An Auctioned Bride (Highland Heartbeats #4)(11)

Her mind raced. Who had done this to her? And more importantly, how was she to ever find her way back home?

She watched Hugh bend forward, prepared to make a mark on the paper for her. She snatched it from his hand, scowling.

“I can write my own name,” she grumbled.

Angrily, she wrote her name on the paper, every stroke of the tip scratching against the parchment paper sending a toll of dread through her. She finished with a flourish, gave her new husband a glare, and tossed the quill onto the parchment. A blob of ink splattered the paper, marring a portion of her name.

It didn't matter. She had just lost her identity, her namesake, and her homeland. She was, in the eyes of God, regardless of the lack of tradition, irrevocably bound to the Scotsman named Hugh McInnis.

But if he thought she would acquiesce to this farce of a marriage without putting up a fight, he was sadly mistaken.





6





Hugh had lost track of how many times he asked himself what he was doing. Not only had he spent a good portion of his remaining coin to purchase Dalla—he shook his head at the thought, he had purchased a human being!—he had also spent a goodly part of what remained on an old mare that she could ride as they left the village and ventured back toward his temporary home. What he was going to do with her after that, he wasn't quite sure.

They'd been traveling since dawn, and the horses moved slowly up the base of the hill, the wind gusting gently through the long grasses and myriad of tall, rocky spires dotting the low valley they’d just left behind.

He missed the silhouette of the Grampian mountain peaks of his home, especially Ben Nevis, under whose shadow stood Duncan Manor. He didn't particularly care for this land of erratic dales and gullies, fields and bogs, the near constant rising of misty tendrils of fog, often bringing with it a smell of rotting vegetation and heather and other brackish plants, half-rotted in this damp, humid landscape.

In the distance, he heard a dull sound.

He paused his gelding as Dalla's halted beside his.

“It's only a red stag,” he explained. “It's coming to the end of their rutting season.”

He could understand her trepidation. The aggressive, moaning-like roar of the red stag was intimidating, especially on such a damp and miserable overcast day such as this.

The morning had started out fairly well, the gray and pink shreds of dawn oozing deeper red as the sun came up in the east. Before heading higher into the foothills, they had to cross the 'valley of mire', as he had named it on his way to the coast; a desolate area of marshy water, quagmires or bogs, many of them hidden by grassy meadows that look deceptively firm from the distance, but could disappear from beneath one's footing in the blink of an eye.

Occasionally, tors—in Scottish Gaelic known as tòrrs, or crags in the Welsh tongue, created of free-standing rock jutted upward some tall, others square and short. Some looked like man-made cairns while others jutted up from the landscape, creating lone peaks—tables of rock—that appeared out of nowhere in the middle of a plain.

“Keep your horse behind mine and don't veer away from my path,” he warned. “The ground is treacherous.”

He should have just stayed at home, back with the Duncans. Dealing with what was going on there was certainly not more difficult than the bit of trouble he'd just gotten himself into. What had he been thinking?

If only he had stayed at the hut. If only he hadn't ridden into the village that particular day. If only he hadn't seen the expression on Dalla's face when she'd been paraded out in front of the boisterous crowd. If only he hadn't felt a frisson of emotion, of compassion for her as she stood in front of that group of rowdy sailors and farmers, merchants.

If only…

But he couldn't stand by and watch her being sold to any of them. And what of the other women? If he had been able, he would've bought them all. If he had been able, he would have sent them all back to where they came from.

But he hadn’t, and he couldn't. Not even with Dalla. There was something about Dalla Jorstad that had immediately attracted him to her. She was a petite little thing, but she had more spirit than any of the women standing beside her put together. Only she had stood straight and tall, her shoulders back, and her chin up. If her eyes had not been blindfolded, he was sure he would have seen them bright with fury and indignation.





7





A while later Hugh glanced at her, sitting quietly on the mare, for the moment at least, clinging tightly to her mane.

He held the tether of her horse, not trusting her ability to ride alone. She was either very inexperienced with riding, or she was afraid of the animal. She didn't offer any explanations, and he didn't ask.

For a moment, he thought she had fallen asleep, her body relaxed, her chin resting on her chest, her body swaying with the movement of the horse as the mare picked her way along the path of his own horse. But no, her eyes were open, and he caught her glancing his way, then quickly darting her gaze away, toward the woods in the distance.

He stifled a chuckle and shook his head.

They had left the village hours ago, and she had yet to utter a word. He knew she spoke English, or at least some but was obviously unwilling to communicate. For the moment, she wasn't trying to escape, but he had no doubt that she was thinking about it. If he'd been in her position, he would too. He didn't want to tie her up, but he would if he had to.