Chapter Three
The mood was tense in the Galloway house. Donnan had returned to his pacing, and he held in his hands an old stitched-up cushion, which he was slowly squeezing the life out. He hadn’t been able to sit still ever since he found out Caitriona had jumped ship and disappeared. This was unacceptable! He had always prided himself on his children, but Caitriona was getting out of hand lately. At this latest outburst, he was absolutely furious, but also dreadfully worried. He didn’t like his daughter being too far from home. She was too delicate for the outside world. There were horrific things out there: big, brutal animals and murderous men prowling around in the wilderness. Donnan didn’t think she would survive with all those threats around her. However, he certainly wasn’t anticipating what had actually happened to his once-darling daughter.
Caitriona was dragged into the house, kicking and screaming for her brother to let her go. She may have been strong for a girl, but she certainly couldn’t overpower the ox that was her brother.
“Let me go!” Caitriona squealed at the top of her lungs, but her words weren’t heeded as Fergus bashed open the front door and threw Caitriona into the house. Donnan wasn’t too sure how to react to such a bold entrance, but Glenna quickly went to her daughter’s aid, holding her hand and checking she was alright.
“Are you hurt, lass?” Glenna asked, but she didn’t have time to receive her answer as Donnan butted in.
“What’s the meaning of this, lad?” Donnan demanded, taking a few steps forward and clutching the cushion tightly, forcing some of the seams to burst.
“This slag has disgraced the family name. She doesn’t deserve to be treated well in this house,” Fergus answered, closing the door and standing by it to guard it, so the she-devil didn’t try and escape. He was disgusted with his sister, and he didn’t think she even deserved to be in the family after the way she had behaved. He told the whole story of what he had seen by the river without hesitation to his parents, too disgusted with what his sister had done to even take relish in the fact he was getting her in trouble, like any sibling usually would do.
The news itself came as a right shock to their parents. Glenna didn’t know what to say, or what to do at first. If it weren't for Caitriona’s demeanor she would almost doubt the validity of what Fergus was saying, but it was clear enough to her that her son was telling the truth, even if it was a truth she didn't want to hear. Still, she thought there must be an explanation somehow. She looked to her daughter for answers, but Caitriona’s lips were sealed shut.
“What does he mean, lass? What have you done?” Donnan demanded once more, looking down at his daughter and expecting some sort of response. Still, she didn't give in. Caitriona was dead silent, keeping her gaze low to the ground as she scanned her surroundings, hoping to find some way out, some way to escape. No such opening presented itself.
“I have asked you a question. I expect you to answer me!” Donnan snapped, advancing towards his daughter, but still she did not respond. This was not looking good for her right now. Donnan gritted his teeth and grabbed Caitriona, pulling her over to him to finally look him in the eye as they had their little conversation.
“What have you done?” Donnan shrieked, but Caitriona only struggled from her father’s hold, though her fight was as ineffectual here as it had been against her brother, or possibly more so.
“She’s just gone off and ditched her dress with the MacNail boy, tits out and all,” Fergus replied, keeping the exit secure, though it was unnecessary with Donnan’s firm hold on Caitriona. The girl wasn’t going to be going anywhere for a long time, so long as he could help it anyway.
“Fergus!” Glenna said, glaring at her son for talking about Caitriona like that, but Donnan wasn't going to let his wife defend their daughter. Not after what she did.
“If she's going to act like a whore, then there is no reason we should give her the respect she used to have,” Donnan said, his voice booming, silencing Glenna and Fergus as well. Now that everyone was quiet, Donnan took Caitriona to her room and threw her on her bed.
Caitriona couldn't help but start to cry. Maybe her mother and father were people she didn't always see eye to eye with, but she still loved them. To be treated like garbage by people whom she cared deeply about was just heartbreaking, and so she couldn't contain her tears.
“Cry all you want, you hussy. I don't have the heart to care anymore. You threw that away when you decided to betray your whole family by throwing away your honor for a MacNeil,” Donnan hissed and then left, slamming the door and locking it from the outside. He was going right now to get something to secure her window with. A bit of wood and some nails to make sure she didn't get out.
By the time night fell, Caitriona felt totally helpless and afraid. She hadn't been brought dinner. In fact, she heard Glenna raise her voice towards Donnan in protest when he ordered that she not be taken any supper, which was the first time in a long time that Caitriona had heard her mother argue with Donnan. Try though she may, Donnan refused to listen to her pleading with him, and he won out. Caitriona sat in her pitch-black room with an empty stomach and tear-swollen eyes.
Sleeping would have made the time go by faster, but Caitriona was sick to her stomach from all the turmoil. Even though she just wanted to sleep the day away, she couldn't. She couldn't sleep at all, nor did she move from her spot on the bed until she heard from the outside some scratching and scraping noises. Her first instinct was to call out and ask who was there, but she didn't want to alert her parents.
Caitriona did, however, get off of the bed. Her limbs felt tired and sore from being still for so long, but she stretched them a little as she walked over to the window and saw the boards being taken down piece by piece to reveal a friendly face.
