Page 5 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

She did not wait for him to say another thing.

"I came here willingly," she said. "I want ye tae understand that. My brother made his case about MacKinnon and I listened tae it, and I agreed tae stay while he arranges a way tae answer the King." She looked at Cailleach steadily. "What I didnae agree tae was a bolt on my door."

Cailleach's expression shifted, just slightly.

"For yer safety⁠—"

"Dinnae," she said. "We're past that." She moved further into the room, because standing in the doorway was a position of supplication and she had no intention of giving him that advantage. "I traveled here in good faith on my brother's word, and I have been locked in a chamber with guards at my door." She kept her voice level, which was costing her something, but level was more effective than angry and she knew it. "I'd like ye tae explain which part of that constitutes protection."

"Yer brother gave very specific instructions⁠—"

"My brother," she said, "gave instructions about his sister. As though I were livestock he'd left in someone's pen while he attended tae other business." She paused. "Now I want tae be fair tae him. He has reasons for his concerns about MacKinnon, and I'm nae standing here telling ye those reasons are without merit. But there is a difference between a woman who has chosen tae stay somewhere while a situation is resolved and a woman who has been locked in and cannae leave if she decides she wants tae."

Cailleach tilted his head. "And do ye want tae leave?"

"I want tae know that I can," she said. "That is not the same thing."

The distinction sat between them.

She watched him decide what to do with it, the pleasant expression doing the work it always did, covering the calculation, and she thought, ye understood the distinction before I made it. That's why the bolt is on the door.

"Ye'll be comfortable here," he said, and the pleasantness had something underneath it now, something she recognized as finality dressed as hospitality. "My household will see tae every need. Yer brother's instructions were clear, and I intend tae honor them."

"His instructions." She looked at him steadily. "He sent me here tae keep me from a marriage he objects tae. Nae tae keep me from my own choices." She paused. "Or does he object tae those as well?"

Cailleach said nothing.

"I'll nae be a comfortable prisoner," she said. "And I'll nae pretend ye've offered me anything else."

She looked at him for a moment longer, at the pleasantness and the watchfulness behind it, and she thought, ye planned this. Whatever this is, ye planned it. Fearchar doesnae have the patience for this kind of thing and ye dae, and I'd verra much like tae understand why.

But that was a question for later.

Right now she needed a way out.

"Thank ye for yer time," she said, and let the guard show her back to her chamber, where she sat, and continued planning.

She moved at the second bell after midnight.

The guard outside her door had gone quiet an hour past, likely asleep.

The window latch was old.

She had spent two hours working it with the thin blade of her knife, easing the corrosion without making sound, and when it gave, it gave cleanly, the casement swinging out into the cold night air with no more noise than the forest made when the wind moved through it.

She went through feet first.

The drop was longer than she'd calculated, and her knees absorbed the impact. She pressed herself immediately against the wall, sucked in the pain, and did not make a sound.

Two guards at the main gate. One near the stable. One outside my door, asleep.

She needed to be past the main gate before any of them noticed that she was moving at all.

She crept along the wall.

The courtyard was dark and cold and smelled of horse and woodsmoke and the damp of stone that has seen a great many Highland winters. She moved through it quietly, very careful about where every footfall landed.

She was fifteen feet from the gate when the first man saw her.