CHAPTER10
They crossed into Scotland just as twilight fell over the hills.
Frances had never seen such a sky—streaks of lavender and deep rose stretching behind the silhouette of distant mountains, the gold of fading light dusting every blade of grass like powdered fire. Even the air tasted different—untamed and clean, like freedom distilled.
She inhaled it like someone remembering how to breathe.
They did not stay long in Gretna Green.
They were safe now, or safer than before, but Frances had needed more time. And Johnathan, to his credit, had not pressed her.
“We shall remain close by,” he had said. “A day or two. Rest. Heal. Decide.”
Now, they found themselves in a sleepy, little hamlet a day and a half ride from Gretna—six cottages, an inn, and a green where children chased dogs and the older men smoked pipes beneath a gnarled old tree. Not quite a village, but a community.
Frances had not known what she expected when Johnathan told her he knew the perfect place to relax, but this quaint little corner of the world had not been it.
It felt… free.
A place where no one knew her name. Where no one expected anything from her. No masks. No rules. Just quiet.
They rented a room at the inn. It was humble—a peaked ceiling, two narrow windows, a wrought-iron bed with wool blankets and lavender sprigs tucked beneath the pillow—but after days of cold ground and campfires, it felt like a palace.
Frances sat on the edge of the bed that evening, brushing her hair free of tangles as the lamplight painted golden stripes across the wooden floor.
From the open window, she heard music—faint fiddle strains, laughter, the rhythmic thump of feet dancing on packed earth.
She rose, drawn to the sound.
Outside, a dozen villagers had gathered in the green, where someone had lit lanterns and hung garlands of flowers. A festival, she realized. Or some local celebration of spring.
She longed to feel carefree and joyous. It had been over a week since they had fled London, and felt like a lifetime. Frances watched the villagers dance with a strange ache in her chest, as though they belonged to a world she had once known but could never truly return to.
And then, on the far side of the square, she saw him.
Johnathan stood beneath a tree, arms crossed, speaking with the old innkeeper. He looked like no duke she had ever known—coat unbuttoned, collar open, wind teasing his hair. A few children ran past him, chasing one another with ribbons, and he laughed. That laugh—the one she remembered from long ago, full and reckless and boyish—cut through her chest like a blade made of sunlight.
He glanced up, and their eyes met.
Something in her stomach flipped.
She turned away before he could approach and moved back inside. Her heart beat far too quickly for someone who had no intention of dancing.
But the air inside the room suddenly felt too tight.
She set down her brush, crossed to the valise they shared, and pulled out a pale blue ribbon. One of the few embellishments she had salvaged from the start of their flight. It smelled faintly of smoke and rosewater. But wearable.
She wove it through her hair, the pinched color into her cheeks. The faint strains of fiddles and lighthearted laughter of villagers beckoned to her, urging her to let go of the fear that had weighed her down for so long.
She did not know why she did it.
Maybe it was the music.
Maybe it was the fact that she was, for the first time in days, not running.
Or maybe it was the memory of the boy who had once dared her to dance barefoot in the gardens of her family’s estate. The same boy who now stood beneath a Scottish tree, watching the locals.
She stepped into the evening air, the hem of her gown brushing the grass, her hair loose around her shoulders.