“Ailean!” Caitriona said in an excited whisper. He smiled.
“You didn't think I'd just take off without you. I promised to protect you, after all,” Ailean said, and lifted the window, then helped Caitriona out of the hut.
“Yeah, you did. I just didn't think that you would actually come on to my father's lands,” Caitriona said, holding Ailean’s hand tightly.
“I'll protect you no matter where you are, Caitriona,” Ailean said, giving her hand a squeeze.
Caitriona smiled at that, and let Ailean lead her off into the woods. Despite only the light from a full moon being there to partially illuminate the ground, Ailean knew every step like the back of his hand. A true outdoorsman, despite his looks.
“So, what are the plans now, Ailean?” Caitriona asked softly, after they put some distance between themselves and the hamlet.
“We run,” Ailean replied, a small smile creeping onto his face as he marched on, looking towards the horizon that held the future of their dreams.
“We’re leaving?” Caitriona asked, her voice shaking with shock. That was not an answer she was anticipating, but Ailean was eager to calm her worries.
“There’s a bigger world outside our families’ feud. We can escape this now, and we never have to look back,” Ailean said, an air of confidence instilled into his words. He was determined, Caitriona could see that, and it made her smile, a soft, warm smile. A new life with Ailean, away from the violence and the fighting. That prospect was such a sweet song to her ears. So, she walked with him. Step by step, they grew further away from the lands of their fathers, ready to start a new life together.
Duchess of Secrets
Chapter 1
For Anne, going to bed was an extended affair. This was not because she wanted it to be, but rather because her husband demanded it. She had five servants who all had different jobs to perform, from rubbing her with fragrant oils, to cleaning her hands and cleaning and re-cleaning beneath her fingernails, to combing her hair and choosing her night garb.
Were it her wedding night, or some other very important night, perhaps it would have been a welcome surprise, but for Anne, this was every night. And it only made her feel trapped and alone.
Anne win
ced. A snag in her hair had caught the comb.
“I’m sorry, Duchess,” the handmaiden said.
“It’s all right, Sarah.”
And Anne meant it. Sarah was her only friend, and Anne knew she was only trying to do her job as quickly as possible because Anne had confided to her how much she hated these stringent requirements her husband, the duke, had imposed upon her.
Finally, the women finished their work, and Anne found herself alone in the massive bed she shared with her husband. Some women, she had heard, especially amongst the nobility, had beds to themselves. It was not unusual for women of Anne’s stature to have their own suites, and Anne wish often that this was a privilege she had been granted. Perhaps if she were from a more noble house, she thought, and she hadn’t been traded to the duke in marriage as a sign of respect and subservience, she would have the bargaining power to secure even this small freedom for herself.
But no, she wasn’t. She was trapped as she’d always been, waiting for her brute of a husband to haul himself into bed and lie on her for a few minutes before falling asleep next to her.
Anne yawned. The hour was late, and she would sleep if she could. But the knowledge her husband would eventually roughly disturb her slumber always made that impossible. It was only when he himself was snoring rudely next to her that she found herself able to get any rest.
So Anne waited. And waited. And eventually could wait no longer.
The Duke’s palace was large and cold, and Anne had to bundle up for the search. She was afraid of being found and turned in to her husband, but she kept these fears at bay with the knowledge that he’d never explicitly told her that she couldn’t come looking for him. Besides, if he did find her, what could be more loving than simply telling him that she could not wait for him to come to bed any longer and had come to find him? It would be a lie, she knew, but it would be a flattering lie. And she knew her husband well enough to know he was dumb enough to believe any ridiculous untruth so long as it was flattering.
The halls seemed strange in the dark. During the day they were so alive, with servants always hurrying here or there, nearly running so that they would not be chastised for taking too long about their tasks. But now the only movement was the flickering of Anne’s candle as she walked – as quietly as she could – toward the rooms where she knew her husband often spent his time.
As she grew closer, Anne heard the voice of her husband’s chief advisor.
“But if the king should find out, Your Excellency, what then? Would we not be subject to his rage?”
Anne slowed her steps, and took greater care to make as little sound as she could. If there was something the king shouldn’t know, she felt certain that her husband believed that she shouldn’t know as well. The prudent side of her nature encouraged Anne to go back to her room, but her feet would not do it. Some mixture of curiosity and hope propelled her cautiously forward.
What if she discovered something that could help her position? What if there was something she could report to the king that would have her husband punished? Would she then be free?
Anne did her best not to answer these questions, but only to listen.
“He wouldn’t ever find out, though,” her husband was saying. “Not unless someone told him, and no one would know other than the two of us. I don’t think of you as such a dumb man that you would betray my trust over such a trivial matter. You know what the consequences would be.”
