Page 17 of Forbidden Kilted Highlander

CHAPTER FIVE

Agnes was sitting by the hearth when her father came to her. Constance had sat with her earlier, quiet and wide-eyed, offering tea she hadn’t touched and words Agnes hadn’t fully grasped. But eventually, she had asked her to leave. Her sister had hesitated but she had left her to dwell in the silence. She simply needed to sit with the weight of it all without anyone watching her splinter apart.

The fire had long since died to smoldering embers, yet she had not moved to stir it, letting the room go cold. Letting the shadows stretch long across the stone floor and spill toward her feet. She was not afraid of the dark anymore. What could it take from her that hadn't already been claimed?

Agnes did not turn her head. She waited instead, still and mute, tracing the flickering glow that danced across her knuckles where her hands lay clasped in her lap. She only looked up when he cleared his throat.

“Ye leave again tonight,” he finally spoke.

It took her a moment to understand. “Again?” Her voice cracked slightly on the word. “So soon? I thought it would be wiser tae wait.”

Her father nodded, face unreadable. “Ye’ll take only a satchel this time. Tav will ride with ye. Nay carriage.”

“Ride?” Her stomach dropped as the word settled into her. “With nay carriage?”

“It is necessary tae get ye tae Caithness. Ye’ll arrive before the week’s end.”

She stared at him, willing his face to crack or give away some sign that this was a cruel jest. But there was nothing there but the same cold resolve she had grown used to reading in his eyes. Still, she clung to a splinter of logic.

“Ye think they will nae try again?” she asked, voice hollow. “Ye think the men who chased us through the woods will simply… forget I exist? Willnae notice me simply because I am riding a horse?”

Ewan exhaled through his nose, then stepped closer and lowered himself into the chair beside hers. The firelight carved deep lines in his face. “Nay,” he said plainly. “I expect they will try again.”

“Then why⁠—”

“Because we have nay choice, Agnes.” His tone sharpened, not in anger but in finality. She turned away from him, blinking slowly, not trusting herself to speak. A part of her wanted to scream—if not at him, then at the gods, or the wind, or whatever cruel hand had spun this particular fate for her. But she didn’t. She only pressed her palm against her mouth and breathed.

Ewan shifted again, and when he spoke, his voice had softened, traces of the father she knew and loved. “I’m sorry, Agnes.”

Her breath caught.

“I never wanted this fer ye. None of it. Ye deserve—” He stopped himself. “But we dinnae live the lives we deserve. Ye ken that better than most.”

She glanced back at him. His face was heavy with guilt, but his eyes… they remained steel. “Ye’ll dae what ye must,” he said gently, “because ye’re me daughter, and because I ken yer heart. Ye willnae fail us.”

That broke something in her. She nodded once, a brittle thing. “When dae we leave?”

“Pack tonight. Ye’ll leave with Tav under the cover of dark.”

She wanted to laugh, to curse or cry or walk into the woods and never come back. Instead, she sat for a moment longer, then stood.

“I’ll be ready.”

The satchel was pitifully light. A plain linen gown, another shift, a comb, a strip of dried meat wrapped in cloth, a pair of riding gloves. She tucked a single ribbon into the corner, though she doubted she’d wear it.

The torchlight flickered along the stone walls as Agnes stepped softly through the hallway, her satchel slung over one shoulder, the hem of her cloak brushing the cold floor.

She understood her duty, aye. She had always known it would come for her in some form, but this? This cold journey into Caithness soil, delivered like a parcel to a stranger’s stronghold, left her heart thrashing against the walls of her chest. She had seen what became of women who were sent away for alliances. And the uncertainty of it all, the precarious danger of venturing again into open roads after what had happened.

She had not slept, despite trying. Her body had found stillness for an hour or so, but her mind had remained too restless to surrender to sleep. The conversation with her father still echoed in her skull, as stubborn and heavy as her heartbeat. There was a finality to his words that made her chest ache.

She shook her head as she reached the stables. The scent of hay and horse and oil greeted her like a balm, familiar and grounding. Her fingers tightened on the strap of her satchel. She was about to step into the shadows when she saw him.

Tav.

He was there, of course. He stood beside his stallion, running a hand down the horse’s flank, whispering something she couldn’t quite hear. There was such an ease to the way he moved, all lean muscle and quiet strength, like the tension of a drawn bow waiting to be loosed. His tunic clung to his torso in the dim firelight, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing forearms thick with strength and marred with black ink and faded scars.

He looked like he belonged in a song—one of those old, breathless tales sung by the hearth, where the warrior was both storm and sanctuary.