Page 242 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
So she dressed.
Her fingers were slower than usual over buttons and ribbons because her wrists still hurt from the rope. The scrape on her cheek pulled when she turned her head too quickly. Her shoulder gave a dull throb each time she lifted her arm, but none of it mattered compared to the heavy ache she carried lower and deeper, the one with Ciaran’s voice in it. She ignored that too and fastened the last of her things with care.
When she opened her chamber door, the passageway beyond was already busy with the tap of feet and lowered voices. She had pulled out her trunk when she was packing earlier from the foot of the bed and strapped closed. Two smaller cases stood ready beside it.
Ava nodded for a maid to take them down.
The sight of her things packed and carried away tightened something in her throat. It was one thing to decide in the morning that she would leave. It was another to watch her belongings leave the room, one box at a time.
Bruce arrived before breakfast, scratching at the half-open door with indignant energy until one of the servants gave in and let him barrel inside. He came straight to Ava, his paws muddy, his ears up, his tail beating hard enough to knock against the bedpost.
She bent and gathered him close despite the dirt, pressing her face briefly into the rough fur at his neck.
“Well,” she whispered, “at least one gentleman in this castle has never once left me in doubt.”
Bruce licked her chin in answer.
Her father came in just behind him, one arm still bandaged and his face distraught. Even so, he stood steadily as usual, whichwas still a comfort. He had washed, dressed, and combed back his hair.
“Are ye ready, lass?”
Ava straightened. “Aye.”
He studied her for a moment, reading more than she wished him to, then gave a short nod as if he had decided not to force comfort where she could not take it.
After that, breakfast came and went in pieces. Ava managed bread and a little tea because refusing food would only cause more arguments than needed. Her father ate more, while Bruce sat under the table and thumped his tail every time either of them shifted a foot.
The ordinary sounds of the meal made the morning feel calmer than it was. Cups touched saucers, and a maid came in with fresh linen. Someone carried the last case down the passage.
Each small act said the same thing:This is happening.
By the time they moved out of her room and into the broader stir of the castle, horses were already being saddled below. Her trunks had been loaded, and a maid passed by carrying a wrapped bundle of food for the road. Another asked whether extra blankets should be tied behind the cart. Her father answered that they should.
Ava stood for a second at the top of the stairs and watched the movement below. She had lived in this castle long enough now to know and recognize all the sounds it made. She recognized the way the servants crossed the hall in the early morning and the distinct smell of woodsmoke when the day began.
She had begun to fit here. That was part of what made leaving hurt so much. She was not fleeing a place that had never opened up to her. She was leaving a place thathad, just not far enough, and never safely enough.
Her father came to stand beside her, and for a brief second, she wondered if he also appreciated the same things she did in the castle. But then, he hadn’t been here long enough to recognize those patterns.
“When we reach Castle MacLeod, ye shall have yer old rooms,” he said. “The east rooms too, if ye prefer more sun. We will see what the roofers say about the north wing before winter deepens.”
Ava looked at him. “Thank ye.”
He gave a small shrug that almost said saying thanks was unnecessary.Then, in the same practical tone, he added, “Once we are settled, I will see the annulment done.”
The words were plain. They were also kind, because he was taking her pain seriously enough to put his name and duty behind it. Ava felt the mercy and grief of it in the same beat as her hand closed around the rail.
“Aye.”
No one around them stopped moving, and yet for Ava, the morning had changed entirely. Leaving here had felt like a distant emotion. Something she could return to when she was done feeling this intense anger and hurt. Now it felt like something that actually had structure.
Her father would see it done. There would be papers and names and a lawful ending set in motion by people who loved her enough to make room for what she could not survive otherwise.
A lad came to say the horses would be ready shortly. Her father nodded and sent him off.
Bruce trotted between them and then back again as if he meant to supervise all the preparations himself. The sight of him should have made Ava smile more than it did. She lowered a hand to his head and let it rest there.
“Ye need nae do this in a rush,” her father said.
