Page 64 of The Laird's Secret Bairn

"No right?" Angus's laugh was bitter. "I've had men watching this castle for months, ever since the first whispers reached me that ye were hiding something behind these walls. Some of me men saw her in the gardens and said she was the spitting image of me daughter. I want to see for meself."

“Iraised her.” Dougal’s voice lowered to a dangerous growl. “Ifed her, protected her, held her the day she was born while her maither bled out on the floor. That’s a claim, Angus. A claim that a man who hasnae laid eyes on her once cannae challenge.”

“Because I didnae ken she existed!”

“Dougal?”

Both men turned.

Skye stood at the edge of the courtyard, one hand hanging at her side, Lily nowhere in sight behind her, tucked safely away as Dougal had ordered.

“Who is he?” she asked carefully, though she had already found the answer in the older man’s face, the line of his jaw, the color of his eyes. Lily’s eyes.

“Skye, go inside.”

Angus’s gaze flicked to her, sharpening. “And who might ye be to me granddaughter?”

“Someone who loves her,” Skye said simply, without hesitation. “Which is more than I can say for ye.”

“Stay out of it, lass.” Angus rounded on Dougal. “For seven years ye kept me granddaughter from me. Ashamed, were ye?”

Dougal held his ground. “I kent what ye’d say about her. That she’s a bastard. I’ll nae have that said about her before she’s old enough to understand it.”

“So ye decided for both of us.” Angus’s jaw tightened. “Ye made me a stranger to spare her a word I’d never have spoken.”

“Ye daenae ken that.”

“And ye never gave me the chance to prove it.”

Skye stepped closer, her chin lifting stubbornly. “If this concerns Lily, then it concerns me.”

“Ye daenae understand,” Angus hissed.

She glared at him. “There is nothing to understand. Ye came here with guards at yer back, demanding a child ye’ve never met, from a man ye’ve hated for years. That doesnae sound like love to me. That sounds like a man wanting to win something.”

“Skye,” Dougal warned, though something in his chest had eased slightly at her presence.

“I willnae apologize for saying it,” she said, not looking away from Angus. “If ye want to meet yer granddaughter and get to ken her, then earn it. Daenae storm a man’s gates and demand she be handed over like property.”

Angus stared at her for a long moment, something shifting behind his cold eyes. “Ye’re bold, lass.”

“Aye,” she said. “I am.”

A hand closed round her shoulder before she’d finished speaking, hauling her back a step, and the world seemed to slow for the space of a breath.

Dougal moved before he’d decided to, his sword hissing free of its scabbard, the sound cutting clean through Angus’s raised voice and the murmurs in the yard. He didn’t shout a warning. He didn’t need to, because the guard who had touched Skye saw his face and knew too late what he’d done.

He drove the blade beneath the man’s ribs and clamped his other hand on Skye’s shoulder, pulling her free before the guard’s grip had even fully loosened.

The guard staggered backward with a grunt, his eyes wide, his hand pressing against his wound as if he might hold the damage in by sheer will alone. He went down hard on one knee, then the other, and Dougal stepped over him without so much as a glance downward.

Then he looked back up at Angus, baring his teeth.

“Daenae touch her,” he warned.

Angus stepped back, his lips thinning. “This isnae over yet, Dougal.”

“Do ye want war? Because if ye trespass again, there will be,” Dougal snarled.