by Nichole Van
But it was still . . . home.
So when Red said, I willnae hurt ye in his rolling brogue, she instinctively believed him.
He sat stiff and unmoving, his body a coiled spring, ready for action.
“I only intend tae hide here for a moment. Just tae catch my breath, and let the worst of the clamor pass.” He angled his head, indicating the crunch of boots on gravel.
She nodded and then swallowed, turning away as more snippets of conversation rolled past them.
She could feel Red’s eyes on her, surely cataloging the cut of her fashionable bonnet, the fur lining her cloak, the fine wool of her pelisse underneath. Her hand curled into the carriage blanket across her lap, tightening.
“I shouldnae be here, I ken that,” he murmured. “It isnae proper.”
Hah! A ghastly understatement.
But Red’s words were soft, ringed with care. She could practically feel the gentleness in him.
“My cousin promised he would only be gone for a moment.” She did not add that nearly an hour had since passed.
“I will leave shortly, lass.”
Violet knew she could correct him to say ‘my lady’ instead of ‘lass.’ But she liked how Scotland sang in the roll of his consonants, the expansiveness of his vowels.
A scratching noise on the door caused them to jump.
“Violet?” A male voice hissed from outside. Red’s eyebrows shot up at the sound of her name. “Are you still in there?”
“Smitty?” she replied.
She darted an apprehensive look at Red.
“Glad you replied.” Smitty cleared his throat. “I don’t want to risk opening the door. Wouldn’t do for someone to see you.”
“Very wise of you.” Violet continued to stare at Red.
“Terribly sorry about the fracas. There was a bit of a set-to after the mill.” Smitty’s voice shook with excitement. “You should have seen it! The newcomer took Hammer down with a savage blow to the jaw. Darkened his daylights and dropped him like a stone—” Smitty broke off with an embarrassed cough. “Ehrm, I suppose I should not be describing such things to a lady.”
Violet rolled her eyes. Now Smitty decided to have a care for her sensibilities?
“When will we depart, Smitty?” she asked.
“I’m off to find John Coachman. I’ll send him and the grooms over to return you to Marton Hall.”
“You are not accompanying me?”
A moment’s hesitation. “Well, I ran into George Buckley who came with Lord Michael, and now we’re all off to have a pint in the village. I’ll make my way home later. It’s better this way, Violet. I would never hear the end of it if someone were to catch you here. No chance anyone will see you if I don’t climb into the carriage. I’ll have you off in a trice.”
His footsteps retreated.
Well, that was a solution, she supposed.
She turned back to Red, his eyes carefully watching her.
“Your cousin?”
“Yes, Smitty has many admirable qualities, but he can be a bit of a rattle.” She cleared her throat. “I will have the coachman stop once we are well away from this. The servants are loyal and will say nothing.”
Violet’s eyes drifted down his wide chest as she spoke. Bruises bloomed alongside the rapidly-drying blood. Gooseflesh pebbled his skin. It was October, after all, and the man was scarcely dressed.
Her brow furrowed.
“You are cold,” she whispered.
She lifted the wool carriage blanket from her lap, extending it out to him—a wordless offering.
He froze and stared at the blanket, eyes flaring in surprise. As if such an act of care were . . . astonishing.
He let out a slow, stuttering breath and then took the heavy wool.
“I am in your debt.” His voice was rough, emotion thick at its edges. He pulled the blanket over his shoulders. “Thank ye, lass.”
How could this brute fell a man like the Hammer with a single blow, yet be brought low himself by simple human kindness?
“I accept your thanks, Red.”
“Red?”
“Pardon. Is that not your sobriquet? The Red Renegade?”
Silence for a beat.
He shifted. “I’m no renegade. And though my hair is red, I dinnae ken to be red in truth.”
His jaw clenched, as if red were more of an epithet than a moniker.
“No?” She angled her head.
“Nae. I’m no’ made of choler and madness.” He lifted one large, battered hand. “This fist is not me, not my truest self.”
Violet’s breath hiccupped.
His were the words of a wounded soul.
What a conundrum he was.
Was nothing about this man to be anticipated?
“Then wha—” She flinched as another rush of voices passed the carriage. “If not red, then what?”
He paused, gaze meeting hers.
Her heart beat once . . . twice . . .
“I am a teal’s wing,” he finally said. “The blue-green of a feather.”
Ah.
A poet, then.
“The color of freedom,” she whispered. “Or perhaps . . . hope.” She barely breathed that last word.
He continued to lock eyes.
His chest rose and fell in synchronization with her own. Up. Down.
And then he swallowed with a jerked nod.
Violet’s heart raced.
How odd to be here with this unexpected man.
He claimed to be the color of hope and yet, he clearly had none. Who or what had placed such bleakness in him?
How could this be the same person she had just witnessed fight with brutal precision?
It felt unnatural. As if this man were made for joy and calm, but instead found himself caught in a fenced circle of brutality and blood. A Catherine wheel spinning round and round.
“Why?” Violet could hear the bafflement in her tone. “Why, then, do you fight?”
