The rain tapped gently against the tall windows of Whitmore Manor, a soft, persistent rhythm that sounded like someone quietly asking to be let in. Eleanor Whitmore sat still by the fire, the warmth barely touching her. Her fingers curled tightly around the worn leather cover of her mother's diary, knuckles pale, as if letting go might make it all disappear.
It had been three days since she found it. Three days of questions. Three days since the world she thought she knew had shifted beneath her feet.
Outside, the gardens were pulling themselves awake for spring. She watched as daffodils swayed stubbornly beneath the grey sky, their yellow heads bobbing like tiny rebels. Wild primroses pushed up through cracks in the old stone wall—delicate, yet somehow unstoppable. She envied them. Free to bloom where they chose. Free to belong to no one.
She, on the other hand, was not free at all.
Her father's voice boomed down the corridor, a low rumble of authority and expectation. He was meeting with Lord Channing again. Discussing her future. Again. No doubt finalizing terms of a marriage she hadn't agreed to. The knot in her stomach twisted tighter.
Eleanor loosened her grip on the diary and let it fall open on her lap. She stared at a familiar page, one she'd read so many times the ink had started to blur at the edges.
"To live is to be wild and free, like the wind through the heather. I was never meant to be tamed."— Arabella Whitmore, 1867
Her mother's handwriting was elegant, yet there was something wild in its slant. Something alive. Eleanor's throat tightened. They had painted Arabella Whitmore as a flawless lady—the perfect wife, the dutiful daughter. But in these pages, Eleanor had found someone else entirely. A woman who had once run free. Who had dreamed bigger. Who had loved without permission.
And now... now Eleanor could feel that same fire smoldering in her chest.
Her gaze fell to the map tucked carefully between the pages. Scotland. A red circle scrawled near the Highlands. One word scribbled beside it in hurried ink.
Braemar.
Her fingertip traced the letters slowly, as though by touching them she might unlock the answer to everything.
A knock at the door startled her.
"Miss Whitmore?" Martha's soft voice came through the wood. "Your father requests your presence in the drawing room."
Of course he did.
Eleanor closed the diary with a gentle thud and placed it beside her on the seat. She exhaled slowly, steadying herself. Her heart was already packed and on its way north.
She was going.Not because she was brave—though perhaps, in time, she would be.But because something inside her whispered that she had no other choice.
If she wanted to find out who she truly was…She had to leave the cage behind.
Because sometimes, you have to become wild to find yourself.