Page 7 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

Alpin broke the stare first, his eyes sliding toward the frosted glass of the ballroom door where the shapes of the London guests were still pressed like curious gulls against a window.

"The council wants a lady," Alpin said, his tone turning flat, business-like, and devoid of any soft grace. He stuffed the letter back into his belt. "Six grey men who spend their days counting me years and me empty chairs. They want the line to continue, and they willnae leave me hall until I give them a name."

Grisselle let out a short, defensive laugh. "What do ye mean?"

"Ye’ve already given yer name to me clan," Alpin pointed out, stepping a half-inch closer until she could feel the heat radiating from his chest. "Three hundred people out there believe I crossed the border to claim me bride. The wager-books are already open. If I leave here alone, yer father is ruined, yer name is mud, and me council goes back to hunting Edinburgh for whatever biddable girl with a decent dowry will still have me."

He leaned down slightly, his dark brow furrowing. "We make a bargain, lass. A betrothal in name only. A marriage of convenience to satisfy the old men. I give ye a roof, ye give me a quiet hall where no one asks me why I am looking at the water. No romance. No grand words. A deal."

Grisselle’s hand went to the glass table behind her, her fingers pressing into the cold zinc. Every sensible bone in her body told her to scream for her father, to tell this savage giant to take his horse and his mud back to the rocks. He was rough, dangerous, and carried a dark, brooding storm inside him that she didn't understand.

But then she looked past his shoulder at the glass doors. She saw Penelope Asquith’s faint silhouette, the memory of Mr. Hartley’s wet, mocking chuckle rising in her ears like bile. Three years of walls, of tight shoes, of being told her wildness was a disease that left her worthless.

If she said yes, she would be back in the heather. She would have the wind off the braes in her face. She would see the high, wild country where her sister and brother still kept their homes, far from the suffocating fog of Mayfair. She would be free of the drawing rooms forever.

"No romance," she repeated, her voice dropping to match his hard cadence.

"None," Alpin said.

"You will not try to pen me in a nursery or tell me how to ride?"

The corner of Alpin’s mouth gave a tiny, almost invisible twitch against his scar. "Me keep has more stone than we have maids, lass. Ye can ride to the top of the crags for all I care, so long as ye stand at the table when the council comes to look at ye."

"And an heir?" The word came out steadier than she felt. "They'll want one eventually."

"They will." Alpin didn't look away. "We'll need to try for one, soon enough, lass. Though I'll give ye me word on it, I willnae touch ye. Unless ye beg me to."

Her mouth dropped open. "That will never happen."

Something moved behind his black eyes, close enough to amusement to count. He reached out, one rough finger tipping her chin up until she'd no choice but to hold his gaze. "We'll see, lass. We'll see."

Grisselle drew in a long, deep breath of the damp air, her heart hammering against her stays with a frantic, wild rhythm. The turmoil of the choice was a physical ache in her throat, but she reached out her hand anyway, her small fingers steady as she held them out over the geraniums.

"A contract, then, Laird Herston," she said.

Alpin looked at her hand for a full beat before his large, calloused palm closed over it once more, the skin rough as sandstone against her own.

"A contract," he agreed.

As his fingers locked around hers, a cold chill shot straight up Grisselle’s spine.

She looked at his dark, uncombed hair and the fierce, primitive line of his jaw. She had her escape, she had her hills, but as the heavy glass door swung open to let them back into the light of London, one terrifying question remained beating in her mind.

How under heaven am I going to follow this savage man?

The narrow parlor of the Mayfair townhouse had never felt smaller. Grisselle stood by the sideboard, her fingers tracing the chipped edge of a tea saucer, while her mother paced the threadbare carpet with an energy she hadn’t shown in three seasons.

"A Laird, Grisselle! A real Highland Laird with an estate and a proper castle," Lady Hunter gasped, pressing her lace handkerchief to her throat as if she might faint from the sheer, impossible luck of it. "The papers are already calling it a romance of the borders. The way he walked in, the size of him! Every mouth in London is stopped clean up."

Lord Hunter did not look up from his desk. His brow was knitted into a deep, heavy ridge. "He says next to nothing, Margaret. The man sat in my study for twenty minutes, signed the marriage contract, and spoke precisely three sentences. 'The keep is weather-tight. The lady will have her own horse. We leave on Friday.'"

"And what more should he say?" Her mother countered, her stays creaking loudly as she turned on her heel. "He is a man of action! He does not need to waste breath on small talk like these pale London boys."

"It is moving too fast," Her father muttered, his thumb pressing into the broken crest. He finally raised his eyes to Grisselle, his gaze filled with a dark, protective worry. "A daughter is not a sack of grain to be bartered away to a stranger who arrives out of the night fog. Grisselle, look at me. Are you certain of this man?"

"He has a name, Father," Grisselle said, her voice flat, sounding far more detached than she felt. "And he has a roof. Is that not what we came to London to find?"

Her father's frown deepened.