She handed the young man a small bag of coins. She knew what she was asking was no small task and she hoped the money would help motivate him to see it done quickly.
The messenger tucked the bag into this jacket pocket and jumped into his saddle.
“I will see this done. He will have yer letter before nightfall.”
That promise was all she got before the messenger rode off, leaving her in a cloud of dust.
With nothing left to do, Charlotte meandered back inside. She knew better than to linger, especially after Cameron had asked her not to leave her rooms, but she was hesitant to return. She knew that once she was there and alone, she would have to confront everything she was feeling and she dreaded doing that.
“Ye thought ye could get away with this.”
That voice made her blood run cold.
“Alec. What are ye doing here? I thought ye left for the Sinclair castle.”
She tried to hold her head up, tried to stay brave. But she had never seen Alec in such a state.
His hair was disheveled, as though his hands had run through it a hundred times. His shirt was stained and hanging off his shoulders lopsided. There was hay and straw all over him. But that wasn’t the part that frightened her. It was his eyes that had that effect.
They were dark and sunken in, and judging from the black circles already forming under them, he hadn’t gotten any sleep.
He was still angry. That much was clear. From his clenched jaw to the fists that hung at his sides, she knew he had done little to let go of the fury he had left her with the day before. But this anger had something different to it. It wasn’t just the sting of rejection that fueled him, but something much deeper and much darker.
Alec took a step towards her and she instinctively stepped back. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him. But he kept coming. And she kept backing up. She didn’t realize what he was doing until they were tucked neatly into a corner in the courtyard, out of sight for most people, not that anyone was paying her any attention. When her back hit the stone wall, her heart started to race. He had her trapped, just as he had weeks ago when he raged at her in her rooms. He had left bruises then and from the look on his face, she doubted she would walk away unscathed from this interaction either.
She swallowed hard, trying to push down her fear. She wouldn’t give into him, wouldn’t let him see the effect he was having on her. At least, not yet.
“I ken that is what ye thought,” he snarled. “I must admit, I thought about it. I thought about running to yer father to tell him of the things we have done together. How ye are nay longer pure for that sniveling Laird he wanted ye to marry.”
“That is a lie!” she cried out, outraged that he would stoop to such low levels.
“Aye. But he would nae ken that. It does nae matter. I realized that it would take far too long to ride out to see him. So I tried to see yer Laird, to tell him of our affair. He would call of the engagement and ye could be mine again. But then I overheard the most delicious piece of information when I was waiting outside his study.”
“Ye were nae waiting, ye were eavesdropping,” she accused.
He sneered, not bothering to deny it.
“That is neither here nor there. But I will tell ye what does matter. Ye see, I went to the tavern for a drink while I tried to come up with some way to use what I have learned when I came upon a group of scouts. Who better than them to trust such valuable information to? Surely ye would want yer father to ken that Laird Knox is planning an attack on yer father’s lands.”
“Ye did this,” she whispered in horror.
“I told ye,” he muttered, stepping even closer to her, “that ye were going to regret leaving me. I told ye that I would make ye and that Laird pay.”
“So in order to get back at me for following the orders of my father and Laird, ye started a war? Alec, innocent people are going to be killed because of this. There is nay telling how devastating the damage will be. What were ye thinking? How could ye do such a thing?”
She hurled the words at him, but it was really herself that she was angry at. She should have left Alec when her father had first told her about her engagement. She should have insisted that he stay in the Sinclair lands. She should have gone to Cameron sooner. She should have done something, anything. Instead, she cowered away from it, letting it overtake her and get in the way of what she was trying to build with Cameron. And now, people were going to die for her mistakes. A war was coming that she could have stopped had she simply been brave enough to do what had needed doing so long ago.
“It was easy enough. I told ye, Charlotte, I love ye and I will nae let anyone else have ye. I dinnae care what the cost is.”
He wore a smile that didn’t quite reach his dead eyes. The pride in his words and the smug look on his face was enough to send her reeling over the edge she had been teetering on all day.
She let out a bellow and raised her fists, striking him wherever she could. Her blows landed on his chest and arms, though he seemed wholly unaffected by them. In fact, the longer she tried to hurt him, the bigger his smile grew until he was laughing in earnest. The sound only enraged her more.
With one last attempt, she pulled back and threw all of her weight into her punch. It landed in the soft part of his gut, forcing all his air out of his lungs. His laughter turned to a grunt and then his hands were on her.
She braced herself for the sting of his grip, for the pain that was sure to come. But his hands were only around her arms for a split second before they were ripped off of her again.
They both looked back in surprise, but Alec didn’t have any time to react before Cameron’s fist connected with his face. Charlotte watched through wide eyes as Alec’s head snapped to the side and he collapsed on the ground.