Red sat straighter and clenched his jaw, the tendons in his neck standing in sharp relief. The sheer size of him saturated the interior of the carriage.
A loud laugh sounded outside. Men shouted in reply.
Violet winced, head turning toward the sound.
The noise drifted away.
She looked back at Red, his eyes still studying her.
“Why do most men fight?” he finally said. “I need money.”
“Ah.” She paused, certain that his words were only a partial truth. “It seems a brutal way to earn . . . money.”
“Aye, it is. But I earned more today than I would from ten years hard labor elsewhere.”
“But you could have been killed.”
“Aye.”
Such nonchalance showed a rather alarming lack of self-preservation.
“Surely there is someone you fight for?” She spoke instinctively. Surely, he would only take such risks for a loved one. “Someone who needs the money you win?”
He flinched at that, as if her words had struck truer than the Hammer’s fists. His fingers tightened around the money bag in his hand, his mouth drawing into a firm slash. A bleakness haunted his eyes.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple rolling in the dim light. “I dinnae speak of—”
Red cut off as more footsteps rushed past the carriage, men calling back and forth again. A conversation slowly surfaced out of the sound.
“ . . . been a bit of a farce today. Lost a pretty penny on this,” a voice said as the footsteps stopped right beside Violet’s carriage. “Can you see Smitty coming yet?”
Violet hissed in a breath, recognizing Lord Michael’s baritone. The carriage beside hers rattled.
“No, not yet,” Lord Michael’s companion replied. “He’ll be along soon, I reckon. Intelligent of you to invite him. He’ll help you set your finances to right.”
“Pardon?”
“Smitty. He’s cousin to Lady Violet, is he not?”
“Yes, but what is your point, Buckley?�
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“Heard you are all but betrothed to Lady Violet, is all.”
Violet gave a sharp inhalation, her eyes jerking to Red’s.
He had gone exceptionally still across from her, his massive hands drawn into fists between them. He had heard Smitty call her Violet. And given her reaction, Red likely understood that the men were speaking of her.
“Yes,” Lord Michael said tersely.
A brief pause.
“Yes? That’s all you are going to say?” the second man scoffed, feet shuffling. “You are tantalizingly close to marrying the most sought-after heiress in the entire kingdom. You should be in alt. Are you not keen on the lady then?”
She swallowed, dropping her eyes to stare at her twined fingers. Nothing good came of eavesdropping. But what else could she do at this point? Put her hands over her ears?
“My father is keen on the lady,” Lord Michael snorted, “so why does my own opinion matter?”
The bitterness in his voice was a near tangible thing.
Violet barely stifled a gasp.
Oh!
Lord Michael always appeared to be so charmed and delighted by her company. It was what she liked best about him. Was he truly being coerced into offering for her?
“Any man would relish being in your position, Lord Michael,” the companion huffed a laugh. “Hard to believe you are that put-upon—”
“Would you wish to marry Lady Violet?”
A long . . . long . . . long pause.
Oh, gracious.
A blush scorched her cheeks.
Violet looked up into Red’s eyes.
How ghastly to have a witness to this conversation.
And yet . . . Red’s gaze held no judgment. If she had to label the emotion, she would say it was . . . empathy.
“Well . . .” The second man’s voice drifted off.
“Precisely,” Lord Michael ground out. “Yes, there are advantages to the match, but such a marriage comes with the lady herself.”
“She is rather tall . . . bit of a termagant, too, I reckon.”
Lord Michael snorted again. “I would have called her a headstrong Amazon who will spend her life attempting to wear her husband’s breeches. She is certainly large enough to fit into them easily. But as I prefer marriage over an officer’s commission, I have been given no other choice. My father is adamant.”
His companion murmured condolences. “At the very least, you might be able to rusticate Lady Violet in the country and enjoy life in Town.”
“’Tis my only consolation—”
“Ho, Michael!” Smitty’s voice rang. “I managed to find our coachmen!”
The men exchanged greetings. Smitty directed his coachman and groom to return to Marton Hall.
All the while, Violet stared at her clenched hands, her heartbeat a drum in her ears.
Had she truly just heard—?
Had Lord Michael really just said—?
Sounds drifted in and out. Lord Michael and company loudly laughing as they climbed into the carriage beside hers. The clang of the horses stirring in their harness. The jolt and rocking of the carriage as her own groom and coachman alighted.
The carriage jerked into motion.
She lifted her head and locked eyes with Red. Lord Michael’s words pinged between them, a pulsing condemnation.
. . . a headstrong Amazon who will spend her life attempting to wear her husband’s breeches . . .
Violet could practically hear her naiveté shattering.
How could she have been so stupid? So foolish to believe Lord Michael’s attentions to be genuine? That he viewed her as more than just the sum of title, fortune, and familial connections?
Violet bit her lip, desperate to stem the telltale sting in her eyes.
She would not weep in front of a stranger.
“Dinnae believe him, lass,” Red’s brogue rumbled in the dim light.
Violet nodded, biting down harder, hating the tremble in her lips.
It did no good.
A tear fell. And then another.
She would have expected Red to react as most men did when confronted with feminine emotions. They panicked or ignored or reproached.
