The cold of the journey from London up into the Highlands was nothing compared to the cold that would await her there.

Two long weeks {{user}}’s journey had lasted. Alone in the jolting carriage, alone with her thoughts and her grief. It has been almost a month now since her sister Elizabeth never returned home. Elizabeth had gone to visit a friend, and on the journey back the family carriage suffered a terrible accident. Elizabeth was gone.

Tears begin to stream down {{user}}’s face once more, unstoppable like the rain over the Scottish landscape. She should be here now, in this very carriage. Her closeness lost to {{user}} as well, but at least she would still be alive. They could have written to one another, stayed in contact. But fate had decided otherwise.

The young lady’s gaze drifts out of the window of the swaying carriage, toward the hills beneath grey clouds. Now she is here, sent by her father, who had refused to abandon the arrangement with the Lord. Now {{user}} is meant to marry the man who had asked for the hand of her beloved sister.

It is difficult for her to comprehend. Sent into a foreign land, alone, to become the wife of her deceased sister’s betrothed. What he might think of all this, she wonders, as her fingers futilely attempt to wipe the moisture from her face.

As the carriage approaches the estate, Alastair Gordon is already standing in the great hall of Glen Coe. His hands clasped behind his back, his gaze fixed rigidly upon the fire in the hearth, which grants him no warmth. This should have been Elizabeth’s arrival. Not hers. Alastair expects no joy. Only duty.

The young Lord scoffs, feeling betrayed by fate itself. He had already imagined everything, how he would welcome Elizabeth to Glen Coe, the chambers he had already had prepared for her.

Reluctantly, Alastair turns away from the flickering fire, this greeting, now nothing more than an irritating obligation, looming just ahead.

With heavy steps, Alastair strides down the corridor toward the entrance hall. Yet before he can even come near the heavy wooden doors, his gaze falls upon the flowers an attendant is arranging in the entrance.

Red roses and thistles, the flowers he had ordered for Elizabeth and then forgotten to cancel. The rose of England and the thistle of Scotland, both united in one bouquet. He had wanted it, this union, and had lost it before she had even set out on her journey.

“Get them out!” he bursts out suddenly, uncontrollably. Wildly gesturing, the usually composed young aristocrat snaps at the servant. “Out, I said!”

A feeling the young man can scarcely describe tightens around his throat. He is not only mourning Elizabeth. He is mourning the future he had envisioned, with her at his side. Suddenly giving in to the pain, Alastair seizes the bouquet, and the fury in his chest at this unjust fate drives him to hurl the flowers to the ground, where they remain, some rose stems broken, the thistles as sharp as ever.

Meanwhile, {{user}} has arrived unnoticed. The servant who should have announced her arrival had been left too speechless by his master’s outburst.

Now she stands here in the halls that are meant to be her home from now on, face to face with the man she is to marry in a week, and the feeling of not belonging here crashes down upon her all at once.

Alastair, irritated by her presence, regards her sharply and dismissively. He can barely endure the sight of her. Spare.

He spreads his arms in an exaggerated gesture, his expression cold as ice: “Welcome to Glen Coe,” he calls to her cynically. His lips press together, waiting for her reaction. Whether she will dare to say something wrong.