Page 63 of It’s in his Highland Kiss

It seemed like a fair trade to Marion, who would rather finish her mission than be abandoned in the middle of nowhere by a commander who despised her too much to even bring her back home.

And yet, no matter how friendly the commander seemed even then, Marion had decided that she could never let her guard down again. The man had made it clear to her that he was the kind of man who always got what he wanted, one way or another.

One way was for him was to ask Marion’s father for her hand in marriage once they were back in England. She didn’t want to find out what the other way could be.

As the days continued to pass, Marion began to notice that the commander was getting more and more restless, sharing fewer and fewer of his plans with her and spending little time around her.

Could he have found out what I am doing? Lord, I hope he doesn’t know that I’m spying on them!

It would mean her death, and she didn’t want to die. She didn’t want Eiric and Adaria to have to learn of her passing. She didn’t even want the laird to have to find out about her death, as no matter how much he seemed to not care about who he sent to war, she was certain that he would blame himself for her passing.

Marion herself wouldn’t blame anyone though. She had been the one to agree to the plan, and she had taken the mission eagerly, even though she had always known it would be dangerous. Her death would be no one’s fault but her own.

And the commander’s. She wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily.

That night, like many nights before it, dinner was a tense affair. Marion could tell that they were getting closer and closer to her home, judging by the way the landscape around them had changed. When she had first gone to Scotland, she had thought that it wasn’t too different from England, but now that she was on her way back, she was quickly forming a very different opinion, perhaps because she already missed Scotland so dearly. She wanted to see the lochs again, the mountains and the native trees that reminded her of her real home, where the people who loved her were, but Scotland’s landscape was slipping right past her.

Perhaps it was her own, sour mood which filled her dinners with the commander with such relentless tension. Marion watched him in the dim light of the tent, his face illuminated only by the candles that his men had lit for him—because he refused to lift a hand and do it himself—and though he was smiling at her, like he always did, she could have sworn that there was something different about him, though she couldn’t guess what it could be. It was in the way he looked at her, in the way that he was quiet for longer than he spoke, which was a surprise on its own.

Marion didn’t try to start a conversation, even though the silence was uncomfortable, bordering on scary for her, a new and uncharted territory. She had nothing to say to the commander. All she wanted was for that dinner to end as quickly as it could, so that she could once again get as far away from him as she could.

And then, when Marion least expected it, the commander spoke once more.

“You know, Marion,” he said, as he dropped his cutlery on his plate with a decisive huff, “I have been very patient with you. I don’t think you realise that.”

Marion frowned at her plate, her hands tightening around her knife and fork.

Patient? What is it about our situation that even requires his patience?

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she said, deciding that the best course of action would be to play dumb, as she usually did when it came to him and other men like him.

“Oh, don’t you?” the commander asked. He stood from his chair and walked around the table, until he was standing right behind her, much to her dismay. She would rather keep her eyes on him, watching his every move, in case he tried to do something that she didn’t want. “I think you know precisely what I am talking about.”

Marion craned her neck to look at the commander, whose hands came to rest on her shoulders. Had Marion not known any better, she would have considered the gesture friendly, but she knew that was not the case at all. She could feel their weight on her shoulders, heavier than she could have imagined, as though the commander was pushing down on them, and her heart began to race in her chest.

What does he want? What does he know?

“Commander . . .”

“I thought I asked you to call me John,” the man said. “It’s alright, you can still call me John, Marion.”

“I’d rather not,” she said.

“I said, call me John.”

Marion took a deep breath, trying to steady her hands, which were still clutching desperately onto her cutlery. The commander’s breath smelled like wine, more so than she had realised, and it became clear to her in that moment that he was drunk, drunker than he seemed to be. He hid his drunkenness well, save for the slight slur in his words.

Perhaps that was why he had been so silent throughout dinner, Marion thought. Or perhaps he was thinking of ways to attack her.

Would he kill her? She didn’t deem it unlikely. He could always tell her parents that she had fallen victim to the brutality of the Scots, and they would never question it.

“I don’t know what you want from me, John,” Marion said, her voice dripping with venom when she uttered his name. If those were going to be her last moments, then she wouldn’t allow herself to spend them in fear. She wouldn’t allow the commander to have that power over her. “What have I done that has required your patience?”

The commander laughed, but there was no joy behind the sound. With a push on Marion’s shoulders, he walked away from her and began to pace around the tent, dragging his feet in a way that made Marion’s skin erupt in goosebumps.

As much as she told herself that she shouldn’t fear him, that she shouldn’t fear whatever it was that he was planning on doing to her, she couldn’t help but feel sick at the mere sight of him. How could she remain calm when he was so close to her and he had the power to make her suffer?

“Do you not know how you tempt me every single day?” the commander asked, much to Marion’s surprise. That was certainly not what she had been expecting, even though she knew that the commander had taken a liking to her.