Instead . . . he witnessed.
“Dinnae let him bank your fire, lass.”
“It is not so easy,” she sniffed, clutching at the seat as the driver sprung the horses, causing the carriage to lurch.
“Och, but it is.” He shrugged a large shoulder. “People see me as muscle and brawn. They see a man tae beat with fists, to earn them wagered bets and provide an afternoon’s entertainment. If I’ve learned one sad truth, ’tis this: one doesnae have tae like something tae be skilled at it. I loathe prizefighting. It appeals tae the very basest part of humanity.”
Violet’s tears fell harder.
“But inside, I am . . .” He drifted off, voice hesitant . . . as if the rocking of the carriage was lulling truths out of him.
“You are? Inside?” She licked a tear off her upper lip.
He shook his head, his voice a whisper. “Goose down and pattering rain.”
Oh.
She snatched a pained, gasping breath.
“You are a poet.” The words escaped before she could call them back.
He stilled.
“I am haunted,” was his enigmatic reply. “A kissing cousin to poetry. Close . . . but not quite.”
“H-haunted,” she hiccupped, wiping her cheeks, her mind whirring, trying to capture Lord Michael’s revelation in words. “If you are haunted . . . then I am hunted. A fox to ground. Silly fox to think that all that attention—the hounds giving chase, the riders pounding over fences—might mean that the pursuers value her. That they won’t tear her apart once captured.”
Red studied her, eyes glittering in the dim light. His face was more suggestion than form. The curve of a jawline. The outline of lips.
“I run from my past,” he finally said, the words seemingly dragged from him. “I bruise and batter tae escape it.” He lifted the money bag meaningfully. “Do ye run, as well?”
A lengthy pause.
Violet clenched her hands once more.
Do ye run, as well?
Even thirty minutes past, she would not have said no. But now?
“My future,” she whispered. “I fear my future.”
“Ah.”
The carriage creaked on for a beat. The tackle clattered. A rut jostled Violet to the side. The coachman’s whip cracked.
Red shifted, lifting the curtain to peer out. They both stared at the green countryside rolling by. The blanket across his chest slipped to reveal a bare shoulder, muscle rippling beneath his skin.
Violet swallowed and looked away.
He would leave soon. He must.
She would never see him again.
The thought panged and pulsed in her chest.
“How odd . . . we meet at this moment.” Red let the curtain fall, head turning back to her. “Where I will take my winnings today and use them tae purchase a new future, leaving my haunted past behind. But . . . what will ye do?”
The care in his eyes pinned her in place.
She understood his unasked question:
Will you allow the hunter to catch you?
Would she accept the future mapped out for her? Would she walk into a marriage such as the one Lord Michael described?
Or would she fight for something else?
She swallowed against the rough ache in her throat, her eyes drifting to the money bag clenched in Red’s bloodied hand. The thud of that same fist hitting Hammer’s flesh still rang in her ears.
He claimed to be running from his past, and yet he literally fought for his future.
Could she do the same?
What will ye do?
She didn’t know.
Lord Michael’s revelations were too raw, too new.
She didn’t know what she wished to do.
And this stranger before her would leave at any moment, and she worried
that he would take her courage with him.
Red continued to study her with intent eyes.
Could he stay? Could she see him again? He seemed strong enough to bear her concerns, wise enough to listen without judgment.
But he had to leave. He must.
Something of her thoughts must have shown on her face.
“Whatever ye do, let it be bold,” he said, leaning toward her, as if wishing to impart what wisdom he could in the brief seconds given them. “What did that louse of a lord call ye? Termagant? Bah! I say capable. Headstrong? No. I prefer determined. An Amazon? Och! The Amazons were warriors.”
The carriage slowed. Red pulled back the curtain again. A tollbooth came into view. Forest stretched beyond.
He reached for the door handle.
No! He would leave? Now?
“Be an Amazon, lass. Be a warrior and fight for what ye want.” He slid toward the door, the carriage blanket dropping away.
She stretched out her hand. “But—”
He shook his head. “I’ll always remember the fine lady who helped a brute of a Scot with grace and kindness. Ye have a heart of great courage.”
Red opened the door and was gone.
1
Seven and a half years later
Angus, Scotland
March 19, 1820
Someday, Ewan Campbell vowed he would become more comfortable having a good blether about the state of his life.
And he would.
Some day.
But not today.
“So are ye pleased with the situation then?” Dr. Alexander Whitaker asked. It was his third question in as many minutes.
“Aye,” Ewan replied. It was his third monosyllabic answer.
Ewan ran a hand through his hair, the thick red thatch resisting, tugging at his scalp.
“A regular gab, ye are, when talking about yerself, Ewan,” Alex chuckled, the chill March air puffing white with his words. “Ye ken more phrases than aye?”
Ewan made a face somewhere between a grimace and a resigned grin.
Trust Alex to never let him be. His friend was a healer to his core. Once he noticed a problem, he coaxed and cajoled until he worked out any hurt that might linger, physical or otherwise.
“Aye, Alex, I am content with the situation. Ye know me, though—”