Page 70 of Auctioned to the Cruel Highlander
Ciaran felt the truth of that and kept going anyway, driven by the same fear that had ruined his judgment the moment she had arrived. “I said, ye’ll stay here.”
Her chin lifted. “Ye daenae get to command me out of this, Ciaran.”
He felt a pang in his chest at the mention of his name. “That isnae what I am doing.”
“It is exactly what ye are doing.”
He almost mentioned the road, the danger, the smoke, the possibility of whatever had caused the fire still waiting there. He almost gave every practical reason that made his refusal right. However, none of those reasons changed the fact that she was looking at him as if he had shut a door in her face when she most needed him to open one.
Hector rode past then with the first of the men, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves breaking through the tension between them.
Ciaran stepped back half a step and kept his voice level.“Ride hard and send me word.”
Hector nodded once and led the men out.
Ava did not look after them. She looked only at Ciaran.
For one second, he thought she might say something worse than anything she already had. Something final. Something he could not take back into himself later and explain as fear. Instead, she drew a tight breath.
“I came to ye because I thought ye might be on me side and let me go,” she said quietly. “I suppose I was wrong.”
She turned and walked away before he could answer.
He did not stop her or call out her name. He stood in the middle of the yard and watched her go with her shoulders stiff and her steps too quick to be calm. She did not look back once.
The men around him returned to work by degrees, and practice resumed ever so slowly. But he remained where he was.
He still believed he had made the right decision. Sending her into danger would have been madness. He would make the same decision again if forced. The road was uncertain. The cause of the fire was unknown. He had men for speed, strength, and search. She had none of the things that would make that ride safer. But he had handled the delivery rather poorly.
The realization settled in him ever so slowly as he closed his hand around empty air where the note had been.
A few minutes ago, he had stood here confessing to Hector that liking his wife was already too dangerous. Now, he had proof of the danger that started to grow inside of him.
Fear for Ava did not make him gentle. It made him controlling. He reached for authority the moment vulnerability became unbearable.
And she had felt the difference immediately.
Something told him, through the clang of wooden swords and screams of the men around him, that this wouldn’t be the last time.
CHAPTER 21
For three days,Ava kept the door shut.
Ciaran knocked each morning and evening. Sometimes he spoke her name first. Sometimes he only struck the wood with his knuckles and waited. She never answered. Once, she stood close enough to the door to see the line of light under it darken with the shape of his boots and still said nothing.
The room grew stale around her. Her wedding things had long since been put away. The fresh gowns Isobel had sent in lay folded where they had been set. Food came and went in trays she scarcely touched. She slept badly, woke with her throat dry, and sat for long stretches looking at nothing while her mind ran in circles around the same few facts.
MacKenna Castle had been set on fire. No one had told her whether her father lived or not, and the same man who had carried her bloody from an attack and held her with such careone moment had turned hard the next and told her she would obey him.
The hurts would not separate cleanly. Fear for her father kept tangling with anger at Ciaran until she could not pull one free of the other.
When he knocked, it only made it worse. His voice through the wood was controlled every time.
“Ava.”
“Open the door.”
“Ye must eat.”
