Daphne squeezed her hand. “We’ll support you, whatever you decide. But promise us that you’ll take care of yourself, that you won’t let this break you.”
Katie nodded slowly, though her heart still felt like it was in pieces. “I’ll try,” she said, her voice wavering. “I promise I’ll try.”
Leah wrapped her arms around Katie again, holding her tightly. “We love you, Katie. Always remember that there is strength in numbers. You are not alone.”
Katie let out a shuddering breath. The warmth of her friends’ embraces was a small but welcome comfort in the midst of her despair. She knew the road ahead would be difficult, that the pain wouldn’t disappear overnight. But with Leah and Daphne by her side, she felt a faint glimmer of hope.
As the chapel grew colder and darker, the three of them remained huddled together, drawing strength from one another. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Leah gently suggested they head upstairs.
Katie hesitated, her gaze lingering on the empty chapel. This was supposed to be the place where she would start her new life, where she would become Aiden’s wife. Now, it was just another reminder of what she had lost.
But as she looked at her friends, their eyes filled with concern and love, Katie knew she couldn’t stay here any longer. She needed to move on, even if her steps were small and uncertain.
“Alright,” she whispered, her voice trembling with the effort to keep her composure. “Let’s go.”
Leah and Daphne each took one of her hands as they walked up the stairs to her chambers. Katie’s heart was heavy, her mind swirling with thoughts of what could have been. But she knew that she couldn’t let this break her.
As they reached her chambers, she looked back down the hallway. She didn’t know what the future held, but she vowed to herself that she would find a way to be happy again.
With a final, shaky breath, Katie stepped into her room, leaving behind the darkness of the chapel and the pain of the day for the warmth and comfort of her friends.
“Everything will be alright, Katie,” Leah assured her as they sat down together.
“She’s right, he just wasn’t the one…”
“I don’t see how anything will be alright,” Katie admitted, her voice sharper than she had intended.
Their pity and beautiful marriages sickened her to the point of nausea.
She crawled into the large bed, ready to finally shut out the world. “Please… just let me sleep.”
CHAPTER 23
Aiden had spentmost of the day lost in the clamor of the village, his hands blistered and raw from the axe he had been wielding since the morning. The rhythmic thud of wood splitting beneath the blade was the only thing that seemed to drown out the torment in his mind.
He was a man who had always been confident, always sure of his place in the world. But today, his certainty had shattered, leaving him adrift in a sea of doubt.
The village was a place of simple pleasures and honest work, a far cry from the castle’s chapel, where his wedding was supposed to take place. No one in the village knew who he truly was. Here, he was just another face in the crowd, just another pair of hands willing to work for a bit of bread and ale. They called him Tom, a name he had chosen because it was plain and unremarkable—a name that didn’t carry the weight of expectation.
As he worked, he kept his head down, focusing on the task before him as if the very act of chopping wood could somehow split his heart in two, severing the pain that throbbed within him.
The old woman who had given him the axe had been grateful, her gnarled hands clasping his in thanks before she hobbled back into her small cottage. He had nodded, offered her a tight smile, and returned to the pile of logs. Each swing of the axe was a release, each crack of the wood a reprieve from the thoughts that plagued him.
“She’s better off without me,” Aiden muttered to himself, gritting his teeth as he brought the axe down again.
The log split cleanly, but the act brought him no satisfaction. Katie didn’t deserve the life he could offer her—the uncertainty, the danger. She deserved stability, a man who could provide for her without the looming shadow of his past.
The villagers had spoken in hushed tones about the wedding all day, their excitement palpable. They knew nothing of his connection to the event, only that their new Laird was to marry a fine Lady from a noble family. They spoke of Katie with admiration, praising her beauty and her grace. The thought of her standing alone at the altar, waiting for him, twisted his gut into knots.
“Aye, we’re lucky,” one of the men had said earlier, wiping sweat from his brow as he paused his work. “Laird MacNiall is a good man, and from what I hear, Lady Katie is a fine match for him. The two of them together… they’ll do right by us, I think.”
Aiden had kept his eyes on the ground, not trusting himself to speak. The man’s words felt like knives stabbing the heart Aiden was trying so desperately to numb. He didn’t deserve their praise and didn’t deserve Katie’s love. He was a man with too many secrets and too much darkness in his soul.
The villagers were wrong—Katie would not be better off with him. She deserved more than a man who couldn’t even bring himself to stand by her side on their wedding day.
“She’s lucky to be marryin’ a man such as him,” another villager had chimed in, a woman with a broad smile and a basket of freshly baked bread. “And we’re lucky too. ‘Tis been a long time since the village had somethin’ as grand as this to celebrate. A new Laird and Lady… ‘tis just what we need.”
The guilt gnawed at him and refused to let him be. He wanted to tell them the truth, to confess that the man they praised was, in truth, worse than the rest, that he had run away from the very thing that would have brought him happiness. But the words wouldn’t come, so he had simply nodded in acknowledgment of their comments before returning to his work.
