“Is there anythin’ else?”
“There’s friendship. Like the friends ye took away from me. The friends ye isolated me from. There’s love. Love instead of convenience.”
“And ye think someone will love ye?” he asked, his smile fading. “Ye really think someone will love a woman as useless as ye?”
Jeane swallowed hard and did not answer, looking straight ahead. She looked down at the rocks and roots rushing by as the wagon continued on its trail. She could jump out. She may jump to her death, but would not that be better than the pain and embarrassment of having to marry a man like Lord Fraser? Would it not save her pain and suffering to do so?
And there was a slim chance she might survive though injured. Would Fergus still love her if she were scarred up from a wagon incident?
“Daenae even think about tryin’ to escape,” her father warned, as if he could read her mind. “If ye do, I will send me men to slaughter the clan that sheltered ye.”
“Ye wouldnae,” she gasped, but her father just looked at her.
“Aye, I would. And I think ye ken I would.”
Jeane looked straight ahead again. She thought maybe she could hear hoofbeats in the distance, but that might be the hoofbeats from the horses pulling the wagons.
They trailed to a stop near a clearing where a fancy carriage sat, the stallions harnessed to it freshly washed and brushed. It would be a beautiful ride if it were under any other circumstances.
Jeane thought about running again as she stepped down out of the carriage, ignoring the hand that one of her father’s men offered her. There were four guards plus her father, including the man who had captured her.
But her father was serious when he said he would send his whole clan after Fergus. She knew he would; he was more worried about her upcoming nuptials than about the fate of his clan.
She knew Fergus could hold his own in battle, had witnessed him training, and had traced the battle scars on his chest with her fingertips. But she was terrified that her father’s men would ambush him, give him no warning, and maybe take him down. She could not live with that. She did not want to be part of a world without Fergus.
So instead of running, Jeane stepped up into the carriage with her father’s help, sitting next to him as if it were any other day. She hated herself. Hated every moment of this. But she had no choice.
She wondered if there would be another opportunity to take herself out of the equation at the church. Perhaps someone would leave a pair of scissors in her general vicinity. She could use them to slit her own throat, to keep her from the torture she knew her future husband would inflict on her.
Lord Fraser was a cruel man with a wife that died under suspicious circumstances. But that did not matter to her father. All he wanted was Fraser’s land and money.
“Luckily for ye, I ken yer measurements and got ye a weddin’ dress.”
Jeane did not respond, just staring at the trees whipping by her as the carriage moved down the trail.
One man drove the carriage while the other three rode around the vehicle, protecting the cargo—Bennet and Jeane.
All Jeane could do was sit in the carriage, praying for a miracle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“We cannae do this forever, Me Laird,” Aiden said quietly as Fergus sliced his sword through the bushes and trees of the forest. Fergus’ arms and legs were covered in scrapes from thorns and branches, but the Laird did not seem to care.
They were searching the woods around the castle, hoping that they had not taken off yet.
“We’ll search for her to the ends of the earth if we have to,” he growled, stalking through the path he had just made.
Aiden glanced behind them, his dark brows furrowed.
“We’re too far from the horses. We have to go back.”
Fergus whirled around, hand on the hilt of his sword. “Daenae ye try it. I’m yer laird, and ye’ll obey me.”
Aiden startled, stepping back with his hands held up in defense. “Me Laird, I was only suggestin’ we get back on the horses. They may still be travelin’.
Fergus paused, hand still on his sword, his blood boiling. His woman had been taken, and he would go to hell and back to find her. But Aiden might be right. It had only been an hour since Lottie had told them Jeane was taken. It was a three-day ride to the McKay castle.
Aiden just stared at Fergus, his hands still up. Fergus felt a stab of guilt. Aiden was his friend, not just his man-at-arms, and he was being unreasonable.
