Page 19 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

Nae at any point, not once, have I been asked anythin’ by anyone.

But the bairn’s fist opened and closed in the air above him, patient and unhurried, and she could not stop watching it.

Angela appeared beside her. “He is a good bairn. Quiet mostly.” She looked at Chloe’s face. “Do ye want to hold him? Ye look uncertain. It is all right if ye have nae held one before; I can show ye.”

She had cared for small children before. That was not the problem.

She reached into the cradle anyway and lifted him, one hand beneath his head, one at his back, the way her hands still remembered from years ago without needing to be told.

William stopped fussing immediately. He leaned against her chest, his fist clinging to the fabric of her dress. He was warm, solid, and completely trusting, the way only something very small and helpless could be.

Her throat tightened.

William turned his face toward her neck. She felt the damp press of his cheek, the particular weight of him settling as though he had decided she was solid enough to rest against. His fist loosened and then tightened again in the fabric of her dress, slow and rhythmic, the way she had seen babies do when they were close to sleep.

She stood very still and let him.

What if I fail this innocent bairn?

The thought came quietly, which was worse than if it had come loudly. What if she was not enough, or was too much, or kept repeating the very things she had spent her whole life being shaped by without realizing it? Her father had looked at her and seen a number. Her mother had looked at her and hidden the truth about who she truly was all her life. Even those who took care of her had kept things from her.

She looked down at the top of his head. The soft, dark cap of hair. The perfect curve of one ear.

He has done nothin’ wrong. He deserves better than someone who is already afraid of him.

She handed him back to Angela with care, ignoring the confusion she saw on her face.

“Thank ye,” she said, and her voice came out steady. She was grateful for that. “I have to go now.”

Without waiting for Angela’s reply, she left the nursery.

The corridor outside was busy with the household’s late afternoon activity. Two kitchen girls with their arms full paused to stare as she stopped, asking them for the Laird’s study. They pointed her in the right direction, exchanging glances. She nodded and walked past them. A stable hand crossing from one doorway to the other stepped back to let her through. She did not slow down.

She had not asked for this life. She had not asked for the kirk, or the contract, or the man who slept in his study rather than beside her. All of it had arrived without her consent, and she'd been expected to absorb each piece quietly, in order, the way she'd absorbed everything else handed to her since she was fifteen.

The bairn was different. He hadn't been part of any arrangement made against her; he'd simply reached for her and trusted her without condition. That, she found, she could not simply absorb.

Well, I am done absorbin' quietly.

She quickened her pace toward the east corridor and found the study at the end of it. She did not knock.

Edward was alone in the room, sitting at his desk. There was a document open in front of him, a second one weighted at the corner with the flat of his hand. He looked up the moment the door opened.

The surprise was there and gone in less than a second, replaced by something colder than she had ever seen on a human being’s face.

No one walked into this study uninvited. That much was plain.

For a moment, she faltered, but the anger still raged, pushing her forward.

“Why did nay one tell me about a bairn?”

Her voice came out level. She had not expected it would. She pressed on before he could speak.

She stopped in the center of the room. “Why did nay one tell me about the bairn?” she repeated. She needed him to know the distinction; she was talking about his son.

Edward said nothing. He looked at her with a stillness that was control.

“Ye have a child in this castle,” she said. “Ye brought me here, stood beside me in that kirk, and ye didnae think once to mention it.”