She stepped out anyway and pulled the door nearly shut behind her. She then waited to see if anyone had heard that. When no sound came, she moved.
She swallowed as she navigated the bends in the passageway and hurried down the narrow back stairs. She kept to the darkest parts where she could, only dodging the few lamps still left burning low. One time, she stopped so sharply her teeth clicked together, certain she had heard someone stir nearby. But nothing followed. No door opening or voice calling out to see who was there. She waited a few moments to catch her breath before she kept going.
The further she went, the more the need to move took hold of her. She thought no farther than the next step, the next corner, the next lock. She had no great design in mind. She only knew she was no longer lying meekly in bed, waiting to be carried toward tomorrow and paraded around the castle as the Laird’s new wife.
The Laird’s new wife.
Something about those words struck her so hard that the unease in her belly grew a notch too high.
At the outer door, she paused long enough to listen.
Nothing.
She eased it open and slipped outside.
The cold hit her at once, clean and sharp after the stuffy air of the castle. The smell of the earth rose around her, and the night spread wide on every side.
She took one breath, then another, and started across the grass at a quick pace that soon became a run.
Her skirts caught at her legs, and the hem dragged through the dirt, but she didn’t stop. Hell, she barely noticed. The loch lay ahead, a dark shape under the sky. Along one side of it ran the low fence she had marked earlier in passing. It was too small to matter much by day, but now, in darkness and haste, it became the nearest boundary between here and somewhere else.
That was all she needed from it.
Somewhere else.
Her shoes slipped once on the wet grass, but she caught herself and kept going. The cold air stung her cheeks, and a loose strand of hair blew into her mouth. She spat it aside and ran harder. By the time she reached the fence, she was panting, her chest tight, her hands cold.
She seized the top rail and hauled herself up.
Her skirts dragged and bunched, and the wood felt slick beneath her palm. She hauled herself higher with stubborn effort, one foot searching for purchase. She had just managed to get one leg over when she heard footsteps behind her.
Measured footsteps. Like the ones she had heard back in the hall.
She froze.
Nay.
The sound struck her at once—a hard, cold drop from her throat to her belly. Before she even turned, she knew.
Slowly, still caught awkwardly on the fence, she twisted her head and looked back over her shoulder.
Ciaran stood a little way behind her.
The darkness blurred the grounds, the loch, the trees, but not him. He watched her with nothing but curiosity in his eyes and his arms folded.
With one leg flung over the fence like a child caught stealing apples, Ava saw with sickening clarity exactly how this must appear.
Great. Just great.
A part of her wanted the ground to swallow her up at that moment. She would even manage a lightning strike or fire from the gentle evening breeze. Anything was better than the humiliation that seemed to pull hard from the dredges of her chest.
Anything.
He looked at her once, from the precarious angle of her position to the white-knuckled grip she still had on the wood.
“Looking for something?” he asked.
The quiet dryness of his words made humiliation flare hotter in her face.
