A Love Without Limits (Loving in the Highlands 1)

'Elsie,' I whisper, too scared to raise my voice, scared to start screaming. 'Elsie, I want to go to Sloan's bedroom now, and to make him regret. I will settle the score.'

Elsie walks with me, as I march down the corridors that lead towards Sloan's bedroom. I can already imagine in my head how I am going to slap Kaithria, look Sloan in his eyes and say many things. Many important things. About how I am not going to forgive him for being like that. About how I am not going to wait until he finds someone for me to marry. I will tell him many things. And then… and then I will run away from the castle.

'Meg,' Elsie takes my arm and suddenly stops me. 'Meg, wait a minute.'

I stop, turn, and look at my sister.

'I think you are doing the wrong thing, Meg,' she says. 'This is a wrong thing to do.'

I look at her questioningly. 'What do you mean? Why is it wrong? I cannot leave it like this, Elsie.' I slightly shake with rage.

'I know, Meg, I know that you want revenge,' Elsie says. 'Believe me, this is something that a real lady would never do. Let's go to my bedroom,' she adds, gently taking my shaking hand. 'We will think what to do there.'

She takes me the other way, away from Sloan's bedroom. We reach her room. Luckily, neither Kaithria, nor Lorna is nearby. Lucky for them, not for me, because I know I will not resist the urge to get my revenge. Elsie opens her door, and we get in. She locks it from the inside.

'Meg, believe me, this is better,' she says. 'In any case, they spent the night together, and you cannot do anything about the past. Showing them your rage will only put you one step lower than you really are. I know, it is what you need to do right now, but they are not worth it.'

Slowly, gradually, I start agreeing with Elsie. After all, I do not want anyone to see me in rage. No one is worth it. No one is worth my tears. And no one must see them.

'All right, Elsie, I will not go there,' I say, still shaking a little. 'But it hurts so much. First, the incident in the barn, and now this. I was hoping that he would think about that incident and realize that I was innocent. I was almost sure that he would see who Kaithria is in reality. But now, totally the opposite is happening. He not only believed her, but he also spent the night with her. He is going to marry Kaithria, no matter what.'

'I know, Meg,' Elsie says, sitting down onto her bed. 'Everything turned out totally different than what we were thinking. The Laird turned out a different person. I thought he was clever and would see who she really was.'

'If he cannot see who she really is, it means that he is in love with her,' I say, feeling the pain as I pronounce those words. 'Only a person who is blindly in love, cannot see the real face of the person he is in love with.'

'Meg, do not worry,' Elsie says. 'We can just leave the castle. No one will know about it.'

'Are we going to run away?' I look at her with wide-open eyes. Even though I also want to do that, now that Elsie is suggesting, it sounds a bit frightening. But then I remember that Sloan is probably setting a wedding date right now with Kaithria, and nod at Elsie.

'No, we are not going to run away, Meg,' she says calmly. 'We will gather out luggage, get ready, and calmly leave the castle. Whoever sees, it is normal, we are not hiding. And whoever is interested where we are going, we will tell them that we have decided to leave the castle. No fuss, no explanations, nothing at all. Everything will be calm and normal.'

I try to imagine living away from the castle, away from Sloan, and it hurts a lot. I have no idea what kind of life is waiting for us if we go away. Deep inside my heart I do not want to leave the castle, but I am sure that once Kaithria becomes the Lady of Domnhall, she will throw us out.

'Elsie, but do you have any idea where we are going to go?' I ask her, realizing that there is no place we can go. 'We certainly cannot go back home. I do not want to see our uncle ever again.'

'I know,' Elsie says. 'I also do not want to see him. Too bad that we have a home and we do not have a home at the same time,' she adds, sighing. 'I miss our house, but we certainly cannot go back there. We can go to some monastery, and seek refugee there, until we know where to go.'