She turned to see the rest of the men standing behind Hugh, their faces set in agreement. None would battle her now. Biting back tears, she slowly extended the sword to Hugh. He took it and then handed it back to one of the other men. She didn’t wait to see what they did next. She turned and hurried out the back of the courtyard, never looking back.

Her chest felt near to bursting.

The wind blew cold over her damp cheeks. Tears she hadn’t registered froze on her skin. Her sense of loss was keen. It cut deep and festered like a week-old wound.

She felt horribly betrayed. Like her life would never again be the same. The people she loved, who loved her, had been swayed by her husband’s firm beliefs about a woman’s place.

How she longed for the days when she’d run free and her only worry had been avoiding her father. She missed the euphoric rush of victory when she bested one of her father’s men with a sword.

Out here, with her blade, her faults fell away. She didn’t feel inadequate. She was just another sword in a sea of warriors. Strong and capable. Not just a woman in need of protection.

She was no good at simpering or playing coy. She didn’t have the social graces necessary not to embarrass herself or her kin. ’Twas why her father had never shoved her in front of the noses of anyone of import.

She trudged down the hill toward the bubbling brook that connected the two lochs on McDonald land. ’Twas a pretty sight with ice crusted on the banks, reaching toward the middle where water still rushed over rock. Snow drifted on either side, framing the icy-cold water and blanketing the land in white.

She stopped at the water’s edge and hugged her arms to her chest. She closed her eyes and breathed deep of the crisp winter air. The faint smell of smoke from the keep’s chimney wafted through her nostrils, and for the first time in a long while, the smell of meat over a spit.

For how long she stared over the water she wasn’t sure, but shivering with cold she had the realization that what she hated wasn’t the loss of her freedom. It was the fear of the unknown.

She was acting like a petulant child whose favorite toy had been taken away. She could be part of the rebuilding of her clan. Perhaps not in the way she had the most knowledge, but everyone else was having to cope with change. She wasn’t the only one who didn’t like it.

If her husband wanted the perfect lady, a well-kept manor, the epitome of feminine grace, she could give him all of that even if it killed her.

She’d give him no reason to be shamed by her.