“Tavis, you can’t allow this!”
Eveline could barely make out the words as they passed her mother’s lips. Her face was tear-stained. All over a wedding? Eveline frowned. None of this made sense.
Tavis put a restraining hand on his wife’s arm and then turned just enough that Eveline could see him angrily bite out to her brother Aiden, “Take your mother away from here.”
Robina Armstrong shook her head fiercely, resisting Aiden’s grip. “This is madness. He can’t feed her to the wolves that way. ’Tis not right! She’s not able to perform her marriage duties. This is a travesty, Tavis. It cannot be allowed to stand.”
An uneasy sensation prickled down Eveline’s spine. She was starting to have a very bad feeling about just what had her family in such an uproar. Wedding? Her mother in tears? Unable to perform marriage duties? Feeding to the wolves? Who were the wolves?
The king’s messenger frowned, obviously not liking the hostile environment he’d landed himself in. “The king has decreed it so. Graeme Montgomery and Eveline Armstrong will marry.”
Eveline clamped a hand over her mouth even though she hadn’t said a word in well over three years. The reaction was automatic, to quiet the silent cry that billowed up from her very soul.
She whirled around, not wanting to witness any more. She fled the keep, nearly tripping down the stone steps in her haste. Gathering her skirts in tight fists, she ran over the uneven terrain behind the keep and into the grove of trees lining a stream that fed a nearby loch.
Instinctively, she sought out the large boulder that jutted out over the water. There, the stream ran faster, bubbling over larger stones and rocks. She imagined the sound, holding it like a fleeting memory. It had been so long since she’d last heard anything that the memories of sound were fading.
She mourned that loss. Before, she could sit on her rock and remember the gurgling sounds, the rush of the water and the peace it brought her. Over time, those phantom sounds faded into nothing. A blank void she felt herself slipping further into all the time.
Hunching her knees up so she could rest her chin atop them, she closed her eyes, but then quickly opened them. A world without sound and sight frightened her.
Married.
Betrothal was what had wrought the deception she’d maintained for the last three years. Tragedy had befallen her, but it had also rescued her from an unwanted marriage—a marriage her father had been determined to make happen.
How was it possible? Panic clawed at her throat at the idea of leaving her sanctuary. She was loved here. Cherished. No one thought ill of her—or at least no one dared to voice such an opinion aloud. Her father would spit the person on his sword who disparaged his only daughter in any way.
But she knew what they said behind her back. Some of the more unkindly ones. Or rather not to her back, but in her sight. Daft. Mad. Touched. Poor lass. Never a use to anyone.
They were wrong, but she wouldn’t correct them. It was too dangerous to do so.
She’d been betrothed to Ian McHugh. It was a match highly pursued by Ian’s father, the chieftain, and a match that her father finally approved of. Her father was careful with the alliances he made, and Patrick McHugh was one of the few people he seemed to trust. The two men could even be called friends. It was only natural that a marriage be arranged between Tavis’s only daughter and McHugh’s heir.
Ian, however, was not the charming man he appeared to be. Outwardly, he was perfect. The epitome of a gentleman. He’d won her mother over and had, in fact, gained the blessings of Eveline’s overprotective brothers.
But beneath the façade was a man who struck terror in Eveline’s heart. He’d taunted her with promises of what marriage would be like to him and then laughed when she’d vowed to take the matter up with her father. He’d told her that no one would ever believe the aspersions she’d cast on his character. She hadn’t believed him until she’d gone to her father to do as she’d threatened.
Her father had not been unkind, but he’d also put her accusations down to maidenly fears. He’d promised her that all would be well and that Ian would make her a good husband. And that furthermore, Ian was a just and honorable man.
Worse, Ian openly courted and wooed her in front of her family. He visited often, making grand gestures of devotion. He played his part to perfection. He had her entire clan eating out of his hand. Only in private did Eveline see into the soul of overwhelming evil.
Eveline sighed and bowed her head to her knees, allowing her skirts to billow over her legs. Secrets. So many secrets. So many lies.
She’d loved to ride horses, but she was never allowed to ride alone—the threat of the Montgomerys was ever present and her father feared what would happen should his daughter fall into the hands of their mortal enemies.
One morning she’d gone to the stables, saddled her own horse, and had taken off riding. Only it was no simple ride she was taking. She had planned to run away. A foolhardy, impetuous decision that haunted her to this day.
She didn’t even know if she would have gone through with it, if she would’ve had the courage to leave the boundaries of Armstrong land. After all, how was a young girl, alone and without the protection of her family, to survive?
That simple act of desperation had cost her more than she could have ever imagined. She had guided her horse on a path they’d trod many times, along a steep ravine where a river carved its way through, making a small canyon. When her horse had stumbled, she was thrown over his back and had plummeted down the ravine.
She had no clear recollection of what happened next, only of being scared and alone, her head aching vilely. And the cold. The bone-numbing cold and the passage of time.
She’d awakened in her chamber to a world of silence. She hadn’t understood, hadn’t known how to make her ailment known. Her throat was swollen and she suffered a fever for many long days. Even if she’d wanted to speak, the mere effort caused her too much pain and so she’d remained silent, bewildered by the quietness surrounding her.
Later, she would be made to understand that she’d lain close to death for over a fortnight. The healer had noted swelling of her head and had worried her fever was such that it had caused damage to her mind. Perhaps in the beginning, Eveline had believed her.
Then there were times when Eveline thought that losing her ability to hear was punishment for her fateful decision to rebel against her father. It had taken her a long time to adjust, and she was too shamed to tell her parents the truth. They’d looked at her with such disappointment and such devastation in their eyes, and perhaps she would have found the courage to tell them all and to explain to them that she could no longer hear, but then the McHughs had come to her father, demanding to know of Eveline’s condition.
Unable to gain assurance that Eveline was hale and hearty, Ian was quick to break off the betrothal, and who could blame him? Not even her father could find fault with a man who didn’t want a wife whose mental awareness was in question.
She hadn’t wanted to admit to having lost her hearing because she’d secretly hoped that it would be miraculously restored. One day she’d awaken and all would be well again.
It was a ridiculous notion, but she’d clung to that hope until it became clear that her apparent daftness was her salvation.