“I daenae care,” this simple statement made the expressions of the three men change instantly.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Tam asked, stepping forward and putting down a tankard he had been drinking from.
“It’s Laura,” the words fell from his lips before Erskine had a chance to really think through how they must have sounded.
“Who’s Laura?” Camden asked, frowning.
“Laura is Billie,” Erskine said frantically.
“What!?” Camden and Aiden said together.
“It’s hard to explain,” Erskine tried to quieten their shouts of surprise, waving his arms before he realized Tam’s reaction. He turned to look at his friend. Tam was just stood there smiling. “Did Lennox tell ye?”
“Does Lennox ken?” Tam smiled. “Ah, that explains why she has spoken so much of Billie as of late. Nay, I dinnae ken, but I guessed Billie was no boy.”
“Really? How did ye ken?”
“Eh, he reminded me too much of me sisters, Lennox, too. There had to be a reason for that,” Tam shrugged. “Yer interest only confirmed it.”
“Why did ye nae tell me when ye first suspected it!?” Erskine struck him around the arm, bringing another smile from Tam.
“I thought ye kenned,” Tam said, jumping out of the way of another strike. “Besides, I wasnae certain. It was all just a guess. Let’s just say I am nae surprised.”
“Billie’s a lass?” Aiden was frowning still, scrunching up his brow in thought.
“Aye, there is nay time to explain properly, I’ll tell ye all on the way,” Erskine beckoned them forward. They jumped to their feet and grabbed their weapons just as Erskine reached for a spare set at the side of the barracks.
“What’s happened to him, damn it, I mean her?” Camden corrected himself, shaking his head sharply halfway through his sentence. “This is goin’ to take some gettin’ used to.”
“Her betrothed is draggin’ her back to England,” Erskine was beckoning them to follow him back through the barracks.
“What?” Tam asked, following at his side. “Ye’re nae makin’ any sense, Erskine.”
“I ken, look, I will explain everythin’ on the way,” Erskine said quickly, “but we’ve got to get her back.”
“On the way where?” Tam asked, following him as they hurried out of the barracks.
“The road to England.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As the carriage left Fort Contin, Laura gave up trying to fight against Lord Moore. She went limp in his arms, breathing heavily and trying to catch his breath. He held her for a minute, as though showing her just who was the one in control, and then he had thrown her into the seat opposite him. They sat there for a minute, staring at one another. She could feel he was watching to see if she would make another move. If she did, she didn’t doubt he would wrestle her back again.
“That’s better,” after a minute of stillness, he barked at her as though she were his dog, not his betrothed. “Glad to see you have realized your little adventure is over.” He scoffed before turning and looking out of one of the windows. She watched as he fussed with his clothes for a minute, adjusting the cravat and the jacket lapels that had become skewwhiff in their tussle together.
What a proud man he is.
She thought with contempt, thinking how foolish he was to want to adjust his appearance when they were alone in a carriage with no one else to see them. Laura was aware that in their tussle, one of the sleeves of her dress had become torn, and there were soot marks across the skirt from when one of Lord Moore’s guards had tossed her in the carriage, but she didn’t care. There were worse things on her mind than the state of her dress.
She reached for the other window and braced her hands against the frame, using her grasp to look back to Fort Contin, but she could not see it. Soon, her view was not only blocked by the mountains they were passing between but by the covering of Douglas Fir trees and the dappling of green leaves.
She refused to turn back and look at Lord Moore. She cared naught for his opinion, so she allowed her tears to fall. They were surprisingly hot on her cheeks, causing her to wipe at them madly, trying to dry them quickly.
Her heart ached. Her body was physically reeling from Erskine’s betrayal so much that she felt as though someone had cut her chest open, torn the ribs apart, one at a time, and clawed her heart out.
Erskine.
She just kept repeating his name in her head, longing for the man she had thought he was, rather than the man he had turned out to be.
