I could be done with Kade Mackenzie once and for all. I wanted nothing to do with terrified ecstasy or spiritual experiences, whatever those might be.

      “Try not to think about it, Stella,” Ann said softly, holding one of my hands. “It’ll only upset you.” The rest of them seemed to sense this, too, and thankfully fell quiet.

      If only I could choose my own lover, and one who didn’t intimidate me so. Or bind and ravage me.

      I nearly gave in to the tears that stung the backs of my eyes as I thought of Caleb’s kind voice, his peaceful presence. That was the marriage bed I’d hoped for: one that was as nonthreatening as such a thing could be.

      Instead, I looked out the window to see, perched on a hill in the shrinking distance, the grand and ominous Kinloch manor.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      ON THE MORNING of my wedding day, I awoke to the gushing excitement of my sisters and my attendants. For them, the day promised fun, festive possibilities and a brighter future for the entirety of our clan. For me, however, it offered a wholly different view. I pulled the furs over my head to block out the light and relentless activity.

      But my attempts to hide were quickly thwarted and I was fawned over, undressed and helped into my bath, which had been brought into the room and filled with perfumed, steaming water. “You’ve lost weight, Stella,” commented Ann. “You’re not eating enough.”

      It was true. My stomach had been too uneasy for food, almost from the moment my father had presented me with the news of my impending marriage. And I was naturally somewhat slimmer than my sisters, although still curvy enough to fill out the fashionable wedding dress I would wear, designed and prepared for me by none other than Kade’s sister, Ailie Mackenzie. The dress had been fitted the previous day, and the waist had needed only minor adjustments. After much deliberation, it had been decided that I would wear my hair down for the wedding ceremony, as my many attendants found its dark waving tendrils with their golden tips pleasing against the off-white of the velvet dress.

      “You shouldn’t lose too much weight, Stella,” Maisie scolded me. “Men don’t like their women too thin.”

      The very subject of men in general—and one man in particular—was enough to start my stomach fluttering again. Whatever preferences Kade Mackenzie held for the size and shape of a woman’s body were shady, disquieting details that sent my heart racing. I stood up, dripping onto the floor as I made a move to step out of my bath. “I can’t do it. I cannot marry him. I don’t love him, and I don’t want to share his marriage bed.”

      Hands were on me, stroking my hair and easing me back into the warm water.

      “’Tis not about love, sister,” said Clementine, soothing in tone but hardly in subject. “’Tis about duty, honor, protection. You’ll be lady of the clan one day soon, remember. Your comfort, your bidding, your every wish will be ours to provide you. Your child will be heir of Glenlochie. You’ll have a new status to be proud of, and one which you’re bound to fulfill with grace, as kind and gentle as you are.” After a moment, Clementine added, somewhat grimly, “You can’t run from your duty, Stella.” And I felt for her then, I truly did. It should have been her, the eldest, to bear the heir: a thought that plagued her, I could see it written on her face. It should not have been me, the second child. Rather than fulfilling all the promise of her status as firstborn, she would see out her childbearing years in the self-imposed isolation of a nunnery, nursing her own heartbreak and defeat. And in the light of this truth that was clearly painful for her, I took her comment to heart. Nay, I could not run from my duty, a duty she coveted, yearned for, cried for and one that had passed her by. And Maisie, too. For all their faults, they were my sisters and I wanted to keep