“Yes,” the advisor said more quietly, and after a long pause. “But there are those who know what tax increase he requested, and who would also be able to see the increase in taxes you levied. Any of these people would be able to tell that you were not doing as instructed, and pocketing the difference. Besides, the taxes you are proposing are considerably more extreme than the king has said. I do not think that the people you rule for him would even be able to pay them, not without severe—”
“ENOUGH!” her husband nearly shouted, causing Anne to jump in her skin. She did not hear the rest of what he was saying to his advisor. She was reminded by his voice, and the threats he’d already made to his advisor, how cruel the consequences of upsetting him could be, and it put an end to all her hopes. She crept, as quickly as she could, back to her bed, and did the best she could under the circumstances to try and sleep. If things were different, she thought, perhaps what she had learned tonight would be an opportunity. But if the three long years she had been married to the duke had taught her anything, it was that hope was an illusion, and illusions were best disposed of as quickly as possible.
Chapter 2
The next morning, Anne pretended to be deeply asleep as the duke woke and hauled himself out of their bed. His beer-steeped breath still felt hot on her neck from when he had come in the night before, and she could not bear to look at him now in the morning. She was relieved when she heard the door shut and she could sit up, look out the window, and survey the day.
Anne’s morning ritual was considerably less intense than her nightly one. The duke didn’t much care to see her during the day, so he didn’t prescribe anything other than that she should be presentable as a woman of her position. So it was only Sarah who came to her, to help her tame her wild hair and encase herself in whatever viselike structure of dresses the day’s activities required.
Sarah always did this gently, and Anne was grateful. It took her some time to recover from the night spent next to the man she hated so deeply who commanded her complete respect. But this morning, Anne wanted to talk and Sarah obliged.
“Do the people pay much in taxes here?” she asked her, and was surprised by a robust laugh.
“Is that a question, milady? They pay more taxes than they are able to, truth be told.”
When Sarah had first come into Anne’s service, she had been cautious and very concerned with etiquette. But now that they had grown comfortable with one another, her manner had loosened considerably, to both women’s pleasure. Now she often tacked on the proper titles of address, but only as an afterthought, and only for the benefit of anyone who might overhear.
“Then the taxes are high, I take it?” Anne said, her fears confirmed.
“Yes, milady.”
Anne had suspected as much. If even her husband’s advisor was saying the new taxes he intended to levy were excessive, then surely they were beyond even that.
“I wish I could see. I wish I could hear people saying these things for themselves,” Anne said. It was a thrown away comment, and the sadness in her voice perhaps betrayed this. Sarah wasn’t offended, and didn’t think that Anne was doubting her.
“You hate this palace,” she only said, knowingly.
Anne nodded. Tears formed at the corners of her eyes, but she held them back. She had practice. Then an idea struck her.
“What if I did?” she asked, almost not daring to say the words out loud, for fear Sarah would crush the idea, as Anne suspected she rightfully should.
“Go out and see the people? But how would the duke react?”
A smile played on Anne’s lips.
“The duke wouldn’t need to know.”
Sarah was resistant. She kept saying that it was too great a risk, and that she understood Anne’s frustration, but she shouldn’t do anything that would endanger her so. But Anne was determined, and eventually Sarah agreed to help.
Sarah would stay at the palace and do all she could to avert suspicion. There had been days in the past, not long after she first married the duke, that she had been inconsolable, and spent days at a time shutting herself of from all who might want to see her. Those who had fought their way through found her so despondent that they no longer asked to. All Sarah would need to do would be to insist to any and all who asked where she was that the darkness she’d previously suffered had returned to her.
For Anne’s part, she looked like a commoner. It had taken a little bit of time, and Sarah still laughed a little at her attempt at a commoner’s manners, but she was eventually satisfied. And so Anne we
nt, slipping out of a servants’ entrance that Sarah told her was only very infrequently used, and made her way to town.
She felt so free! She hadn’t realized the weight that being in the palace had placed on her shoulders until it was lifted from them. She found herself laughing like an idiot on the road, and attracted more than a few strange and suspicious looks. She told herself she should stop being so conspicuous, but though she could stop laughing, she could not stop the smile.
When she had spent some time in town, however, the smile faded of its own accord. Sarah’s earlier laughter made more sense. Anne had been worried she would not be able to really gain a good understanding of the situation, as she would not be able to get people to speak to her about the trouble they were in with the current taxes, but she needn’t have worried. The topic was never far from anyone’s mind, it seemed.
Anne’s enthusiasm for her day of research and freedom was failing. She’d wanted to know how bad the taxes her husband intended to levy would be for the common people of his duchy, but she realized now the information was useless. And now that she knew, now that she understood, what could she do about it? The possibility of reporting it somehow to the king was still a proposition with unbelievable risks, and even if he were to punish her husband, what would that do? The taxes here were already too high, and while the king did not want to raise them by as much as her husband did, he did still intend to raise them.
Perhaps it was the sour mood that came over her, but Anne quickly found herself lost. She’d never spent any time in the village nearest the palace, and though she’d tried to keep careful track of her twists and turns, she discovered that as the afternoon began to wane, she was unable to get herself back out to the main road.
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