“There wasn’t anything. Talia’s daughter came to see me. She was bursting with excitement. She said I was to be married to Hamish on the last day of the fair.” Her chest tightened as she remembered the moment. She’d been dumbfounded at first, but the fear had built with every beat of her frantic heart. She would not marry that horrible man. Death would be preferable. “I ran.”
“How?”
“I asked the farmer to take me away.” She flushed. “I begged him, and his wife agreed. So we packed up and left with me hidden in the back of the cart under empty potato sacks.”
He nodded. “And you never thought to ask your clansmen? Not even the women?”
“I ran, Reuben. The first way that I could.”
He sighed as he pulled her close. She snuggled into his comfort thinking that the conversation was at an end. But he kept pushing while she grew increasingly angry.
“You have tended the sick and injured in your clan since you were a child.”
“Yes, along with my mother.”
“You managed the castle, too, serving as chatelain?”
“My mother did at first, and then my uncle’s woman. But she was so terrible at it, I took over.”
“No one complained?”
“They asked me to do it.”
“And you did not barter for it. You simply stepped in to see that there was food for everyone, safety and comfort as needed.”
“Why would I let the clan suffer when I was able?”
“What did your uncle say?”
“He thanked me. He proclaimed I would make an excellent wife to one who paid enough coin to him to have me.”
He shifted, clearly annoyed by that. “He spoke loudly of selling you in marriage?”
“Often.”
“But that is a guardian’s right in Scotland, isn’t it? A bride price.”
“In England, too. Or it used to be.”
“So why, do you think, did he give you to Hamish?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care! I won’t do it!”
“Of course not,” he soothed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “But you should know. Is Hamish rich? Did he buy you?”
“He has some sheep and a badly tilled garden. His mother tended it until she died last winter. I doubt he has any coin.”
“But he has a powerful need for a wife, it would seem. Else who will tend his sheep?”
She snorted. “Not him. He’s the laziest of my uncle’s men.”
“And yet he got you. Why?”
An interesting question. “He and my uncle grew up together. They each other’s secrets. Always have.”
He soothed her with a long caress along her arm. She could have turned away from him, but she liked the way he held her. He had a way of teasing circles along her body, then sometimes tapping her between long strokes. He wasn’t conscious of his actions. She knew his mind was churning about something and when that happened, his fingers were rarely idle. But as someone who had so rarely been touched at all, this was a treat she would not refuse. Not even if he annoyed her with his questions.
“Who in your clan do you trust?”
